Joshua Lisec, the Last Ghostwriter

Joshua Lisec, the Last Ghostwriter

So you’re just going to edit AI slop until it’s good and then post it?

Yes.

Joshua Lisec, the Last Ghostwriter

Their content sucks now. I tried to tell them. But they don’t listen. They insist on writing copy with AI. And they won’t stop. I’m talking about founders who have gone all-in on “vibe marketing”.

They’ve seen immediate benefits in lower marketing costs and efficiency. They won’t see the effect it has on their brand until the end of the year. Maybe until the end of next year. This is the problem with short-term-ism and treating every business activity like a spreadsheet to be optimised.

Earlier this week I tweeted,

By the end of the year there will be mass AI blindness. I may be early but I’m not wrong.

I’ve stopped reading or watching several experts who switched to posting AI-generated content. Even their videos. I can hear the AI-generated script when they talk. Sad!

So if they’re not going to stop, how can I help them? The best way is to show them how to edit their copy so it doesn’t sound like AI.

David Ogilvy said,

I am a lousy copywriter, but I am a good editor.

Editing is copywriting. And with good enough editing, even AI-generated copy can sound good. My friend Joshua Lisec recently launched a new system/SOP:

The Best Way® to Edit AI & Re-Human Your Writing

I bought a copy for myself. I’m going through it now to find ways to make my human writing sound even more human and less like an NPC.

Pandora’s box cannot be closed. Lisec says,

You see, our way forward is not to NEVER USE AI LIKE AT ALL EVER!!1!11! It’s to use AI as needed, then EDIT like a human being with a heart that beats and balls that work. And that is what this masterclass teaches you in less than 90 minutes. The problem is not AI. The problem is publishing AI-sounding writing under your own name.

I agree. More from Lisec,

The Best Way® To Edit AI & Re-Human Your Writing shows you how to prompt AI better, spot the obvious and not-so-obvious tells of AI slopwriting, and edit your real voice back into the work so what readers experience is not machine-y mush…

…but authentically you.

Besides, you’ll probably need to edit ALL of your AI output anyway because “as an LLM, I unable to take a stance on” bla bla bla.

You know what I mean.

What if you want AI to say what it can’t? Then you need to learn The Best Way® To Say It anyway.

Here’s what you get when you sign up for The Best Way® to Edit AI & Re-Human Your Writing. I’m quoting from the sales page now.

The 6.5 Tells of AI Slopwriting

You know the dead giveaways, fake polish, generic filler. “And not just filler; it’s also” OK yeah you get it. These are the technically fine but literarily unensouled sentences that make very important people recoil from your writing.

You’ll learn how to spot them fast . . . and more importantly, how to cut them out without mercy and replace them with real human writing instead, FAST.

Persuasive Prompting: Save Time & Get Better AI Output FAST

Before you can fix AI output, stop setting it up to fail.

I’ll show you how to prompt AI better so the draft it gives you is stronger, sharper, more useful, and far less embarrassing to begin with.

Editing counts. Yes, that’s correct. But so does not generating robo-garbage in the first place!

AI & Copyright: What the Government Is (Actually) Saying

What makes writing yours? What does authorship even mean now? Where does AI assistance end and your creative ownership begin?

We’ll cover the practical reality of human-led creation in the age of AI, including what matters when originality, authorship, and protectable work are on the line. This is not legal advice, but many people are saying it should be!

Look Over My Shoulder: Watch Lisec Edit AI IN REAL TIME

This is by far THE most popular content from the original The Best Way Say It® courses. And now, we’re back!

You’ll watch me super-prompt AI, evaluate the output, tear out the clankety-clank slop-nonsense, and re-humanize the writing step by step (with no step skipped!) until it sounds like it should have sounded in the first place . . . like a real person wrote it. Like you.

Get the best of both worlds; make content hyper-fast with AI but make it sound like YOU.

That’s The Best Way®.

And Joshua Lisec will show you how →

In any case, firing your marketing team when business slows down is the opposite of what you should do.

1. You’re eliminating the activity that brings in sales
2. Your competitors are as short-sighted as you are. And they’re making the same bad decisions. So if you do the opposite you’ll take their marketshare. And when business picks back up, you will dominate.

Now is the time to double or triple your marketing effort and investment. But if there’s no money coming in, where do you find the budget? Simple, you fire all non-revenue-producing staff.

1. Everyone in HR
2. Everyone in Accounting and Finance
3. Secretaries and receptionists
4. “Office boys” – these are like interns who deliver mail, bring everyone coffee, make photocopies and run errands, except they’re paid full-time employees; they’re almost always men, too, which seems kind of sexist but idk – and also drivers and cleaners

There, I’ve opened up six figures a month in payroll that can be diverted to running more ads and publishing more content. The only reason why these people tend to keep their jobs is because of the Bullshit Jobs theory, articulated by David Graeber in his book of the same name.

Graeber says more than half of societal work is pointless. He names five types of entirely pointless jobs:

1. Flunkies, who serve to make their superiors feel important, e.g., receptionists, administrative assistants, door attendants, store greeters;
2. Goons, who act to harm or deceive others on behalf of their employer, or to prevent other goons from doing so, e.g., lobbyists, corporate lawyers, telemarketers, public relations specialists;
3. Duct tapers, who temporarily fix problems that could be fixed permanently, e.g., programmers repairing shoddy code, airline desk staff who calm passengers with lost luggage;
4. Box tickers, who create the appearance that something useful is being done when it is not, e.g., survey administrators, in-house magazine journalists, corporate compliance officers, academic administration;[14]
5. Taskmasters, who create extra work for those who do not need it, e.g., middle management, leadership professionals.

Every position I’ve told you to fire falls into one of these five categories. If you have any more employees who fit the criteria, fire them too. But my advice will fall on deaf ears. Because people care more about looking successful than being successful.

Mr. Pattison is absolutely right, of course. You can’t spend money you don’t have. And I would never suggest you do. Sometimes the only thing you can do is cut expenses down to the bone. Live to sell another day.

Which is why I said terminate your HR department first.

There are six, maybe seven figures of non-revenue-generating payroll in every company. Money can be found if you look hard enough. Not that hard actually. Everyone hates HR.

I would also add there’s a psychological effect in continuing to promote your business when all your competitors are playing scared. Besides the fact you’re the only one advertising and this triggers availability and recency bias in the minds of your prospects… You look like you’re doing well. And people want to work with winners.

One last thing.

If business is slow no one is saying you need to spend the same on marketing. Reduce spend if you have to. Just don’t stop entirely.

No budget for ads? Triple your organic publishing. Social media is free. Emails are free (ish).

There are so many ways to promote a business that don’t cost money. Get creative. That’s what a marketing team is good at. But they can’t be creative if you’ve fired them all.

Read until the end for an AI summary of the court’s rulings in my case.

Two years ago, while training for my last fight, I knocked out my sparring partner. I wasn’t trying to hurt him. I hit him with an overhand right but it wasn’t a hard punch. We were on the tail end of a bunch of rounds and both tired. He came to and on the way to the bathroom, collapsed. They had to rush him to the hospital and put him in a medically induced coma. His brain was swelling.

A few hours later, I got a call from the cops. They asked me to come give a statement. They’d reviewed the CCTV from the gym and assured me I wasn’t in any trouble. We were in a boxing ring, training, with protective gear on. But the procedure was they had to put a travel ban on me, in the event there was a criminal case.

A year went by with no updates. I had to hire a lawyer to talk to the cops to try to get the travel ban lifted. Hamad Al Zarouni; look him up on IG @lawindxb and tell him I sent you. My sparring partner was out of the coma, but he was fully disabled and in another hospital for rehab.

Do you remember the last fight in Snatch when Mickey gets knocked down, and has to stay down because the fight is fixed? He stands up and knocks out his opponent. And Turkish says, “Now, we are fucked.” That was me.

A few weeks after I hired my lawyer I get a call from Dubai Prosecution. They wanted to interview me. So I go in an recount the story as best I can. They tell me, “You are accused of accidentally causing injury to this man that resulted in permanent disability. Are you guilty of this?” My brain froze. I had to ask them to repeat the question. I said no, I’m not guilty.

About a month after the meeting with Dubai Prosecution I got a call and text on a Thursday telling me to show up for a court date on Monday. I’d kept my cool up until this point but now I was starting to worry. I message my lawyer and he’s on vacation. So I ask him to recommend someone and he refers me to a criminal defense lawyer, Saeed Al Ghailani. This guy charges 100,000 Dirhams ($27,000) per case. And he only accepts payment in full, in advance. But Hamad negotiated a massive discount on my behalf.

I meet Saeed and he goes to work. He messages me the night before and tells me they’ve prepared a defense and I’m in a good position. That put me at ease a little.

We show up to court and the judge asks me, how do you plead? I say not guilty. They make me wait in a holding area while they process the verdict. Saeed texts me, you win, they found you not guilty. Oooff. What a relief. I felt like I had shrugged off a massive weight. I ask Saeed when he’ll be able to remove the travel ban. He says give him a few weeks.

A few days later, Saeed texts me. The prosecutor appealed the court’s verdict. We have to show up in court again. But my court date was a couple of months later.

So we show up, and Saeed does his thing. He wins again. Not guilty. OK, NOW we’re done, I think.

Nope. The prosecutor appealed AGAIN. This time the case goes to the Cassation Court of Dubai, which is the highest court in the land, sort of like the Supreme Court. I didn’t have to show up for this one. Saeed went himself. The court dismissed the prosecutor’s appeal on a technicality, which you’ll see below. Saeed texts me. We won again. And for the last time.

This was a week before my mother was scheduled to have a heart operation. I went to the police station to get my travel ban lifted a couple of days before flying to Sri Lanka. The timing was impeccable.

Alhamdulillah.

The number one lesson I took from this is to be responsible for my sparring partner’s safety. I’ve relived the session so many times in my head. He was a novice. He was tired and hurt. I could see it. Why didn’t he quit? He knew he was tired too. But we did another round. I should have told my coach to stop him. I shouldn’t have hit him with that overhand. I was a lot heavier than him. I should have gone for body shots.

I’m glad the case went my way. But I’m going to have to answer for this on the Day of Judgment. I can only hope God is more merciful.

Summary of the court’s ruling in simple English

The Incident:

• Two men, Nabeel Azeez and [sparring partner], were boxing at a sports club in Dubai (Al Barsha area) on February 16, 2023
• During the boxing match, Nabeel punched [sparring partner] in the face
• [sparring partner] suffered severe injuries resulting in 100% permanent disability

The Legal Case:

1. Criminal Charges: The prosecution charged Nabeel with causing injury through negligence
2. First Court: Found Nabeel NOT GUILTY and acquitted him
3. First Appeal: The prosecution appealed, but the appeals court agreed with the acquittal
4. Final Appeal: The prosecution appealed again to the highest court (cassation), which also rejected their appeal

Why Nabeel Was Found Not Guilty: The courts ruled that Nabeel was protected by a legal principle that says violence during sports is not a crime if:

• The sport is legal (boxing is legal)
• It happens within the normal rules of the game
• The person takes proper precautions and follows safety rules
• It was unintentional (not done on purpose to hurt someone)
• There was no evidence Nabeel broke boxing rules or failed to be careful

The Bottom Line: Even though [sparring partner] was permanently disabled, the courts decided this was a tragic accident that happened during legitimate sports activity, not a crime. The law recognizes that contact sports like boxing carry inherent risks, and participants accept these risks when they choose to participate.

Why the Misdemeanor Court acquitted the defendant

The Misdemeanor (Trial) Court acquitted Nabeel Azeez based on these specific reasons:

1. Legal Justification – Article 54 The court cited Article 54 of the UAE Crimes and Penalties Law, which states that violence during sports is NOT a crime if:

• Done with good intention
• Within the normal rules of the sport
• With proper caution and care
• The sport is legally authorized
• No danger to public security

2. No Evidence of Wrongdoing The court found that the case files were “devoid of anything indicating” that Nabeel:

• Failed to follow proper boxing rules
• Failed to observe caution and care during the match
• Intended to hurt his opponent

3. The Injury Was Accidental The court determined that [sparring partner]’s injury:

• Happened “unintentionally” (عفواً)
• Occurred with “good intention” from Nabeel
• Was part of a legal boxing match
• Posed no danger to public security

4. Insufficient Evidence for Conviction The court stated the prosecution’s evidence was “below the sufficiency threshold” to prove criminal charges. In criminal law, the prosecution must prove guilt beyond reasonable doubt.
5. The Defendant’s Consistent Denial Nabeel denied the charges “in all stages of the case,” and combined with the lack of evidence, this created reasonable doubt.

The Bottom Line: The trial court essentially said: “This was a tragic accident during a legitimate boxing match. There’s no evidence Nabeel did anything wrong or violated any rules. Boxing is a legal sport with inherent risks, and unfortunate injuries during proper play don’t constitute a crime.”

Why the Appellate Court upheld the ruling

The document doesn’t provide the appellate court’s specific reasoning, but it tells us something important: the appellate court upheld the trial court’s judgment “for its reasons” (المؤيد لأسبابه).

This means the appellate court:

1. Adopted the Trial Court’s Reasoning Rather than writing new reasons, the appellate court essentially said “we agree with everything the trial court said.” This is a common practice when an appeals court finds the lower court’s analysis to be correct and complete.
2. Found No Errors By upholding the judgment, the appellate court determined that:

• The trial court correctly applied the law about sports activities being justified
• The evidence supported the finding that this was a normal boxing accident
• There was no proof Nabeel violated boxing rules or safety procedures
• The prosecution failed to prove criminal negligence

3. Agreed with the Key Finding The appellate court agreed that the incident fell under Article 54’s protection for sports activities – meaning violence during legitimate sports (when following the rules and being careful) is not a crime.

Why This Matters: Having two courts independently reach the same conclusion strengthened the judgment. When the prosecution appealed to the cassation court, they were fighting against two courts that had already agreed Nabeel should be acquitted. This made it even harder for the prosecution to succeed in their final appeal.

Why the Cassation Court rejected the appeal

The cassation court rejected the appeal for these key reasons:

1. Limited Scope of Review The cassation court explained that it cannot re-examine the facts of the case. It can only check if the lower courts applied the law correctly and if their reasoning was logical.
2. The Lower Courts’ Authority The cassation court stated that trial courts have the exclusive authority to:

• Evaluate witness testimony
• Assess evidence
• Determine what actually happened
• Decide if justification defenses (like sports activities) apply

3. Sound Legal Reasoning The cassation court found that the lower courts:

• Properly examined all the evidence
• Applied the correct law (Article 54 about sports activities being justified)
• Reached a logical conclusion based on the evidence
• Had the right to doubt the prosecution’s case (and doubt = acquittal)

4. The Prosecution’s Arguments Were “Substantive” The prosecution was essentially arguing “the court got the facts wrong” – saying Nabeel didn’t follow boxing rules and wasn’t careful. But the cassation court said this is a factual dispute, not a legal error, and they can’t overturn decisions just because they might interpret facts differently.

In Simple Terms: The cassation court basically said: “The lower courts did their job properly. They looked at the evidence and decided Nabeel was boxing normally and legally. We can’t second-guess their factual findings just because the prosecution disagrees. No legal errors were made, so the acquittal stands.”

Building a list and mailing it daily changed my life. It can change yours.

From the desk of Nabeel Azeez • Dubai, U.A.E.

$100,000+ of my own money and 14,000+ hours – at least, but likely much more – went into developing the skills I need to earn a full-time living as a writer. I’ve bought 170 books and 160 courses – I counted. And I’ve tried just about as many strategies and tactics to build my business. And the one investment I’ve made which has had the highest return on investment, by far, was starting an email list.

Hi, my name is Nabeel Azeez. I’m an author and a copywriter. My list is tiny, a little over 1,200 people at the time of writing. But I can attribute, directly or indirectly, over half a million dollars in income to my email list. Many of my email subscribers have invested thousands of dollars in my products and services. Some have paid me $27,000, $40,500, $60,000, even $108,000.

Here’s what I’ve sold to my list:

• Done-for-you services
• Consulting
• Courses
• Books
• Subscriptions
• Haven’t sold any physical products yet but if I do, I’m certain my list will buy that as well.

And there’s no magic to it. My first email went out to 11 subscribers. I just started. And then showed up every day. Sometimes I stopped. But then I came back. I wasn’t perfectly consistent. I even skipped days. But as long as I keep adding new subscribers and as long as I keep writing to them…

I’m 100% certain my email list will make me a million bucks

27 Benefits of building a list and mailing it daily

1. You will build a daily writing habit
2. You will get better at expressing your ideas in writing
3. You will be able to write faster
4. You will become more creative because you are forced to ideate daily
5. You will become more organized
6. Your most productive hours of the day are reserved for your own personal and professional growth
7. You are paying yourself first
8. You will get better at speaking what you know because your ideas have been formulated in writing before
9. Your ability to think and speak off-the-cuff will improve
10. You demonstrate consistency to the buyers on your list
11. You demonstrate your knowledge to the buyers on your list
12. You demonstrate your writing ability to the buyers on your list
13. You get to sell to your list every day
14. There is no negative effect on your email open rates and click-through rates
15. The lowest quality subscribers will unsubscribe from your list in short order
16. You can determine very quickly who your unengaged subscribers are
17. You can prune your list monthly as opposed to every 6 months
18. You brand value grows with every email because you are always top-of-mind
19. Your name gets associated with your product/service because you are always top of mind
20. You get more opportunities to test copywriting/selling/marketing/persuasion techniques
21. You lose the fear of writer’s block
22. You stop having writer’s block
23. Your learning as a copywriter/marketer is accelerated over 700% (weekly emails vs. daily emails)
24. You learn how to write good email subject lines and calls-to-action
25. You differentiate yourself from a 95% of all other copywriters who barely email their list or only email weekly
26. You learn a lot of advice you’ve read online about what works and what doesn’t work is bulls***
27. You learn the fundamentals of direct response marketing are king

The most simple and cost-effective marketing there is

Many people get confused, frustrated and overwhelmed by marketing. But they do it to themselves. Marketing can be as complicated or as simple as you want it to be. And there’s no simpler marketing strategy than “build a list and mail it daily.”

Here’s everything you need to implement this strategy:

• A form to collect emails
• An email service provider to communicate with your subscribers
• A way to send people to your form (e.g. social media)

Social media is free. Email service providers have generous free plans. Even if you have to pay, in the beginning you’re only paying $20-$50 per month. That means you’re able to talk to your market every day for pennies on the dollar. And these are people who want to hear from you.

Simplicity = freedom

By simplifying your marketing you’ll be more creative, not less. Your mind won’t be pulled in a million different directions. What about my social media accounts? What about my funnels? What about my ads? What about xyz? You’ll have none of that. The only question on your mind will be, What should I write about today?

Respectful to customers

There’s one benefit to your customers that’s obvious: You’re only emailing people who want to hear from you. The other benefit is you give customers permission to buy when they are ready. You don’t have to force them through a funnel. You’re not going anywhere. You’re showing up every day. And they can buy at their convenience. This is incredibly respectful and your customers will love you for it.

But you already know this

You may already have an email list and you may already send daily emails. But it’s good to be reminded that you made the right choice. I felt that way while writing this review. I’m more bullish than ever on daily emails.

There are so many tactics you can use and channels you can have a presence on, and everywhere you look there’s a new shiny object. If you’ve invested in building your list and mailing it daily…

You made an excellent decision

And now’s the time to double- or triple-down on this strategy. All roads lead to my email list. Say it with me.

“All roads lead to my email list.”

And now the question becomes, “How to I optimize my list so that I’m making the highest Earnings Per Subscriber?” Notice I didn’t ask, “How do I make my list as large as possible?” That’s because list size is a vanity metric. A list of 100,000 people who never buy anything from you is worthless. Earnings Per Subscriber is the number you should care about.

When you start caring about Earnings Per Subscriber and taking it seriously, the list of email marketing experts worth paying attention to dwindles to a handful. One of those experts is Chris Orzechowski (Orzy).

Orzy made $996,000 in revenue with an email list of only 6,266 email subscribers

Before becoming a copywriter, Orzy was a teacher making a little over $50,000 per year. Now he’s close to being a millionaire, as a solopreneur who runs an email-based business. But what makes him remarkable isn’t that he was able to get this result for himself. Many people have done similar, including me. What makes him remarkable is that he’s able to get these results for other business owners.

• An e-commerce brand owner with a list of just over 1,000 subscribers. The very FIRST email she sent out after she started working with Orzy made her over $15,000 in sales.
• A brand with a list of 8,000 people that used to make a few hundred bucks when they sent an email. Once they started using Orzy’s email writing system, they started making $7,500+ every time they hit send.
• One of his clients had a list of 50,000 people. Every time they’d send an email they’d make between $19,000 – $30,000 in sales, like clockwork.
• Another client started emailing daily in preparation for a big launch of theirs… and wound up doing $1.2 million in sales in the first 8 hours the cart was open.
• Another brand took email revenue from 9% to 30% in 30 days flat, just by sending “Orzy” emails to his list (Side note: Clients actually request “Orzy” emails)

And not only that, he’s also had success teaching his strategies to copywriters and business owners. Here’s what some of his students had to say…

• “Since I started applying what I learned, I’ve beaten my previous sales record from a single email by 300% and am seeing sales returns on every email I send now instead of only every 3rd or 4th one.”
• “What I’ve used from you in their business contributed to them earning more than 7 figures in revenue in only 2 months in November and December.”
• “I just added $20k+ revenue to a brand in 2 months with my emails…”
• I generated $300k + for my very first client as a nervous newbie email copywriter by following the strategies you laid out.”
• “I wrote a sequence that generated $182,000 in sales over the course of a week during one of his company’s promotions.”

If you’re looking for an email marketing guru, Orzy is him

That’s why I can confidently recommend Chris Orzechowski’s brand new course…

Write Yourself Rich

Orzy’s written a full sales page for you to read if you need convincing, so I’m going to summarize everything you get.

What you’re getting:

• Module #1 – The Write Yourself Rich System
• Module #2 – How to Write Million-Dollar Emails
• Module #3 – Mastering Your Email Software
• Module #4 – Front End Offers & Lead Magnets
• Module #5 – Write Yourself Rich Email Case Studies & Breakdowns
• Module #6 – Advanced Automation
• Module #7 – How to 10x Your Email List
• Module #8 – Living the 1 Email/Day Lifestyle

And you’re also getting for Orzy’s first-time launch of Write Yourself Write…

8 Weeks of Live Coaching

The last time Orzy did group coaching, members paid $5,500 each.

And if this was all you got when you bought Write Yourself Rich, it’d be well worth the investment. But Orzy’s a mad lad and he’s stuffed a ton of bonuses into this offer.

• Bonus #1 – Subject Line Masterclass
• Bonus #2 – Seven Figure Secrets
• Bonus #3 – Segmentation Masterclass
• Bonus #4 – Launch Magic
• Bonus #5 – 365 Email Starter Prompts
• Bonus #6 – The Offer Masterclass
• Bonus #7 – No Product? No Problem!

And there’s one more bonus that’s ONLY available until 4:00 pm EST on Tuesday October 15 2024…

A FREE one-hour, one-on-one coaching call with Orzy. He charges $1,000 for a one hour consulting call. You’ll get one of these for FREE… in addition to everything else listed above. This one bonus alone is worth more than the entire course itself but the only way to claim it is to join Write Yourself Rich before 4:00 pm EST Tuesday Oct 15 2024.

But that’s not all because…

You’re also getting MY exclusive bonuses

…when you join Write Yourself Rich using my affiliate link. And I’ve done my best to match Orzy’s ballsiness.

Here’s what you’re getting in addition to everything I’ve listed above…

1. List Building Lessons – A free email course with 7 lessons from 7+ years of building my list and mailing it daily. 100% free, no purchase necessary. Get instant access as a “thank you” for reading my review.
2. The List Enlarger – A semi-automated campaign for a bigger list and stronger earnings per subscriber. I’ll show you the tools you need and exactly how to set up the campaign. Landing page, automations, social media, email flows, etc. All you have to do is write the content. I plan to sell this as a standalone product for $95-$195 but you’ll get it for free when you join Write Yourself Rich.
3. 30-minute quick start call and 30 days of email follow-up so you can implement Write Yourself Rich fast and start seeing results. People have paid me $750 for 45 minutes of my time.
4. One-year scholarship to Copyskills, my coaching community. This retails for $222.22 per year. So when you’re done with Orzy’s 8 weeks of group coaching, you’ll still have someone you can come to for support. You’ll get access to a discussion forum, copy critiques, weekly office hours, courses, guest lectures and much more.
5. [Only available if you help me win Orzy’s Write Yourself Rich Affiliate Contest which ends on October 25 2024] Affiliate Aristocrat – My course on how to run affiliate promotions as a side hustle for easy 5k-10k paydays. I’ll give you the entire campaign and show you how to implement it, step by step, with no steps skipped. Simply run this campaign whenever you want a quick cash infusion that will also produce passive income.

How to claim your bonuses: Follow the instructions below.

​I am 99% certain this person is not cut out for learning copy or being a freelancer.

Reminds me of this funny clip I saw today from Cold Email Wizard.

He expresses immense frustration over people who don’t have the agency or will to power to get started.

Frankly, it’s damn near impossible to NOT become a paid, professional copywriter if you do what’s necessary.

And everything there is to learn is available to you for free.

None of the resources available today for free existed when I started.

Here’s successful financial copywriter Mike Humphrey’s explaining how he learned to write copy.

QUOTE

You can pay for training by spending your time, your money, or both.

More than half of the great copywriters I know developed their chops like I did: By reading the classic copywriting/direct response marketing books, studying great copy, and writing copy.

I’ve never belonged to a paid mastermind for copywriting or marketing.

I’ve never hired someone to privately mentor me. Or been someone’s copy cub.

I didn’t pay for my first high-ticket copywriting training program until after I’d already produced over $10M in sales for my clients.

At that point, I was charging $5K+ for a sales letter. So I was making good enough money to pay for that specialized training without going into debt.

I broke into copywriting in 2006. Took me 2 months to go full-time with it. I’ve been full-time ever since.

Money was tight then and my oldest child was in diapers. So I invested time instead of money in my copywriting career.

Early on, I developed the habit of reading great copy or writing it 6 days a week. I’ve stuck to that routine ever since. And I’ll continue to do it until they nail my coffin shut someday.

Simple in theory… difficult in execution because it requires daily persistence and commitment to actually doing it. It also requires patience too because success won’t arrive instantly or overnight.

But it is doable, even if you’re dealing with a shoe-string budget.

If I can do it, then I believe anyone else can do it too.

Especially with all of the amazing free resources out there. Most of which didn’t exist when I was breaking into copywriting.

Gary Halbert’s website. Justin Goff’s free email course.

All of the major mailers and huge 8-9 figure companies that put out great copy every day. Not only do they send you great emails for free… those emails take you to their well-written VSLs, webinars, and salesletters too.

That’s off the top of my head. There are lots of other great free resources out that I’m neglecting to mention.

Hope this helps someone who takes the time to read this.

UNQUOTE

This blueprint is everything you need to go from knowing nothing about copywriting to having enough skill to sell your services as a copywriter

So don’t ask for a mentor when you haven’t bothered to do the work.

It’s an insult to those of us who did.

Yours Beardly,
Nabeel

P.S. While the above advice helps you learn the skill of copywriting, the business of copywriting is something else entirely. I’ve got something planned to help you with that. In the meantime, join CopySkills.

P.P.S. Forgot to celebrate passing 2,000 subscribers. Thank you for joining me on this journey.

​
How many email subscribers do you have?

This leads me to believe many people who quote Breakthrough Advertising haven’t read it. And if they have, they haven’t read past chapter 3. Which is fine, I suppose. Schwartz front-loaded the most important concepts. Anyhoo, in keeping with tradition, today’s email is about a concept from chapter 1, mass desire.

I don’t like discounts. I almost never use them. The only time I do is as an introductory price when I’m launching a new product. Discounts devalue your brand and train customers to only buy during sales.

“Any damn fool can put on a deal, but it takes genius, faith and perseverance to create a brand.” – David Ogilvy

But it’s BFCM week. People want to spend money this week, more so than any other time of year. They’ve been saving up for it. From now until December 31st, some brands will generate as much revenue as they do during the rest of the year. Every man, woman and demiboy who exchanges goods and services for moolah wants their piece of this pie. So where does that leave a business that doesn’t do discounts?

Don’t run from the deluge. Stand there with a bucket.

Sinple, really. You can launch a new product. Or a variation of an existing one. Or do a limited edition something or other. Or do a “reverse BFCM” where you sell your most expensive thing (I did that once with a client; sold his 30k mastermind.)

This BFCM I’ve decided to relaunch my book, 40 Hadith on Masculinity: How to Be a Good Man. I’ll be releasing it on Amazon and I think everywhere else you can buy books. Kindle, paperback and hardcover. No audiobook yet but that’s in the pipeline. We’re trying to get the book uploaded to all merchants by Friday. But if we miss that, it’ll be live before the end of the month. Inshallah.

Some testimonials from men who’ve read it:

“It’s a really well-written book that hits home, that’s what I’d say, for any man who’s got any self-consciousness about himself as a man.” – Malek H

“I completed reading the 40 hadith on masculinity book today, and mashaa Allah, it is the best book on the topic I have found in English.” – Ismail K

It’s a hit with the ladies too!

“I feel like women who are in my position, who are searching for an ideal partner, definitely should read this book… I set up my online marriage profile with it too… And I also use this book as a guide to ask questions of these men to see what type of man they are.” – Huda S

And if you want to know more, here’s the chapter list and introduction.

Because Martians and Belters are born and live in space, they can’t handle Earth gravity. If they want to travel to Earth, they need to take various supplements, injections and go through special training, just to survive. They’re still human, but their physiology has “forgotten” what it’s like to be on their planet of origin.

In the Matrix films, the humans of Zion don’t know how or why the machines they use, that make their city livable, work.

When I was a boy we learned mental arithmetic. All of our math was taught this way. It wasn’t until high school that we started using calculates.

The new generation of copywriters are learning how to write copy using AI. Their focus is on prompting, chaining prompts and building AI Agents to automate copy production.

They’re Belters. This is the equivalent of learning how to write copy in Space. Calculators from day one. They don’t know how copy works, only that it does. They haven’t learned the fundamentals. Is it any wonder the copy their prompts generate is mediocre?

I’ve seen a lot of copy-related prompts published by people. Even bought a few prompt packs. The only prompts that give you anything close to usable copy are created by good copywriters. They mastered the fundamentals first. Then they were able to synthesize those fundamentals into prompts that made their jobs easier. That wouldn’t be possible if these copywriters started learning the skill using AI.

Correct use of AI to produce copy looks more like a conversation than a prompt. To have that conversation, and for it to be meaningful, you must know how to think about copy. This is something I help members of CopySkills with.

The contractor didn’t…

• Develop the product
• Create the go-to-market strategy
• Do order fulfillment
• Manage customers
• Or do a whole heap of other stuff

So why the falafel would they give a contractor who works on a small aspect of the business a percentage of the upside that the entire business creates?

Dan Ferrari recently wrote an email extolling the virtues of royalties, over and above even launching one’s own offer. And I agree with everything he said. However, one throwaway line stands out. He put it in brackets because it’s an afterthought to him. It shouldn’t be an afterthought to you. Emphasis mine:

“First – royalties (when done right, with the right KIND of projects, agreements, and clients) provide stable cash flow.”

Yes, Dan. When done right. Dan’s experience is working in the direct response, where paying copywriters royalties is a given and clients have the systems to manage rev-share agreements.

I haven’t yet worked with the types of businesses capable of doing royalty agreements right. In my experience, agreeing to a rev-share deal with a business that doesn’t know how to handle it is asking for trouble. Even if you have a contract in place.

Businesses love doing rev share deals until it’s time to cut a fat check. Then they become forensic attribution detectives and look for any reason not give you credit for a sale. Or they’ll figure out ways to pay you less than you’re owed. For example, they’ll want to pay you based on cash collected instead of revenue generated. This has happened to me and to my clients.

For what it’s worth, I’m more than happy to work on a commission-only or fee plus commission structure with honest clients. My work gets results and so I’m happy to grab my nuts and gamble. But when I say honest, I mean the type of client I can do a handshake deal with. This client is rare.

In my mind, at least, if I need a contract to keep you honest, I don’t want to do a rev-share deal with you. It’s degrading to chase people for money you earned fair and square. I’d rather charge a premium flat fee or retainer. I know I’m leaving money on the table by doing this. But I’d rather get paid a fair price and do my work in peace. Keep your upside.

If you’re an entrepreneur or work for a business that’s willing to pay a fair price for superb copywriting, go here.

Side note: This whole idea of rev-share among freelancers/consultants is getting out of hand. One time a mf tried to ask me for rev-share to design a book cover

“Nabeel, I love to read your emails but this new format/software type is not so good. It seems like the disclaimer is longer than the actual email.”

Something felt off. My beardly senses were tingling. I looked up his email engagement in BerserkerMail. He was full of it. Here’s my response:

You “love” reading my emails…
But you’ve only opened 3 of my last 20 emails…
And you don’t want to click a link that leads to a blog post…
Which is exactly the same as reading an email.
I’ve unsubscribed you manually.

The grayest of gray mail. He also wasn’t a customer. YUCK! Nevertheless, I was respectful.

Look, I don’t expect free subscribers to buy anything from me. But the least they can do is engage with the emails. Otherwise I don’t want them on my list.

The lesson in this for you?

Almost every piece of unsolicited feedback you get can be ignored with prejudice. In fact, a cursory examination will reveal the people giving you this unsolicited feedback have no idea what they’re talking about.

Totally unnecessary imo. If someone sends you a cold DM or email and you’re not interested, say no and move on. It takes less than 30 seconds. If you’re feeling charitable, give them some pointers to improve their outreach.

Everyone who cold emails/DMs me gets treated with respect.

Thank you for reaching out. I’m not interested.

No thank you sir.

That’s all you have to say. It requires no effort to be respectful. There’s no upside to being disrespectful. Besides, what goes around comes around. Do you want bad business karma?

In CopySkills we teach client acquisition the same way. That is, treating your prospects with respect and being a professional. This approach works for novices and experts alike. Novices need it more because many think they have to pretend they’re someone they ain’t to get clients. Being honest and sincere gets you more cachet in the long run. Also, prospects take notice and are more inclined to help you.

I remember a cold DM from a young copywriter, Nate Schmidt. He was honest and sincere. He had nothing of value to offer me but because of his authenticity I helped him anyway. I won’t call him a mentee because we only had 2 coaching calls. But he took one piece of advice I gave him and ran with it. Since then, his businesses have made millions of dollars. That is the value of respect and professionalism.

For more info on CopySkills, read this.

The offending tweet in question. Read the replies and quotes.

Link to tweet

My tale was heard, and yet it was not told,
My fruit is fallen, and yet my leaves are green,
My youth is spent, and yet I am not old,
I saw the world, and yet I was not seen:
My thread is cut, and yet it is not spun,
And now I live, and now my life is done.

So much talk of competence, courage and confidence. So little of the fact that every man dies. For all the machismo and bravado in the manosphere, I haven’t seen anyone with the cojones to speak about the metaphysical.

You can’t take money, whips, bussdowns or hoes to the grave with you, playboy. All you take are your good works and the hope that your sins will be overlooked.

A man asked Prophet Muhammad ﷺ, which (believers) are the wisest? He ﷺ replied, the one who most remembers death and is best prepared for it, such are the wisest.

It’s not enough to be hard to kill. You have to be ready to die.

I devoted an entire section in my book to the Prepared Man who is ready for anything life (or death) throws at him. You can read it here.

“You don’t work with anyone who’s not subscribed to your list. What’s the strategy behind this? How has it impacted your business?” – Asked during an interview in 2017 (I’d been a part-time copywriter for a year at that point)

Zoomers call it “Main Character Syndrome.” If you aren’t a gamer, I’ve also heard it called the “Hot Girl Effect.” It’s funny, I used to think I was so smart to position myself as premium and exclusive when I was starting out. In my mind it was a Bigbrain move to command higher rates. And do you know how it worked out?

For 3 years I struggled. For 3 years I was a brokie. First as a part-time copywriter – had a salary to fall back on – then as a full-time copywriter – had savings to fall back on. In both cases I was full of s***. A wannabe. Here’s a section of copy from my first homepage.

Lookit, the truth is I want you to say NO to me because I’m very selective of who I work with. I need fewer clients, not more. That’s why I don’t work with anyone who isn’t already subscribed to my email newsletter. Let me explain why this ultimately helps you. First, I’ll be teaching you exactly what it is I do so you can implement it on your own if you want (and you probably will, if you ever get to hear how much I charge.) Second, you will have plenty of time to get to know me and get a feel for my personality so you can make damn sure we’re a good fit before you ask for my help. Third, if you’re on my list I’ll know you’re not a bulls***er, so when you do ask for my help I’ll be more inclined to entertain you.

LMAO! This mf had ZERO clients the way an anon redpill account has ZERO hoes. But you know what? This is something I can pull off now. I have the results and reputation to back it up. If I did this today it would feel congruent. I know other copywriters who do, like Zarak. He only works with clients who are subscribers of his paid email newsletter. Dan Kennedy is another example. He’s famous for being difficult to contact, you can only reach him by fax, and work with, a long list of conditions and prerequisites come with paying his rich rates.

This is the Hot Girl Effect in action. Hot Girls don’t approach you, you approach them. Hot Girls have options. They make demands. It is your honour and privilege to be granted a whiff of her perfume while in her general vicinity. She is the Prize. She chooses you and she’s in control, never the other way around.

And when you have the wherewithal to pull it off, the Hot Girl Effect is the most powerful client acquisition technique there is. Imagine customers auditioning to give you money. Imagine them paying your fee in advance to get on a waiting list to work with you. Imagine charging 10X your normal rate to get a customer to go away and them saying yes because you’re in such high demand. This is probability, not possibility. BUT you can’t fake it. You gotta be about that life. Can’t be New Money pretending to be Old Money. The only people who’ll fall for it are No Money.

Do you use exclusivity in your business? If you don’t, if you had to use it, how would you?

“How can copywriters and business owners cut through the noise and stand out in a crowded marketplace.”

The internet is full of over-optimized-for-algorithms content. Too many content creators trying to be thought leaders. Hormozi captions on every clip. Goose-stepping to whatever the algorithm rewards right now. All saying the exact same thing. S*** content but it gets attention and whoever gets attention wins.

And it doesn’t only happen with short-form content. You see it with long-form too. Take two YouTube channels in the same niche. One channel  has 300,000 subscribers and gets thousands of views a video. Another channel has 30,000 subscribers and gets hundreds of views a video. Which channel has the better content? In my experience, the smaller channel. The smaller channel is Signal, the bigger channel is Noise.

By better I mean content from which you can learn real, actionable skills, not content the algorithm rewards. If we take copywriting YouTubers as an example, Copy That! and Copy Squad are Signal. I refer beginner copywriters to these channels all the time, often instead of CopySkills. I’ll leave you to guess in the comments which channels are Noise.

So, how to be the signal and not the noise? I don’t have a good answer. The best I can do is draw from my own experience. In my case, I didn’t taste a little success then quit to become a coach. I’m a practitioner. I write copy for clients every day. So anything I teach or recommend is practical, not theoretical.

The next thing you need is experience. If you’re a practitioner this is inevitable. Careful though, time in the Game is not the same as experience. There are copywriters with as many years as me under their belt who are more experienced than I am. Perhaps he trained under experts like Parris Lampropolous or David Deutsch. Or he may have worked at hardcore direct response companies like Agora or Golden Hippo. Yuge diff between this copywriter and a  “copywriting content creator.” When he talks about copy you can hear the difference.

The final piece of the puzzle is professionalism. This is so many little things packaged into one. It’s your consistency with publishing (a daily email is a good example of this.) It’s the way you communicate over email and DM. It’s delivering work on time. It’s doing what you say you’re going to do. It’s submitting work in an organized way. It’s getting results. It’s how easy you are to work with. And so much more. We’re in the people business and reputation–how people talk about you–is everything.

What about beginners?

I used to think fake-it-till-you-make-it was the answer, but it’s not. Now I think novices should focus on mastering their craft and delivering exceptional work to their clients. I see so many copywriters trying to “teach” online who I know for a fact are rank amateurs with no client results. Several of these copywriters are former members of CopySkills, so I know their situation.

Knowledge + Experience = Wisdom

The problem with trying to fake expertise as a copywriter is that you’re selling to people who, more often than not, are sophisticated entrepreneurs or marketers. They can smell bulls***. All a novice has is knowledge. Without experience, anything she says is specious because it’s devoid of context. So what’s a beginner to do?

First, she should keep her heads down and focus on client work. Her personal brand will take care of itself once she’s earned it. Second, if she publishes at all, she should adopt the frame of a student and not that of an expert. Think curation and analysis over lecturing. A copywriter who wants to write long-form Facebook ads might do weekly breakdowns of ads he likes. One who wants to write emails may do the same for eCommerce emails. Curation borrows credibility. Analysis demonstrates aptitude. Show, don’t tell.

• Why did it take so long to write and send an email broadcast? (A recent change; ConvertKit used to have the best writing experience)
• Why wasn’t there an easy way to publish broadcasts to my blog? (They added this recently… 20 years and 9 months after ConvertKit was founded)
• Why couldn’t I download all my email content? (No email marketing tool has this feature; only the “blogletter” platforms like beehiiv, Ghost and Medium do)
• Why couldn’t I do manual engagement tagging? (Can be done but it’s a complex automation when it should be and out-of-the-box feature)
• And worst of all… Why did they get rid of the html editor? (This is email blasphemy)

As far as email marketing tools go ConvertKit is one of the better ones. None of them are perfect and every tool has its pros and cons. And for a long time it was the only tool I recommended.

But as ConvertKit goes mass-market and becomes the new Mailchimp… And don’t get it twisted, “Creators” is positioning so broad it can refer to anyone and everyone… I find I no longer vibe with it as I once did.

My friend, Money Twitter legend Jose Rosado said…

“Man, I just need to say it. Mailchimp is like a $1 billion company.”

He’s right, of course. But that doesn’t mean Mailchimp is a good product. Serious marketers don’t use Mailchimp. The only one I can think of is Dan Oshinsky. And if I had to guess I’d say they’re paying him to use it. ConvertKit is headed in the same direction. A one-way trip to Normieville.

I am not a Creator.

So I needed a change. Enter BerserkerMail, Bento and beehiiv. No, it didn’t take 3 email marketing tools to replace ConvertKit. Could’ve done it with 1. Might still end up with 1. But I’m using 3 because I have 3 different use cases I’m testing, which is the marketer’s way of rationalizing our love for playing with new tools.

Detailed reviews of all 3 tools incoming. But here’s da troof. It ain’t the features of the email marketing tool that matter. It’s how you you use it.

“You’re launching a course…what are a few lessons learned so far? Especially since you’re in the thick of it…” – I was asked during my unaired interview with the Copywriter Club

Who the hell am I to be creating a course when I’m still learning and I still have so many goals achieve? I’m not even an expert. Then I sort of come to my senses and think, OK, it’s not about you. You’re trying to help people. Will creating this course help your audience or not? If it will, you have to do it.

That’s the first thing. The second thing is I’m the only person in the entire world who can create this course, this way. No one else alive or dead has the same background, the same life experiences, the same personality, the same voice, the same whatever. Whenever I frame my work this way, it becomes much easier to overcome my internal objections.

The third thing is a course launch, or a launch of any other product, is based on a system. You need to stick to the system if you want to see results. Like following a workout program. All of them work as long as you pick one and stick to it.

The mistake I’ve made in the past is consuming large amounts of material on entrepreneurship from different sources. It can leave you with paralysis by analysis. The truth is, had I stuck to one “guru” and one system, I’d be much further along. The upside? I now know what not to do. And I hope I don’t make the same mistakes.

If you’re planning a launch (BFCM is coming up) you need my launch promo. It’s the same promo I use for clients and myself. One client had a record-breaking best month ever in the history of their business. Get instant access.

Nevertheless, I put everyone through the most aggressive warmup campaign I’ve ever written. 4 emails a day for 5 days. An email every 6 hours. Asking you to click, reply or unsubscribe. The only reason you’re seeing this email is because you engaged. Thank you.

Do you want to know how well the warmup campaign did? I’ll use round numbers to keep it simple.

• 500 people engaged and stayed on the list
• 300 people engaged and unsubscribed
• 2,000 people… did absolute f*** all; they’re now in a sunset campaign and will be deleted if they don’t show signs of life

That means 70% of my subscribers… and perhaps 70% of your subscribers… DGAF. They don’t click. They don’t buy. They don’t even do you the courtesy of unsubscribing even though your emails are clearly of no use to them. These are the worst kind of subscribers to have.

This lack of engagement is one of the reasons why I took down all my public opt-in forms. Now, the only way to get on my mailing list is to buy something, join CopySkills or become a client.

“What are you building? How do you get paid? How do you juggle all of it? How does it all fit together? How do you know when to say yes or no to an opportunity?”

I own 3 “businesses.” If that seems like too many, it is. Except for my consulting calling the other two businesses sounds silly. They’re more like hobbies that pay me. I really should focus on one and shut the other two down.

• Dropkick Copy, my marketing agency
• CopySkills, my membership community
• MuslimMan, my media company

I used to have these dumb ideas about why juggling brands is a good thing. I’d say that they’re synergistic. Or that each brand is a credibility marker for my skills. Or that even though they’re bad business they help me develop complimentary skills. The truth is I get bored easily.  And I get excited by the prospect of new business models.

My main business is Dropkick Copy. Servicing clients is what I spend 90% of my time on. Thankfully, the other 2 don’t take much time. CopySkills needs a few hours a week to coach our members. MuslimMan needs a few hours a week to write a newsletter. They’re on maintenance mode but growing at a snail’s pace. Alhamdulillah, CopySkills and MuslimMan are cash flow positive otherwise I’d have no incentive to keep going.

In the coming year I’m going to have to make some hard decisions to delegate the day-to-day. Hiring writers is going to be a problem. I need them for all 3 businesses. Good copywriters are expensive and they don’t want to be employees. Freedom is why we chose this line of work.

“What do we need to be cautious of while publishing content or providing services for clients in 2024?”

We talked about sTePpInG iNtO yOuR aUtHoRiTy in a previous post. It applies here also. I see a lot of entrepreneurs publishing tactical content. Problem is, everyone else is doing it, contributing to the sea of sameness. And as bad as it was before with SEOs ruining the web, it’s going to get worse. AI lets you pump out 100 times more SEO-optimized drivel at 1/1000th the cost.

Your challenge as a business owner is to create and publish content that has a point of view and demonstrates leadership. How do you do that?

• You could pick a fight and take a contrarian approach to a common belief or practice.
• You could use the High Ground maneuver and philosophize about your industry.
• You could be a curator and become known for your sense of taste.

But if you want to be successful at content watch out for these two potholes, which are two sides of the same coin:

1. The first is hiding your unpopular opinions. You’ll never be able to please everyone on the internet, so don’t bother. And don’t worry, because there are millions of people around the world who believe the same things you do.
2. The second is saying what you think people want to hear. Remember that chick I mentioned a while back? The one who was “passionate about empowering women?” First-class ticket to mediocreville.

If your revolution has corporate sponsors you’re doing it wrong

The final challenge when publishing content is holding stuff back. I have to deal with this a lot when helping my clients. They don’t want to share ALL their knowledge and skills; their secret sauce. Because, they complain, if I tell them everything they won’t need me anymore.

Here’s the thing, DIY-ers will always do it themselves. They are not your customers unless they try it, screw up, then need your help to get results. Your customers are the people who read your material and think, wow! If this is what he’s giving away for free, imagine what he can do if we paid him.

P.S. Creating authority content needs a strong understanding of your personal values and business positioning. Both are an integral part of your content strategy. If you want help getting clarity on either, reply to this email and we’ll get on a 30-minute breakthrough strategy session.

Take my course Daily Content Machine for example. I give away all my secrets. How I come up with ideas. How turn 1 idea into 10+ posts. How I manage a content team. And much more. Any business owner could take it and replicate it internally. They don’t need to hire me. But my best clients watch it and realize… this is a lot of work, I might as well hire Nabeel to do it for me.

She was creating good content. Y’know, giving value. But her impressions were tanking and she was bleeding followers. Until she made one adjustment to her content that turned it around.

The adjustment? Making worse content. I’m not being sarcastic. The content is objectively worse. It doesn’t educate, entertain or inspire.

In fact, this content’s only purpose is to trick the platform’s algorithm into thinking the account is getting positive engagement signals… So that the platform shows the content to more people… So that the account can start growing again.

Growing? Who are these mindless followers? Do we even want them following us?

This is why direct marketers prefer to advertise. The relationship is transparent. We pay them money, they send us customers. If the platforms are going to f*** us at least we know the price up front. And we don’t have to be dancing monkeys for their algorithm.

Speaking of transparent, do you know whether your organic content makes moenay? Do you know which platforms give you the best return on time spent? How do you know?

I track my revenue using Hyros.

It’s the most accurate analytics tool out there. GA4 tracking is a smoke signal by comparison. By the way, don’t bother booking a call with Hyros unless you’re spending at least $10,000/month on ads. They’ll just cancel it.

If most of your sales come from organic, they have a good organic-only plan that’s $99/month.

1. Sign up for Campaign Refinery

They get the best deliverability and they scrub your list for you. Remember to take the bump offer for 50k extra credits, you’ll need it.

2. Set up email authentication

Make sure all your email authentication tings are set up. Campaign Refinery won’t let you email without it so that’s a plus.

3. Upload your list

Upload your email list but do not send any emails yet.

4. Write warmup campaign

Write a 7-14 day warmup campaign. 2-3 emails per day. Isn’t that too many emails Nabeel? No it’s not. I just got done sending 4 emails a day for 5 days. You need the volume to shake people out of their inbox blindness. And you’d be shocked at how many people WON’T engage and WON’T unsubscribe. @$$holes.

Campaign starts when you manually tag a subscriber. Campaign ends when they click (or open) an email. The emails should be clickbaity for maximum opens and clicks. The value is on the other side of the click, not in the email.

5. Add subscribers to warmup manually

Trickle them in. 100 on day 1, 200 on day 2, 400 on day 3, 1000 on day 4, 3000 on day 5 and so on. Don’t get greedy. Doesn’t matter if you have 1 million subs and it takes 2 months to warm them up. You’ll be glad you did it the right way.

6. Emailing engaged subscribers

You can email people who’ve engaged with the warmup as normal since they’ve been taken out of the warmup campaign.

7. Questions

If you have any questions reply to this post.

Note: Using Campaign Refinery is by invitation only. You’ll have to book a call to see if they’ll onboard you.

“Let’s start with your story… how did you end up as Dubai’s most expensive copywriter?”

This was the first question Rob and Kira asked me during my unaired interview with the Copywriter Club (we ended up doing a round two that was aired and well-received.) To paraphrase the late, great Bob Ross it was a series of happy accidents.

I used to write emails and marketing collaterals for a charitable organization I volunteered at. Had no idea I was writing copy. A few years ago, a friend introduced me to Ramit Sethi and the world of self-improvement and online business. Ramit’s a masterful copywriter in his own right and talks a lot about copy. And I realized “Oh…so THAT’S what I’ve been doing.”

One time the org was planning a conference. They needed branding and marketing. This job was given to a friend of mine, also a volunteer, who owned his own marketing agency. And he needed a writer who understood the product/org well enough to write compelling copy. So I fell into my first paid gig. And then I thought, “Huh…I can keep doing this.”

I started freelancing on the side while keeping my day job. Transitioned to full-time in August 2017 after my previous employer went through a merger and my position was made redundant. All of which doesn’t explain why I’m the most expensive in Dubai.

“Dubai’s most expensive copywriter” was a tagline I invented for myself. My way of faking it till I made it. Even though to the best of my knowledge it was a true statement… my rates were far higher than any copywriter in Dubai I knew… looking back it’s kinda cringe. And unoriginal too. I copied the idea from another local entrepreneur, Amir Siddiqui, who was “Dubai’s most expensive personal trainer.”

Did it get me clients? Can’t say for sure but I doubt it. The only thing it did was give my peers something to talk about. To this day, when I’m invited on podcasts hosts will introduce me as Dubai’s most expensive copywriter. So there were some benefits to my personal brand. Here are some of the rationalizations I had back in 2017 when I came up with this tagline.

• It gave me the flexibility to charge the rates I do and not have a lead balk
• It gave me the flexibility to raise my rates if I ever find out a copywriter in my market is charging more than me
• I’m big on repulsion marketing so this helps repel people I don’t want to work with
• A rising tide raises all boats so by charging as much as I do I improve the market for ALL writers by acting as a price anchor. This allows them to charge more and point to me if anyone says “your rates are too high.” AM I NOT MERCIFUL?

Was that true or was I just bullshitting myself? Today, many years later, as I update this email to publish on my blog, I can tell you this. You have to earn premium and luxury branding. You can’t just say it and have it be true. People aren’t stupid and they can smell the BS. Not only that, you will feel the incongruence and self-sabotage.

Am I still Dubai’s most expensive copywriter? I don’t know and I don’t care. I do good work, get results for my clients and charge a fair price relative to the value I create.

I wish someone told me this back when I was starting out. Don’t fake it till you make it. Shut your mouth, keep your head down and do the work. You’ll get your recognition when you deserve it.

On the plus side, the questions Kira and Rob asked me during my unpublished interview gave me 10-15 days worth of email material. Here’s the first.

“What do you think is the biggest opportunity copywriters miss out on?”

Missed opportunity #1: not understanding pricing

Their biggest missed opportunity is not understanding how to charge for their work. This is a simple math equation and a 90-minute exercise that can be done on a spreadsheet. I’ve created a free training on it called the Freelancer Pricing Playbook.

Missed opportunity #2: not sending enough emails

Their next biggest missed opportunity is not starting an email list and if they do have one, not emailing it often enough. I used to think I’m this email copywriting badass because my open and click-through rates were so high. If your open and click-through rates are far above industry averages, it’s unlikely you’re an email maestro. You either have a tiny list or you’re not mailing often enough.

When my friend Alexander Juan Antonio Cortes first started using email marketing, he emailed his list three times a day. And his open rates and click-through rates still hovered around the industry average. If every email you send is a positive ROI activity (Alexander was earning around $4-$10 an email selling ebooks), every email not sent leaves money on the table.

Note: if you’re a copywriter, don’t start another mailing list about copywriting or marketing. Have some imagination. It’ll be more interesting and profitable for you.

Are you a copywriter?

Both of these missed opportunities exist in many other industries besides freelance copywriting.

• Price your products accurately
• Email your list more often

The end of the year is coming fast. Do you want 2024 to be the year you have breakout success? Join CopySkills.

A while ago we were in this training on Video Sales Letters with Jon Benson. He was talking the way men tend to do. We can be callous sometimes.

“If I’m not manipulating your emotions I’m not doing my job.”

People. Lost. Their s***. In the Slack channel the after the call.

“OMG THIS IS EVIL.”

“I would never manipulate customers that way.”

“This is what’s wrong with marketing today.”

Blabla typical soylennial shit. I immediately understood Benson’s words as male braggadocio and focused on the broader point. All persuasion is manipulation. When I manipulate you for your own benefit, it’s good. When I do it to your detriment, it’s bad.

The sooner you learn to accept human behaviour for what it is and not what you’d like it to be, the sooner you rid yourself of the cognitive dissonance of being a businessman trying to sell without being salesy.

Hard sells exist and they work. Bad people have been using them to do bad things to people for millennia. But the techniques themselves are amoral. They can be used for good. You do yourself and your customer a disservice if you stick your head in the sand and refuse to even learn how and why they work. And then, once you’ve learned the rules and can use them unconsciously, you can choose to break them if you want.

“Better to be a warrior in a garden than a gardener in a war.”

One way to break the rules of selling is by creating a brand your customers love. For entrepreneurs like Ramit Sethi a sales page is a formality. Many of his customers scroll down to the bottom and click buy without even reading it. So much so they have been adding a Buy button to the top of their pages to save people the hassle of scrolling. How do you create a brand like this? By a well-defined content strategy executed consistently over a long period of time.

Wanna have a brand like Ramit? Dropkick Copy can help you do that.

So how do you hit the most home runs? You get the most At-Bats. Ruth is also the Strike-Out King; 1330 during his career.

Success is a numbers game. The more opportunities you give yourself to succeed, the more you are opening yourself up to failure. School educates this out of you but in the real world failure is not a big deal. Because the beautiful thing about having an entrepreneurial mindset is you only need to be right once.

Take my emails, for instance. A single email I write could be the spark that leads to a massive payday. When you sell high-ticket services, one project or retainer can potentially cover your business and personal expenses for the entire year. All I need to do is keep stepping up to the plate and taking those At-Bats.

Do not underestimate the power of consistency compounded. This principle applies to any kind of content creation; blogging, podcasting, youtubing, livestreaming, etc. And the ideal scenario here is to compound your work even further by repurposing across all channels.

For example, In writing every day for almost a month, I now have material for 6 months of weekly blog posts. I can also repurpose these into videos and podcasts. Another way would be for you to:

• start with a live stream,
• then upload the audio file as a podcast,
• then transcribe the podcast and edit it down into a blog post,
• then turn the blog post into an email

Both ways work but I like the email to video approach because you have more time to polish the material before recording. And email is a low-stakes way to test new ideas before putting them out into the internet. But don’t forget the key, which is consistency.

What you’ve just seen me describe is my high-level philosophy on content strategy. It’s simple and it works. You can implement it yourself starting today. Or if you want me to do it for you, book a call.

Here’s how it works:

• If you’re interested, reply below
• I will send you a short affiliate application form
• Once your application is approved you’ll get a unique affiliate link and a unique 10% off discount code
• Recommend the book to your friends, family and colleagues and share your link & discount code
• If they use your link and buy within 30 days of visiting the web page, you will get credit for the sale

How you’ll be paid:

• Your commission will be paid out after 45 days. This is because we have a 30-day money back guarantee
• There is a minimum payout amount of $20. Meaning, you need to sell at least 3 books before a payout can be processed
• Payouts will only be sent via PayPal. If you can’t receive money via PayPal, you can’t be an affiliate for us

You don’t need to be a big-shot influencer or profesh content creator to sell as an affiliate. It’s as simple as recommending the book to your friends and family.

This can happen:

• On social media
• Over text message
• In person

To make it easy for you to promote the book I will share copy-paste scripts you can use.

It helps if you’ve actually read the book.  A few weeks ago when I sent out a request to interview book buyers, I got replies back from people saying they hadn’t read it yet. Why buy a book if you’re not going to read it?

But as I was listening to Laurel I realized something. Service providers like copywriters flounder and get discouraged when trying to get clients because they have no way to compress time-to-result.

Say it takes me 5 conversations to land a client. That won’t take long at all. So whether I do organic, paid or cold outreach doesn’t matter. But what if a beginner takes 100 conversations to land a client? Done manually, that’s going to take a long time. Even with automated cold outreach it’ll take 3 weeks minimum if everything goes perfect. And the thing is, they have no idea it’s going to take 100 conversations because they’re beginners. Cue frustration, anxiety, helplessness etc.

If they knew what to expect it wouldn’t be so bad. That’s one thing I’ve been drilling with our members. In fact I’m a doomer about it. I tell them it’s going to take 1000 cold messages to get a client. Once they’ve managed their expectations, things become easier. Because they can focus on the process. Don’t have a client? How many DMs have you sent? Oh, only 500? Send 500 more.

And once they know the numbers they need to hit, they can manipulate time-to-result. 100 conversations need to happen to get a client? They can happen over 2 months if you manually cold DM people… OR they can happen in 2 weeks by spending $5/day on a Facebook Messenger ads campaign.

This is time travel.  Same activity, same conversion rate… Outcome achieved 75% faster.

The replay of Laurel’s ads workshop will be up in CopySkills within the next couple of days. She taught us one stupid-simple, set-it-and-forget-it campaign to get clients that costs $5/day and can be launched in 5 minutes.  If you want access to the recording, all you have to do is join us.

At the time of writing, a so-called “value post” post in the Nothing Held Back Facebook group has 74 likes and 70 comments. Serious comments. People agreeing and disagreeing and adding their own insights.

But the original post was written by ChatGPT.

I called the author out.

“This post was written by ChatGPT.”

His reply…

“100% why would I spend anytime trying to rewrite a post when I can use the robot to take my thoughts and put them down on paper better than I ever could? Makes no sense. Robot only works when you feed it the right information.”

Someone asked me how I could tell. I replied, because it doesn’t sound human.

If you want to be a thought leader…

Have real thoughts.  Not thoughts so banal they can be written by a mindless machine.  And if you’re an entrepreneur who wants to share real thought leadership with the world but have little time to do it, hire a ghostwriter. We care about your reputation and won’t ruin it writing drivel.

Here are two examples where we were successful:

• Mike Mark, where we doubled revenue and tripled ROAS in our first 30 days of working together.
• Joel Erway, where we grew 50% YoY and had 4 back-to-back record-breaking months.

TikTok user @briellebelly123 went viral when she broke down over her 9-to-5 job and long commute. She leaves early and gets home late. She doesn’t have time for anything else. If you haven’t seen the video I’ve linked it below.

Many people are making fun of her for this video but she has a point. A 9-to-5 office job with a 2-hour commute makes no sense. It’s dumb. Plus, she doesn’t have to accept it when there are much better ways to earn a living.

Here’s what I would do if I was Brielle.

1. Month 1: Learn a skill

Learn a money-making skill during commute. Assume she’s not driving. 1 hour there and back. 2 hours of uninterrupted learning time. Pick a skill and read 5 books on it. This will take a month.

2. Month 2: Freelance

Continue learning but reduce to 30 minutes per day during morning commute. Remaining commute spent on cold outreach. Talk to businesses that can use her new skills. Might have to work for free to get first client, just to get case study. Once she gets first client, do the client work on weekends. A typical retainer client can be serviced in 5 hours per week. If working for free upgrade to paid. $1,500-$3,000/month.

3. Months 3-5: Get more clients

Using the case study from client 1 to get 2 more clients. No need to work for free anymore. Raise prices with every new client. Client work is now 15 hours per week. Can power through this during the weekend or do 10 hours weekend + 5 hours weeknights. IMPORTANT: Must keep the clients she gets. That means do high quality work and get results.

4. Months 6+: Save money

Can reduce learning time to 1-2 hours per week. Continue outreach during commute. Never stop prospecting. No time to service new clients so start a waitlist. Getting on waitlist requires a deposit. New clients get onboarded if another leaves. By now freelance income is equal to or greater than 9-to-5 salary. Must be able to maintain this for 3+ months. But don’t quit day job yet. Need to save up 6 months of living expenses.

5. Months 9+: Quit job

Once 6 months of expenses saved AND freelancing income consistently => salary, submit resignation. She is free. God bless her.

wHaT sKiLl ShOuLd ShE lEaRn?

Doesn’t matter. I’m biased to copywriting. If she wanted, she could join CopySkills and we could coach her for 20 bucks a month.

Brielle’s video

This isn’t her most-viewed video on TikTok. She has others with far greater. Probably because most of TikTok is younger and the idea that the 9-to-5 life sucks is common knowledge. Where her video is going viral is on Twitter and Instagram.

@brielleybelly123

im also getting sick leave me alone im emotional ok i feel 12 and im scared of not having time to live

♬ original sound – BRIELLE

“Don’t be evil.”

Then they realize, huh… that’s dumb, and change it to:

“Do the right thing.”

A vague platitude everyone can agree on while effectively removing all accountability because it’s so ambiguous and open to interpretation. In trying to speak to everyone, they speak to no one.

I once saw on a copywriter’s website…

“Direct marketers care about results; we care about impact.”

What the falafel does that even mean? 2 things wrong with this.

Thing #1

The business owner now has no objective measure of the effectiveness of his/her copy. Conversions low compared to industry benchmarks? Fugedaboudit; we care about impact, not results. Plus, you don’t want to be too salesy, now, do you? People who want to sell are the bad people; they’re icky. And WE don’t want to be them.

Thing #2

A scarcity mentality about making money. These copywriters think of money as a zero-sum game. That is, if you give me dollar, you have lost a dollar and I haven’t given you something of equal or greater value in exchange. And you’ll never get that dollar back.

This is a peepeepoopoo mentality. Do not hire copywriters who think this way. Pay yourself what you would have spent on the copywriter and write the damn thing yourself. You’ll do a better job of it.

3 Money Mindsets

1. People pay me for the value I create
2. The more money I make, the more value I can create
3. The amount of money I make is an indicator I’m doing the right thing

Notice the money mindsets are contingent on creating value. It assumes your integrity in selling people what they need, and what can help them. Don’t go in faking the funk. If you do, the money mindsets are no longer valid and you’re actually harming rather than helping.

Have you worked with a soylennial copywriter before? Let me know in the comments.

Peterson brought a legion of people back to faith and tradition with a psychoanalysis of the Bible I like to call Petersonist Christianity. Tim Ferriss and Ryan Holiday have helped just as many live less anxious and neurotic lives through Stoicism. They turned Seneca, Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius into household names, selling millions of books in the process.

All three authors tap into the same human desire. Man’s search for meaning.

The human soul has a space that can only be filled by religion. New-age types bend over backward to say this is isn’t so. Ferriss for example is vocal on his aversion to organized religion while lauding the virtues of spirituality in the same breath.

Call it whatever you like. There’s no denying the positive effect it can have on people’s lives. So here you have all these atheists or agnostics following a religion of one sort or another because it makes them feel better about the lack of God in their lives. Stoicism, yoga, reiki, astrology… you name it.

If you can find a way to give people’s lives meaning you will make a lot of money.

This cannot be superficial or spurious. You must tap into that space in the human soul, the one that can only be filled by religion. You won’t fill it, not by a long shot. The only thing that can do that is Islam. But you will simulate the effects well enough to make all the money you can stand.

Are you still a Jordan Peterson fan? Let me know in the comments.

But I’m going to teach you a rule-of-thumb you can use to know who NOT to hire in under a minute. This rule-of-thumb has to do with a single word published on a copywriter’s website. If you ever see this word mentioned on a copywriter’s website… Run as fast as you can in the opposite direction.

E M P A T H Y

I don’t mean empathy is unnecessary to be a good copywriter. It’s essential. Just not in the way “woke” usage of the word connotes. It’s flippant overuse has made the word lose all meaning.

Like racist, misogynist, toxic, anti-semite, homophobe, transphobe, diversity and other woke buzzwords… in it’s current usage, Empathy is nothing more than a virtue-signal for a certain kind of individual. They dress the same, talk the same, eat the same, think the same. And if these people happen to be copywriters, here is what they mean when they use the word empathy:

“I care more whether readers like me when they are reading my copy than I do about selling your product, even if they desperately need what you are selling.”

These copywriters care more for how the customer feels about the problem than about actually solving the problem. Worse still, they care more for how they feel when selling a product than they do about helping the customer solve their problem.

“I don’t want to sound salesy.”

Moreover, there is a difference between empathy and perspective-taking. Empathy is feeling. It is subjective. Can you make yourself feel what your reader is feeling? How much of that is real and how much is projection?

Contrast this with perspective-taking, a cognitive skill.

To put yourself in your reader’s shoes. So that you can understand what keeps them awake at night and what it will cost them in the long run if they do not solve their problem. So that you can sell them your product the way it needs to be sold because you want to help them be the best version of themselves.

When you understand this fact you will understand the salesman’s mantra. Sales is something you do FOR a person, not TO a person.

BTW do you know what makes you feel fantastic about selling? When the product you’re selling works and your customers live better lives as a result. But they won’t get that chance if you’re selfish and don’t sell the way you ought to.

Are you hesitant to sell hard in your copy? Why? Let me know in the comments.

I get similar reactions when I mention my media company for Muslim men, MuslimMan, and my training program for global south copywriters, CopySkills.

The value of passion projects

Many people are genuinely interested in your side-projects because they like people with layers. In a crowded market it becomes easy to differentiate yourself from your competition. Your side-project acts like a calling card, a conversation starter, and a top-of-funnel touch point to pull prospects in.

Beyond this, if your side-project is something you’re passionate about you’ll find it much easier to create content for it. How many articles can one write about sales and marketing, anyway?

It also acts as a lab for you to test new business strategies and tactics. Selling my own products is why I am as good as I am. Because I’ve had to apply my knowledge to build an audience and sell them stuff. No amount of hand-copying sales letters will get you as good as selling with your words for real. And this learning happens on my own dime. I’m not spending my clients’ money to learn the ropes.

One final benefit: It adds another source of income. This gives you the confidence to stick to your vision and do the work you like, as opposed to compromising your values to pay the bills.

FU money starts with FU cash flow

The foundation of FU money is FU cash flow. Once you reframe it this way, it seems much more attainable. If FU-money is a goal, FU-cash flow is a system.

FU Money is subjective and abstract. At what point do you know you have it? On the other hand, FU Cash Flow is objective and concrete, and depends on factors you control. Best of all, FU cash flow lets you act as if you have FU money today and not some imaginary date in the future.

What’s your FU-cash flow number? Let me know in the comments.

I’m thoroughly enjoying your recent burst of daily emails! Blimey, how do you find time for anything else…?!

She’s right about the emails taking time. Since I just started doing them my writing pace is slow. I will get faster with practice. It’s one of the reasons I started emailing daily. I want to build a daily writing habit. A daily email keeps me accountable.

There are a number of other benefits to emailing daily. Here are 27 of them:

1. You will build a daily writing habit
2. You will get better at expressing your ideas in writing
3. You will be able to write faster
4. You will become more creative because you are forced to ideate daily
5. You will become more organized
6. Your most productive hours of the day are reserved for your own personal and professional growth
7. You are paying yourself first
8. You will get better at speaking what you know because your ideas have been formulated in writing before
9. Your ability to think and speak off-the-cuff will improve
10. You demonstrate consistency to the buyers on your list
11. You demonstrate your knowledge to the buyers on your list
12. You demonstrate your writing ability to the buyers on your list
13. You get to sell to your list every day
14. There is no negative effect on your email open rates and click-through rates
15. The lowest quality subscribers will unsubscribe from your list in short order
16. You can determine very quickly who your unengaged subscribers are
17. You can prune your list monthly as opposed to every 6 months
18. You brand value grows with every email because you are always top-of-mind
19. Your name gets associated with your product/service because you are always top of mind
20. You get more opportunities to test copywriting/selling/marketing/persuasion techniques
21. You lose the fear of writer’s block
22. You stop having writer’s block
23. Your learning as a copywriter/marketer is accelerated over 700% (weekly emails vs. daily emails)
24. You learn how to write good email subject lines and calls-to-action
25. You differentiate yourself from a 95% of all other copywriters who barely email their list or only email weekly
26. You learn a lot of advice you’ve read online about what works and what doesn’t work is bulls***
27. You learn the fundamentals of direct response marketing are king

I could churn out a few more but 27 is a nice number. If you want to try emailing your list daily, I recommend ramping up gradually. Go from weekly, to twice a week, to thrice a week, to every weekday, to daily. It will help you acclimatize to writing.

I jumped in cold from writing once or twice a month to writing daily immediately. That’s not what I would recommend for you. One, because you’re probably not used to writing so much so it will take you time to get used to it. Two, because you need to get organized and prioritize the email for the start of the day. Three, because you’re probably skeptical that emailing daily is a productive and profitable use of your time, and you need to fix your mindset.

I also don’t recommend outsourcing writing your emails to anyone. You want these emails to be a direct relationship between you and your readers.

Bonus Benefit

Email is the hand-written letter of our time. Write every email yourself. What I can help you with is putting the systems in place to make writing them easier like…

• Identifying your ONE reader (also known as your customer avatar or buyer persona)
• Come up with interesting topics to write about that HELP your one reader
• Put a process in place to simplify your writing experience SO THAT you stick to the task

If you’d like to learn more, check out Profitable AF Emails.

How often do you email your list? Let me know in the comments.

Boss Mode

I just spent a ridiculous amount of money (for me) on a piece of content that will be THE definitive piece on its topic. It will bring me traffic and customers for years to come. $500 to get it researched and written. $600 to get it edited and formatted.

Act like a boss even if you aren’t one. Spend like a boss even if you aren’t one.  The best problems to have are the ones you can throw money at to make them go away.

After almost 10 years of never needing to make my bed (no mosquitoes in Dubai) here I was… Twirling and twisting and loopy-tying my mosquito net like I had done as a boy, every day since I can remember, until I left Sri-Lanka for college… Then carefully placing the pillows like so, and covering them with the bed cover.

When I came back to Dubai, I started making my bed again. I hear James Altucher in my head off and on, saying, “How you do anything is how you do everything.”

Other people make a big deal of making your bed too. Military types, usually. So I figure, why not keep going? Making your bed carries over to your business. You start to look for bed-making opportunities. These are big or little tasks you can do first thing in the morning. They make your business run well. Or make you more money.

What bed do you need to make in your business? I can’t answer that for you. You know your business better than I do. BTW this metaphorical bed is something only you can make. It isn’t something you can outsource to someone else, or even want to. In my business for example it’s writing my daily email. There are a bunch of benefits to this activity. The most obvious of which is the money it makes me in new business.

When I first decided to email daily, it was the first task I did every day. I wrote the email in the morning and scheduled the broadcast for later in the day. So they went out like clockwork.

The past few days, I’ve been writing it at the end of the day and broadcasting the email as soon as I was done. You may have noticed the emails coming into you inbox later and later, and not at the same time of the day. And they are MUCH harder to write when your tank is on empty. Yesterday and the day before, I almost skipped writing them. The only things that kept me going were my stubbornness and pride.

So now I’m back to writing the email first thing in the morning. As I am typing this sentence, it is 8:36 am. The difference in quality, the ease with which I am able to express my thoughts, is night and day. So much so that I don’t know why I even bothered doing it any other way.

Enduring the discomfort of writing tired taught me to make my business bed. In turn, I am able to teach you not to make my mistakes. And if you think a little you’ll figure out which bed you need to make and then make it. First thing in the morning.

So which metaphorical bed are you going to make first thing in the morning? Let me know in the comments.

The first thing you must realize is men and women are different. No matter how many Feminist Dance Theory graduates tell you otherwise. A 1998 study by Frederickson et al. (University of Michigan) called, “That swimsuit becomes you: Sex differences in self-objectification, restrained eating, and math performance” observed the following:

Randomly assigned college women and men to wear either a bulky sweater or a swimsuit. The men wore swim trunks, the women wore one-piece bathing suits. Each volunteer was seated in a small room: no windows, no observers. Each volunteer was then asked to take a math quiz. Fredrickson and her team then compared how women wearing swimsuits performed on the quiz compared with women who were wearing bulky sweaters, and likewise for the men.

What happened? The men who were wearing swim trunks did slightly better than the men who were wearing bulky sweaters. The women who were wearing swimsuits did much worse than the women who were wearing bulky sweaters: they got only about half as many questions right as the women who were wearing sweaters. And remember, the women in this study were in a closed room with no windows and no observers.

And we can go into all sorts of evolutionary psych reasons why this is so. But you don’t need to know the science behind the phenomena, the why. You just need to know they exist. If you want to sell to women your product and copy must do two things:

1. It must save her from her boredom
2. It must relieve her anxiety

“When looking for a life partner, my advice to women is date all of them: the bad boys, the cool boys, the commitment-phobic boys, the crazy boys. But do not marry them. The things that make the bad boys sexy do not make them good husbands. When it comes time to settle down, find someone who wants an equal partner. Someone who thinks women should be smart, opinionated and ambitious. Someone who values fairness and expects or, even better, wants to do his share in the home. These men exist and, trust me, over time, nothing is sexier.” – Sheryl Sandberg, Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead

In her youth, a woman wants excitement. To be saved from her boredom. So she dates the bad boys. As she gets older, her anxiety over starting a family and securing long-term stability for herself and her offspring kicks in, and outweighs her desire for excitement. So she marries the nice guys. Alpha bux, beta bux. Boredom and anxiety.

That’s enough for you to apply them in your marketing with this one important caveat: You must only use these techniques for GOOD.

If you’re one of the good guys and if you’ve got something worth selling… and if you need someone to help you sell it… I’m your guy. Let me know in the comments.

It isn’t a coincidence these 3 topics are the best way to insult and emasculate a man. Nothing embarrasses a man more than to assert he can’t get laid, he’s broke, or he’s a fatty fatboy. Just because he doesn’t vocalize his insecurities – his pride would never allow it – doesn’t mean they don’t exist.

Even if it’s now become fashionable for men to be effeminate and flagrantly reject masculine virtues, he’ll never escape his core drivers and the desire to achieve what author Jack Donovan calls the 4 Tactical Virtues: Strength, Courage, Mastery and Honor.

If the 3 Ws are the pains and fears, the 4 tactical virtues are the hopes and dreams. Put in copywriting terms, you agitate the former and future-pace the latter. Once you’ve done that, he’ll do anything you ask. Buy your product… Jump off a cliff… Goose-step in formation while looking fabulous in Hugo Boss uniforms… Whatever.

If you’re one of the good guys and you’ve got something useful to sell… and you need someone to help you sell it… I’m your guy. Let me know in the comments.

Ciao.

P.S. Disclaimer: You must ONLY use this insight into the depths of the masculine soul for good.

P.P.S. Brian Kurtz said readers trust you more if you include a postscript.

It doesn’t work because short hair bristles are stiff and stick straight out. If you hold a short bristle of beard hair in your fingers, parallel to the ground, it’s as stiff as a rod. Hold a long bristle the same way and it’s going to droop towards the ground.

What they should do instead is leave it the hell alone. Don’t let a pair of scissors get anywhere near it. All the while caring for it by washing, combing and moisturizing consistently. As the bristles get longer the weight of gravity is what makes the beard “lay down”. That’s when you get the desired effect of a manly beard.

“I wanna go viral.”

“I wanna rank on page 1.”

Whether you’re going the social media route or the SEO route, content marketing is a long-term play. Don’t expect anything for 6-12 months. If you’re lucky and catch break, 3 months is a best-case scenario. Instead of worrying about search engine ranks or going viral on TikTok, do this instead.

Month 1: set up your funnel

• Talking to existing customers
• Documenting your customer avatar
• Documenting a content strategy
• Creating at least one lead magnet
• Optimizing your website to convert readers into email subscribers
• Set up email automations to nurture subscribers

Months 2-6: publish daily

• Daily publishing on social media
• Daily to weekly publishing blogs or YouTube
• Daily to weekly emailing your list
• Use reader feedback to create more content
• SEO favours a content velocity approach; 100 posts per month, not 4

Months 6-12: start seeing results

• Review your analytics – cut out what’s not working
• Improve existing content to include other keywords you are ranking for
• Maintain publishing momentum and don’t take your foot off the gas

Months 12+: scale to the moon

• By now you have an in-house media time and you’re publishing daily or several times a day on every platform
• Once the content machine is humming, add cold outreach or advertising or both
• Keep iterating and optimizing with ruthless focus

To sum up…

Figure out a system for creating, publishing, and promoting content that solves your ideal customer’s problems and stick with it for at least six months. You can do this all yourself if you’re willing to spend the time and money to learn it. Or you can hire people to do it for you.

Whichever option you choose, in-house or agency, AI will a lot of the heavy lifting. You can publish 1000 articles and 1000 social media posts every single month with a small team, if you know which tools to use.

How many pieces of content do you publish every month? Do you do it yourself or have a team (in-house or agency) do it for you? Let me know in the comments.

I‘m on day 3 of an affiliate promotion… and the way it’s going… I might fire my clients. This is not hyperbole.

Truth is, the best marketers on the planet…

Don’t do client work.

Why?

Because they do affiliate marketing instead

They do the exact same activities a client business would…

Minus the hassle of dealing with clients.

The best part is, they make more as an affiliate…

Than they would as a service provider.

And, the amount of money they make scales with performance.

Now, you might be thinking:

“But Nabeel, why can’t you offer a performance deal to the client?”

I have, to a bunch of them.

Only one of them took me up on it.

And that relationship didn’t work out…

Because the client wasn’t willing to do what I had to do…

To make them money.

And the clients who refused my performance deal?

They’d haggle with me on the percentage…

Even though I was the one taking all the risk.

Or, they were worried that if I succeeded…

They’d have to pay me too much money.

This is what I mean by…

The “hassle of dealing with clients”

They’re short-term greedy when they should be long-term greedy.

Here’s a perfect example:

I had a client I was doing email marketing for on retainer.

Before I showed up, there were sending zero emails.

After I took over their account, email was 33% of total revenue.

And total revenue had gone up 15%.

Plus, I made them ten times what they paid me.

That’s a 1000% return on investment.

I did this 2 months in a row…

So I’d proven I could deliver.

Now, this client was launching a new website.

And they asked me to write all the copy for it.

I told them I wouldn’t be able to write an entire website on our current retainer…

And I’d be happy to do the work if they’d pay a project fee.

I quoted a price – $7,500…

And even offered to split the payment…

Which is something I never do – I always get paid 100% upfront.

They rejected my offer out-right…

Didn’t even make a counter-offer…

And ended our relationship.

I don’t know what the f*** was going through the owners’ heads when they decided this…

But it’s a perfect example of “short-term greedy”

• Why stop the email marketing retainer when I was giving them a 10X return?
• Why take a massive revenue cut – from 30% via email to probably 10%?
• Why reject my proposal when I had proven that any money they pay me would return 10-fold?
• Why not make ask for a discount?
• Why not ask for more favorable payment terms?

The whole experience was baffling.

Again, this is what I mean by the “hassle of dealing with clients.”

A hassle that vanishes…

When you’re an affiliate marketer.

The entire relationship dynamic changes.

When you’re a good affiliate marketer…

Clients try to sell you on promoting their products.

They’ll give you a bigger commission.

They’ll change their offer to make it more attractive to your list.

They’ll offer to cross-promote your own products to their list.

They’ll give you exclusive access others don’t get.

They’ll beg you to promote them.

And you?

You get to be a snob and…

Pick the crème de la crème of offers to promote

You’ll only promote offers that are worth your time.

F***, man, even if you’re just an “ok” marketer…

You still get the better deal…

Because you never have to “prove” yourself to clients.

You just get approved as an affiliate…

Start making sales…

And keep what you kill.

And as you gain more experience, you’ll get better at marketing.

Which means your income will automatically go up.

And you don’t have to worry about justifying your “prices” to anyone…

Because whatever they pay you…

They’re always making 2x, 3x, 5x, 10x or more.

And the best part is…

You can get started today for almost nothing.

Because this is affiliate marketing in a nutshell:

1. Find a product you want to promote
2. Find an audience to sell it to
3. Sell it to them

There are literally millions of products out there people would love to buy.

And if you’re on social media, you have a built-in audience.

Selling?

It’s as simple as,

“Hey, there’s this product that does a, b, c so you can have x, y, z. If you want to buy it, here’s the link.”

What could be simpler?

With that said, if you’re looking to…

Start, scale, or grow a digital business in 2020 and beyond…

Internet marketing legend Matt Bacak just revealed…

How he built a 7-figure online business using nothing but “ethical email marketing…”

And getting paid on commission.

Plus, how he did it without creating a product…

Without fulfilling services…

Without running ads…

Without dealing with clients and…

Without dealing with customers.

The best part?

He only works 30 minutes a day…

while generating sales automatically.

It’s all revealed in his brand new book…

Secret Email System.

The Secret Email System is a counterintuitive approach…

To start and run a profitable online business…

While giving you the freedom to only do what you enjoy…

And live life on your terms.

Secret Email System is on sale for $5.60 this week only.

You’ll save $31.40 if you act quickly.

After this week is over, the price goes up to $37.

Click here to start your email marketing business today…

Plus If you act now…

I’ll also send you my Secret Email System Quick-Start Guide which includes:

1. Bonus #1: Quick-Start Tech Stack – The exact tools I’ll personally use when I implement the Secret Email System.
2. Bonus #2: Quick-Start List Building – The exact tactics I’d use to get my first 100 subscribers if I was starting from zero.
3. Bonus #3: Quick-Start Brand Building – The exact method I’d use, knowing what I know now, to build a social media audience from scratch.

It’s going to simplify the entire process for you…

So you can start making money with email marketing ASAP.

To claim this gift, all you have to do is:

1. After you buy the Secret Email System, take a screenshot of your receipt
2. Email a copy of this receipt to nabeel@dropkickcopy.com

Last I checked, I have 300+ ebooks, checklists, cheat sheets, presentations, infographics, etc. I’ve skimmed a handful. I’ve completed reading even fewer.

All well and good if you only care about getting your reader’s email address. If you also care about them consuming and implementing the information in your content offer, you need a better delivery mechanism. You SHOULD care; you put a lot of work into creating the content.

These days, video is all the rage so you may be tempted to create a mini video course. That’s pretty good, but it’s still a lot of work preparing the content, recording several takes, editing, and uploading videos… Even if all you do is use the camera app on your smartphone. Audio-only is a little less work but still more than what I’m about to teach you.

Today, I’m going to show you my secret weapon for turning readers into subscribers and subscribers into friends, using…

The Email Course

Here’s a screenshot of the analytics on my flagship content offer on one of my websites, a 5-day email mini-course.

As you can see, the open rates are stellar. The click through rates are awful because I didn’t think to put any links in the emails (except for 2 of them.) Here’s a screenshot of the analytics on the same course after I updated it and added “read this next” links.

^^By the way, if you’re wondering why the reports look different, it’s because the first one is from when I had my list on ConvertKit (the same account I’m sending you this email from today) and the second one is from after I moved my list to Drip.

If you want a benchmark of how well these emails perform:

• Open rates of 20-25% are about average; 26-30% are good (update for new readers: this is no longer the case after Apple’s email privacy update; now 40-60% is table stakes.)
• Click-through rates of 1-3% are average; 3-5% are good

The current average for the email course pictured above is 56% open-rate, 7% click-through rate. (Update for new readers: after Apple mail privacy updates you want a new subscriber welcome campaign to hit 60-80% open rates.)

What’s going on here?

Immediately after a reader subscribes to your list they are in a highly-primed state that can last for several days, even weeks, after the initial “buy” decision, IF you play your cards right. The crucial interactions with your readers at this stage will determine whether you own a cold list or one that is warm indefinitely.

Every email they open is an additional micro-commitment they make, increasing the chances the future emails will also be opened. Ditto for every link in an email they click on. You are training them to open and click on your emails. PAVLOV’S EMAILS.

This is why having a double opt-in and a welcome sequence are so important. And if you’re going to send them a bunch of emails anyway…

Why not make the content offer a bunch of emails?

Besides the blatantly obvious sales and marketing benefits, an email course is the best content offer because:

• You don’t need to design sheeyit; you just need to write a few emails
• It’s very easy to create and edit the content (words on a page, as opposed to images, video, or text)
• You can make revisions to the emails conveniently
• They’re a handy way to collect ongoing feedback from your readers in the form of email replies
• Subscribers who open and read your emails, then click through, are of a much higher quality than those who only follow you on social media, watch your video content, or listen to your audio content (people will disagree with me on podcasting but I stand by my statement; podcast listening is a purely passive activity)

How do I create an email course?

You need an email service provider like Bento, BerserkerMail or beehiiv to deliver an automated sequence of emails to subscribers. All ESPs have this feature in some form or another.

You create a course of 3-5 emails long, delivered sequentially 1 day apart. Then, you link the course to your opt-in forms and set the sequence to start whenever someone subscribes. At the end of every email you want to include a link to click on. That’s all there is to it.

I’ve implemented autoresponders on every popular email automation tool there is. My currect favourites are Bento, BerserkerMail and beehiiv. I pay for all 3 and use them in my different businesses.

Have you created an email course for your business? On which email marketing tool? Let me know in the comments.

1. Saying, “Email marketing is dead”
2. Wasting opportunities to link to your landing pages and optin forms from your social media accounts.
3. Posting frequently on social media but rarely asking people to subscribe to your list.
4. Asking people to subscribe to your list without offering something of value in return (e.g. bonus content).
5. Offering a ebook as a bonus content (if you actually want the information to be consumed).
6. Setting up complex automations for a tiny mailing list (or obsessing about funnels and segmentation).
7. Never segmenting your list.
8. Rarely mailing your list (less than once a week).
9. Giving your readers too few opportunities to opt-in when they come to your website.
10. Not using a double-opt-in.
11. Asking readers to do anything else on your website other than subscribe to your email list.
12. Distracting readers by asking them to share posts and follow you on social media. (if it’s worth sharing they’ll share it manually).
13. Using Accelerated Mobile Pages on your website (much faster on mobile but you sacrifice a lot of conversions).
14. Only having one content offer.
15. Having too many content offers.
16. Not resending your email to people who didn’t open it the first time.
17. Not pruning your list every few months.
18. Listening to people who say, “No one reads long emails”.
19. Only using email as a broadcast/distribution channel (like social media).
20. Making them come back to your website to read a blog post when you can just put the whole post in your email.
21. Not learning how to write emails that persuade the reader to click through.
22. Buying a complex email software like Infusionsoft when you’re not ready for it.
23. Signing up for Mailchimp (or any email tool) just because it’s free.
24. Writing weak copy on your landing pages and opt-in forms.
25. Not understanding email is the handwritten letter of our time.
26. Ignoring people who write you while you’re still a nobody and perfectly able to reply.
27. Never selling anything to your list.

How many of these mistakes are you making and what are you going to do to fix them? Let me know in the comments.

Read Next: 45 Email Marketing Tactics to Boost Response

You are a personal brand… Think of yourself as You, Inc.

Common advice on the interwebs in the current year. Based on what I see, the advice is woefully misinterpreted and misapplied. Most people think of personal branding as separate from their person. It doesn’t work that way.

Your personal brand is what people say about you when you’re not in the room.

“Don’t be a personal brand. Be a person.” – James Altucher

When you lose sight of this, your personal brand ends up being a caricature of who you thinkyou should be. Or, who you think people want you to be. In both cases you’re living a lie.

“Many people dedicate their lives to actualizing a concept of what they should be like, rather than actualizing themselves. This difference between self-actualizing and self-image actualizing is very important. Most people only live for their image.” – Bruce Lee

Let me give you an example of what I mean. Here is a post I saw the other day in a Facebook group:

“…One thing I get fired up about is getting women the kind of work environment that helps them thrive. That means women in leadership, speaking at conferences, at home writing away with their bevy of happy clients, coding at Google, shaping policy at the statehouse… wherever they dream about being. I want to create an environment where women can do what they do best: kick ass. That means giving men (and other women) resources they need to support women doing their best work. It’s action, not just inspiration.”

Now, I don’t know if she’s being sincere or not. I’ll give her the benefit of the doubt and say she truly believes this. But isn’t it a little convenient this is the exact same thing Every… Single… Woman… Online is “fired up” about? Convenient is putting it politely; I really want to say lazy.

The funny thing is, in the paragraph prior she gives us an glimpse into her personality:

“I’m the basic-est of basic (Target shopping mommy with a love for Starbucks mochas, fall, and the blanket-turned-wearable-scarf esthetic) and I’d rather joke about with friends that then turn it into a branding element. So I tend to shy away from physical traits determining my personal brand.”

Isn’t that much more interesting? And honest. It’s the kernel of an authentic personal brand. Here’s the thing…

When you live a lie you will be exposed

No… no one will find you out. You may be a pro at doin’ it for the ‘gram. But your subconscious will sabotage you because it cannot abide your hypocrisy. Putting on airs won’t last; your true personality will always surface. And all it will take is for something to go wrong or for you to be removed from your carefully constructed persona bubble.

So don’t be a personal brand, be a person. It will be better for your person AND your brand.

What’s the most authentic, REAL AF side of you that you’re afraid to show online? Let me know in the comments.

“I wonder if these strategic emails are gonna work in this market. I tried them before, was okay to response.” [sic]

There are buncha problems with this kind of thinking and basically any argument or train of thought summarized as, “I’m a special snowflake so that won’t work for me.” I’m going to try to list them in this email and see how far we get.

1. My market is different

Bullshit. A market is made up of people. And people haven’t changed in tens of thousands of years. The core drivers of human behavior remain the same. Therefore, the fundamentals of marketing still work and will continue to work on everyone.

For example, if you want to sell something to men, you sell them on one of the 3 Ws. Women, wallet, waistline.

2. This might turn off some people

You’re GD right it will. I want it to. I want it to turn off people who aren’t a good fit and focus on the ones who are my ideal customers.

3. We tried it and it didn’t work

Maybe your copywriter was a n00b. Maybe you didn’t implement the automation correctly. Maybe you went out and bought a trash list instead of getting qualified subscribers the right way. In any case, your failures aren’t mine.

4. This is how we’ve always done it

If you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you’ve always got. – Old-time motivational quote

“We BEEN doin’ it that way.” This doesn’t mean much in an environment where we still sell door-to-door and businesses are lighting millions of dirhams a year on fire buying billboards. I’m SO GLAD we’re not doing it your way.

5. I don’t like it and I’m going to tell you

Hate and love are the same emotion in the eyes of a marketer. The fact our interlocutor took the time to reply at all, means the marketing worked. The worst-case, epic fail scenario is when people don’t care at all. You want 9s and 10s… 1s and 2s… NEVER 5s, 6s or 7s.

Are you someone who does things just to do them or are you deliberate in your work? Let me know in the comments.

Good negotiators start by giving the other person an opportunity to say “no” at the outset. This relieves the pressure on both parties and allows the negotiation to proceed more rationally. And the good negotiator will continue to remind the other party they can say no at any time. This let’s the other party feel like they’re in control and increases the chances of a favorable outcome.

If you sell stuff to people you are negotiating All The Time. Even if you aren’t sitting at a gargantuan mahogany meeting room table in a three piece suit and bow tie. Don’t you want the negotiation to go in your favour?

You MUST make your reader say no to you. To be more precise, you must everyone who isn’t your ideal customer say no to you. How do you do this?

At every single touch point between you and your reader, you make it clear who you want as customers and who you don’t. Your website, your photos, your social media, your blog posts, your videos, your emails. They should all deliberately repel your haters and neutral fence-sitters and attract only those who LOVE you and want nothing more than to buy from you.

Now, to do this, you need to be comfortable with being polarizing. Everyone is polarizing. Only the smart ones embrace it. The dummies try to win everyone over.

One way I do this is by being ratchet on social media. The other way I do it is by emailing my list as often as I can (let’s see if I can keep up this daily thang.) I’m deliberately trying to get you to unsubscribe. Since I started emailing my list daily, several already have. The lukewarm ones, the ones who don’t open or click or unsubscribe… I will personally remove from my list. Only the real Gs will remain.

How often do you make your audience say NO to you? Let me know in the comments.

“And it wasn’t just [Monica], [JT], [Dennis]… and for many people… when I said Dubai you were the first person everyone said I should speak with.”

^^I’ve changed the names. This wasn’t a coincidence, mind you. It’s the result of a deliberate, 2-step strategy. Today, I’m going to show you exactly how I did it.

Step 1: Make yourself interesting and easy to remember

Now, this comes easier to me than most but I assure you, everyone can do it. First of all, I look remarkable (chocolate brown skin, bald head, massive beard, impeccably dressed in my photos).

Second, I’m naturally gregarious and opinionated. You don’t have to look or behave like me. But you DO need to figure out your personal style. And your personality, your weirdness, should be front and center in every interaction.

Third, and this is the most important, you need to have a crystal-clear unique selling proposition.

“Meet Dubai’s most expensive copywriter.” (Update for new readers: I no longer use this tagline deliberately but it’s stuck.)

I see a lot of business owners, marketeers, and even my own copywriting peers try to be clever over being clear. Nuh-uh. Not you. You won’t do that. You are going to be 110% clear before you even think of being clever. If you look at my USP above:

• I’m local
• I’m high-end
• I’m a copywriter

BTW there IS cleverness in my USP. Can you figure it out? Let me know in the comments.

Step 2: Make it seem like you’re EVERYWHERE

This can seem like magic but really it’s just how advertising works: Be top of mind. If you’re an internet marketer, it’s like pixel-ing your visitors so your ads can follow them around all over the internet. The global direct marketing fraternity is fairly small, and I used this to my advantage.

For the past 4-6 months, I have spent well over 5 figures and ~100 hours with the specific intention of creating and developing relationships with the kind of people in my industry who can make introductions to VIPs like the one quoted above. So when they started asking around in their network, everyone mentioned me.

This combined with my USP made it seem like I’m the Don Dada of copywriting and internet marketing in Dubai.

Vaynerniching

I call this strategy Vaynerniching. It’s a tribute to Gary Vaynerchuk because I got the idea from him. (Update for new readers: these days it’d be called Hormoziniching.)

What’s Gary Vee’s MO? Content creation at scale so his brand has an asymmetric presence on every online marketing channel possible. No one can deny it works; Vaynermedia grossed $100 million in 2016 and has over 600 employees. But a lot of people balk (understandably so) when you tell them they need to show up online like Gary Vee.

• A, It’s a massive investment of time and energy
• B, Gary Vee has an army of minions shipping his content for him (costing him big bucks)

Here’s the thing, though: YOU DON’T HAVE TO BE GARY VEE. You can’t be. Only Gary Vee can be Gary Vee. What YOU need to do is adapt his strategy and scale it down for your niche. You be the Gary Vee of your thing. The cool thing is, I’m not even close to maxing out on my own Vaynerniching yet.

How many pieces of content do you publish every day and to how many platforms? Let me know in the comments.

1. Beauty – We love beautiful people and things.
2. Function – We love useful things that serve us.
3. Excellence – We love quality and attention to detail.
4. Familiarity – We love people and things familiar to us.
5. Kindred Spirits – We have a natural affinity to certain people.

Beauty

First impressions matter. You want to have a clean, professional-looking website, even if it’s a pre-built theme. Headshots and other photos taken by a professional photographer. High-quality images on your website and social media feeds.

And if you’re the business owner, you need to be mindful of your appearance; clothes, grooming, bodyweight etc. Everything about your business should look aesthetically pleasing.

Function

Your business needs to serve your audience’s needs. It needs to solve their problems and improve their lives. By using your product or service, they must become better versions of themselves.

Excellence

You need to hold yourself and your business to the highest standards of quality. Develop a reputation for excellent products/services and a superlative customer experience. Pay attention to detail because the little things do matter.

Familiarity

You need to be in front of your audience all the time. The more they are exposed to you, the more they will grow to love you. You must always be top of mind. If they think of you, their mind should immediately associate it with your product/service, and vice versa.

Kindred Spirits

When Al-Ghazali talks about this he’s referring to the spiritual connection between certain souls. In our context, we can think of it from the perspective of personal brand. If you look at the online business space you will see a TON of competition.

Take coaching and courses on how to effectively run Facebook ads, for example. Do you know how many ads I see every day selling that? What makes you buy from one bro with a Zoomer perm as opposed to another? It’s that feeling you get when you see, read or hear them: These are my people.

Putting It Together

You need at least 2 of these factors for your business to survive. If you have 3-4, you’re doing OK. To turn your audience into rabid fans and be beloved in the eyes of your customers, you need all 5.

How many of these elements do you have? Let me know in the comments.

So it just makes good sense to keep your list clean, removing any unengaged subscribers. Most, if not all, ESPs have automations that can do this for you. Pretty straightforward, right? WRONG! Here’s an exchange that happened on Facebook a while ago.

One of the comments…

Look at this a**hole.

1. First, they’re the subscriber from bloody hell. Not only are they unengaged, they are maliciously engaged.
2. Second, they don’t even operate an email list of their own. Ergo, they have no idea what they are talking about.
3. Third, they have zero-self awareness. How can you call a completely uninformed opinion. “merely describing a different vantage point”?

Be very careful who you take advice from, especially on the internet. Anybody can pull nonsense out their a** and make it look like chocolate cake. It’s YOUR money and YOUR business; they couldn’t care less about you. You shouldn’t even accept what I say uncritically.

That said, it is my ethical responsibility to talk about what I know. And if I don’t know… to say “I don’t know” and refer you to someone who does.

When was the last time did a re-engagement campaign to prune your list? Let me know in the comments.

Step #1: Eat peepeepoopoo for a while

You need to find at least 5 hours a week to work on your business. That’s less than an hour a day. Where will you find it? It doesn’t matter where. You’ll make the time and do what it takes. You likely spend several hours a day scrolling social media, watching YouTube or doing something else that doesn’t make you any money.

Spend that time developing skills, finding clients and servicing clients. Don’t spend it faffing about on getting logos and business cards and building an eyesore of a website using Wix or Squarespace. You don’t even need a website to get started.

Step #2: Unfalafel your ideas about money

It’s cute to say, “I just want to follow my passion and do what I love, I don’t really care about money.” Until you have bills to pay and mouths to feed. I got bills to pay and mouths to feed. So the first part is optimizing for your happiness.

Happiness for me is being able to buy five plane tickets on short notice to go see my parents in Sri-Lanka or Germany. Or buying my mother a 1st class ticket to Dubai when she tells me she wants to visit. Or sparing no expense in homeschooling my children. Or being able to set up my very own home gym for powerlifting and weightlifting.

Even if you are single… Imagine being able to take a cab whenever you want without caring about the fare. Imagine going out for a meal with friends and picking up the tab without thinking ‘I hope I have enough money in my account’. Imagine being able to effortlessly write a check for a charitable donation. Money gives you options. When you have enough, you can choose to do what makes you happy.

The second part is optimizing for your client’s happiness.

1. Clients pay me for the value I create
2. The more money I make the more value I can create
3. Money is the simplest measure of the value I create in the world

Clients pay me for the value I create.

I’m a copywriter but clients don’t pay me to write words. They pay me to solve their problems through writing words. The better you are at solving your client’s the more he will be willing to pay you. He is happy to pay you. When you become the only one who can solve his problems, price is no longer an object. You can charge whatever you want.

The more money I make the more value I can create.

By investing the money you make back into your business, you’re able to create even more value. It could be something as simple as hiring a personal assistant or an accountant so you can spend more time working on and not in your business.

In my case for example I could invest in software to help my clients make more sales. Or hire more copywriters so we can produce more work for clients. I can now solve more of my client’s problems, making him more happy. In turn, he rewards me by paying me more money. It’s a virtuous cycle.

Money is the simplest measure of the value I create in the world.

It’s hard getting people to buy. Getting someone to open their wallet and give you their hard-earned money is the second-most intimate thing you can do with them. The fact you can get people to buy from you is proof you are able to make them happy.

Don’t put limitations on yourself before you even start. Working for yourself is not easy. Don’t artificially limit yourself with the wrong mindset about earning money. You are setting yourself up for failure before getting started.

Step #3: Your real job is ‘Salesman’

Say you want to start a solo accounting practice. What’s the first thing you do? Set up an LLC? Design a logo? Launch a website? None of these things. The only thing you need to do is try to get your first three customers. Until you get your first 3 customers that is the only thing you will be doing. And the way you get those customers is by talking to people who may need your services.

“If you are an author, you are not an author. You are a marketer and a salesman.” – Mike Cernovich

If you can’t get people to pay for your services, you are just another starving artist. If no one reads your blog you don’t have a blog you have a diary. Yes you have to be good at your craft. But being able to market yourself and close sales is the single most important skill you need for success. In my business, this is where I spend most of my time.

Step #4: Give yourself room to fail

Don’t burn the boats. That’s a sucker’s play. Especially if you have responsibilities. Mitigate risk by making a gradual transition from your job to your business. Don’t quit your day job until:

• Your business income equals your salary three months in a row PLUS
• You have six months of living expenses saved up

First, you’ll know your side gig works and you can make more money if you spent more time on it because you have the numbers to back it up. Second, you have a cushion of savings if things go horribly wrong for you. Third, and most important, an immense amount of pressure has been taken off you.

You now have the flexibility to focus on quality of work over quantity. You don’t have that air of desperation because you need to close that client to pay your bills. You can work on the projects and for clients you want to, rather than have to. You can also feel comfortable charging what you are worth, rather than competing on price.

In Summary

• Carve out a MINIMUM of 5 hours per week where you work on your business
• Reframe how you think about money: you are creating value in the world and you deserve to be compensated accordingly
• You MUST get comfortable marketing yourself and asking for the sale if you want your business to grow
• Burning your boats is overrated: nothing will ruin your ability be your own boss more than NEEDING to close that one client just to pay the bills

If you’ve successfully transitioned from full-time job to working for yourself, did you the same or different? Let me know in the comments.

“Breaking the fourth wall” is any instance in which this performance convention, having been adopted more generally in the drama, is violated. This can be done through either directly referencing the audience, the play as a play, or the characters’ fictionality. The temporary suspension of the convention in this way draws attention to its use in the rest of the performance. This act of drawing attention to a play’s performance conventions is metatheatrical.

Why does it work? When you scroll through your inbox you have a certain expectation of what type of subject lines you’ll see. Because you’ve likely seen hundreds of thousands of subject lines at this point, you’re on autopilot. You’re sort of paying attention, but not quite, and your brain is reducing its cognitive load by using heuristics (past experience) to decide which emails to open and which to ignore.

My subject line is an air horn at point-blank-range in the ear of the meditating buddha that is your half-asleep brain. They call that a pattern interrupt. Here’s another example from by buddy Ed Latimore. A true master.

99% of Ed’s tweets are high-quality self-improvement advice and he’s got some high-profile followers as a result, like Naval Ravikant and Scott Adams. So when he drops dimes like this A, you stop in your tracks and B, you burst out laughing. He’s breaking the 4th wall, in this case the theme of his Twitter profile, to break your auto-pilot (scrolling) and pull you into his world. Now he owns your mind.

The business applications are endless.

The pattern interrupt works best when your audience is in on the joke. When you have some shared mental model everyone is operating from. It won’t work if your audience has no idea what the hell you are talking about. I was thinking of using a line with a Street Fighter reference, but how many you have played the game and know what a Metsu-Hadoken or a Shungokusatsu are?

It follows therefore that breaking the 4th wall is best used when you are marketing to people in your industry.

So, in our case, when we’re talking to copywriters and marketeers.

To give you a better idea of what this looks like, check out this landing page I wrote for my content agency, Dropkick Copy.

Here’s what a copywriter buddy said when she saw it:

I freaking love this. Self-depricating, meta humor is so very much my favorite thing. Way to deconstruct and flip the typical opt-in. I especially love that you’re upfront on the fact that this is a daily newsletter and they shouldn’t sign up if they aren’t down with that. Perfectly aligns with your “transparent marketing” approach.

I can’t tell you how to do this for your market. It has to be 100% organic. You know your business and industry best, so I’m confident you can come up with a way to break the 4th wall that’s effective and 100% relevant to you and your people. Screenshot it and send it to me when you do.

Love peace and chicken grease.

The quicker, more agile and more flexible the weightlifter, the faster he is able to drop under the bar after the second pull. Meaning he doesn’t have to pull as hard on the bar to get under it. Thus, he expends less effort. An elite weightlifter is a fine-tuned machine balancing strength and agility.

Light and dark. Positive and negative. Masculine and feminine. Polarity. Yin and yang describe how seemingly opposite or contrary forces may actually be complementary, interconnected, and interdependent in the natural world, and how they may give rise to each other as they interrelate to one another.

Your business is a dance of brand and copy. Your brand is your relationship with your customers. It’s what they say about you when you’re not in the room. Your copy are the words you say to ask them to buy what you have to offer. The stronger your brand, the less copy you need to sell – quality and quantity – and vice versa.

What is Advertising? You are trying to create such a strong brand the customer doesn’t even think of buying; it happens unconsciously.

Copy is the second pull. Branding is the drop under the bar. Copy is strength. Branding is agility.

Do you notice the little black circle in the white segment and the little white circle in the black segment? Yang has some manifestation of Yin and Yin has some manifestation of Yang. The polarity is interconnected and interdependent.

Branding doesn’t happen without some amount of copy, directly or indirectly. Copy doesn’t happen without some amount of branding, directly or indirectly.

A lot of people (even copywriters) are discomfited by the copy you need to write to sell at the most competitive level. That’s OK; go build a brand so unforgettable you never even have to ask for the sale. As long as you understand how much blood, sweat and tears that entails. Polarity is about choices, and holding yourself accountable for those choices.

So tell me… How will you use polarity in your own business?

Someone said something to the effect of, “I want to sell without sounding too salesy.” I’m paraphrasing but you get the gist. To which I asked, “how salesy is too salesy? Is there like, a line where ‘up to here is not salesy enough’ and beyond here is way too salesy?” No one could give me a a straight answer. Here’s the best they could do: “It just feels icky.” Please shoot me in the face right now.

Let’s put aside, for a moment, a bunch of professional marketeers deciding what to do based on highly subjective icky-ness. It flies in the face of the fundamentals of direct response. The complexity of your sales messaging (aka how hard you sell) depends on many factors. And without getting too into the weeds, they boil down to the following:

• Your customer’s level of awareness
• Your customer’s level of sophistication

HOW you communicate with your audience changes the more aware and sophisticated your customers are.

Are you sending cold, paid traffic to a reasonably low-cost product for a one-off purchase to extract as many sales as possible? Well you better sell the samosa out of it. Are you building a legacy brand that will stand for generations? Then you need a softer touch to build long-term relationships with your customers.

Whatever your business model, your sales messaging is predicated on one thing: Understanding your customer. Research research research. That’s why it’s incompetent for marketers to say something is “too salesy” based on their feelings.

First, you are not your customer. Second, If your customer NEEDS a hard sell, and you DON’T sell hard enough, you lose. You’ll likely end up going out of business. What’s more, you are doing a customer a disservice and potentially harming them by not selling your product the way it needs to be sold. And that is a profound ethical failing many of these “I want to sell without being too salesy” types utterly fail to comprehend.

P.S. BFCM is coming up. You may save up to 50% or more on a shizzleton of offers. But you’ll save AT LEAST 100% if you exercise some self-discipline and avoid Girl Math.

I’ve thought of her these past couple of days.

She lives in Israel with her family. I wonder how my wife would feel if we were in her situation. I think about her children. Like me she has many. I wonder how my own babies would feel. I think about her husband. I wonder how I’d feel if I had to keep my family safe in a war zone.

I don’t know anyone in Gaza. I imagine if I did I’d think about them too. And wonder how we’d feel.

– Nabeel

There’s a right way and a rong way to demonstrate expertise.

The wrong way as you can see below is pretentious and lacks social awareness.

In fact I can guarantee you will look like a dickhead.

And you are unlikely to impress potential clients.

​

The right way:

“Hey I noticed there are several orphans in this typeset. It’s an easy fix. Just do x, y, z. Better yet if you send me the source files I can do it for you. Will take a couple minutes. Happy to help.”

This applies to copywriters, designers, developers, video editors, or really any service provider.

Learn to read the room.

Do you want to be a pedant or do you want to be rich?

If you’re a copywriter and you want to avoid mistakes like this join CopySkills.

– Nabeel

In the latest issue of WARKITCHEN magazine, Dropkick Copy pays homage to David Ogilvy.

Drops on Sunday.

​Keep an eye out.

Here’s the ad we’re running (might take a second or two to load so hang tight.)

To see a high resolution image of this ad, go here.

– Nabeel

And it allows you to import all past email broadcasts with one click.

Now you can read every email I’ve ever sent* to this list on my blog.

They’re all published under the newsletter category.

In the past, some subscribers have told me they binge-read my emails.

Here’s your opportunity to do the same.

I’d start with the last page and work your way forwards.

Enjoy,
Nabeel

*Except the automated emails

• Sales Page Speedrunner helps you write long-form TSLs and VSLs that convert in days as opposed to months.
• Writer With a Waitlist helps you work with better clients and more of them.

Other courses available inside CopySkills:

• Daily Content Machine helps you create and publish 120+ pieces of content per month for clients.
• Profitable AF Emails helps you turn your client’s email list into an ATM.
• Tweet & Get Clients is a social selling course for Twitter and similar platforms

Plus, we’re up to 10 guest lectures and counting:

• Social Selling Mastery by Michelle Terpstra
• How to Read Good So You Can Write Good by Jim Clair
• LinkedIn Lead Generation by Shreya Pattar
• Conversion Secrets of a 9-Figure Copywriter by Paul Jey
• How to Rewild Your Nervous System by Jon McIntyre
• How to Get Paid as a Global South Copywriter by Jay Makoni
• How to Run a Sales Call by ROGUEWEALTH
• Write Like a Writoor by Megha Lillywhite
• How to Sell to Women by Wendi Schenkel
• Sales Letter in a Day Documentary by Ryan Hunter

AND a dozen playbooks including:

• The 100-Word Email
• Sales Page Fundamentals: The Headline Stack
• From DM to Paid in 60 Minutes
• AI-Augmented Long-Form Writing Tutorial
• From Commodity to Category King

…And much more!

We’re adding new material every month.

But the content is a byproduct of CopySkills existence.

I designed the community for asynchronous communication.

So its real value is in your ability to ask questions and get answers within minutes.

​Master your craft and work with better clients.

– Nabeel

For saying he pays his Pakistani employees $4/hour.

I pay employees at my marketing agency 4 bucks an hour and they’re extremely grateful to be working with me. Let me explain why…

He goes on to say that this pay is for administrative tasks or unskilled labour like formatting spreadsheets and setting up email accounts.

The average salary in Pakistan is $280/month.

His VAs get paid $640 per month.

And he says if they perform well he gives them a raise.

Christian runs a lead generation agency.

A typical retainer is $2000 per month.

But for an experienced marketer who gets results, I’m sure Christian is making a minimum of $5000 per month plus performance fees.

I don’t have a problem with Christian arbitraging labour like this.

And I don’t have a problem with Pakistanis willing to work for $4 per hour.

It’s a win-win situation for both parties.

The only reason I’m using this example is to show you how much of a gap there is between value creation and value capture.

Christian himself is a victim of this equation.

His agency likely creates 6-figures in value every month for his clients…

From which he’s able to capture 5-15%.

If you’re a copywriter, media buyer, graphic designer, developer in the Global South…

Working for some occidental agency…

Understand that they’re marking up your work by 5-10X to resell to their clients.

And they’re only able to do this because…

​You’re not willing to build a real business for yourself.

– Nabeel

I had to fire a copywriter yesterday because she failed to adhere to the 10X Rule.

Before I tell you what the 10X Rule is, I must first tell you it has an axiom:

Everything is your fault.

If your default frame is to pass the buck, you won’t be able to understand or apply the 10X Rule.

This is both a mindset thing and a literal actual factual thing.

Every time I’ve had a client relationship go bad, I know it’s because I made a mistake somewhere.

Either I got complacent and started phoning it in.

Or I didn’t get the results I promised.

Or I didn’t meet the client’s expectations in some way.

And even if you don’t like the idea that everything is your fault, here’s another way to say the same thing.

It’s not your fault, but it is your responsibility.

This is true about life in general.

It’s even more true about your profession if you chose one that…

Requires you service clients.

The 10X Rule is not new.

I did not invent it.

Other experts/gurus have their own way of teaching the same concept.

Zig Ziglar, for example.

“You can have everything in life you want, if you will just help other people get what they want.”

Having said that, here is the 10X Rule:

You must give 10 times more value than you take.

Anyone who interacts with you should get a 10X ROI by simply breathing the same air as you.

That means, if a client pays you $3000/month the minimum ROI you must give them is $30000/month.

Directly or indirectly.

If you are unable to deliver a 10X ROI, you have 3 choices.

1. Get better (results, communication, management etc.)
2. Lower your prices to achieve a 10-to-1 ratio
3. Resign before you are eventually fired

– Nabeel

P.S. The Future of Communities Summit starts today. 12 pm to 4 pm Eastern time.

If you’d like to attend and you want my Community Launch Quickstart…

1. 1-month all-access pass to CopySkills, my coaching community. Get all our courses, playbooks, guest lectures, office hours and forums. So you have all the support you need to finally launch your community
2. 100% free membership launch tech stack. Build a waiting list, create massive hype, write your sales page and presell the membership. So you can validate your idea without spending a fortune
3. 3 60-minute implementation calls. Ask me all your questions LIVE about building your membership community, marketing it and selling spots. So you can launch your membership with confidence and certainty
4. Proven 7-day community launch promo. I’ve used this promotion with any product I launch for myself and clients. Simply plug and play and sit back while your community fills with members
5. Social selling swipe file. Examples of the social media posts I’ve used in the past when launching products for myself and clients. So you can fill your waiting list with hot prospects who can’t wait until you open for enrollment

​Read this and follow the instructions on the page.

You’ve probably wondered…

Why is copywriting so expensive?

Here’s why I believe the majority of business owners under-budget for copy…

And the majority of copywriters under-charge for their work.

We’re preparing a Challenge Funnel for a client that needs to work on cold traffic.

I counted up the deliverables.

• 6 landing pages
• 4 video scripts
• 30 emails
• 30 SMS
• 10 space ads

…If you want to do a thorough job and you want the funnel to convert.

Can you imagine budgeting only $3000 for this much work?

The emails alone are worth $6000 minimum.

And that’s before we get into value-based pricing.

Yes, you’re paying for good copy.

That’s a given.

But you’re also paying for volume.

It’s fair to say you’re grossly underestimating how many pieces of copy you need…

To market your business successfully.

And sure, you can get by with Upwork or Fiverr.

It’s better than trying to do it yourself.

But you’re better off working with someone long-term…

Because it takes time to get familiar with your business and your market…

And that’s difficult to do with gig workers.

Your best option is hiring someone in-house…

Or contracting out to an agency like Dropkick Copy.

– Nabeel

I felt a little sympathy the first time I saw a chick doing this.

But now it looks like they’re doing it for attention and donations from simps.

She works 40 hours a week making $21/hour.

That means she has enough free time to get a part-time job or freelance. If I was her, I would freelance.

Just 5 hours per week at her current hourly rate would give her an additional $420 per month.

One hour per weekday or she can do all 5 on the weekends.

Spend 20 hours learning a money-making skill like copywriting.

That’s month one.

Month two, go find clients.

There are 2,951,629 businesses in Canada.

She could charge $20/hour but there’s no need.

She’s better off charging $500-$1000 per month to write emails or handle social media.

Month three, get another client.

Now she’s making $1000-$2000 per month extra.

Rinse and repeat.

ONE client is all she’d need to make life-changing money.

She’d go from having $9 per month discretionary spending to having $500+.

Or she can cry about it.

– Nabeel

P.S. Another money-making skill she could learn:

​Community building/community management.

Stop trying to hit me and hit me.

That’s how a lot of copywriters’ work reads.

Instead of writing copy…

They write what they think copy ought to look like.

That makes their work conspicuous, contrived and insincere.

The opposite of what makes a sale.

Here’s a recent post from copywriter Alen Sultanic:

The most powerful type of copy is invisible copy.

The less attention it brings to itself, the better it’ll do.

Its purpose is to get in the mind and do change work, not to be analyzed or criticized.

Things that will make it more invisible:

• Use less hyperbole (no one talks using exaggerated outlandish statements)
• Speak like they speak
• Don’t overload math and logic that make their brains calculate
• Always do the math for them them
• Attach sensory experience everywhere you can, especially openings. What do they see, feel, hear, touch, taste, and smell.
• Attach current events and what’s going on around them.
• Make the story their story
• Always translate meaning for them, “this means that”
• Don’t have more than 3 characters in the story
• Make the sections connect and flow together
• Match the format of your copy to the format of the content they expand the most energy consuming

Stop trying to write copy…

And write copy.

– Nabeel

P.S. I’m giving away a 1-month all-access pass to CopySkills to business owners who want to launch a paid online community.

​Here’s how to claim your spot.

3:05 Chivas Regal [whisky] with the morning papers, Dunhills [cigarrettes]

3:45 cocaine

3:50 another glass of Chivas, Dunhill

4:05 first cup of coffee, Dunhill

4:15 cocaine

4:16 orange juice, Dunhill

4:30 cocaine

4:54 cocaine

5:05 cocaine

5:11 coffee, Dunhills

5:30 more ice in the Chivas

5:45 cocaine, etc., etc.

6:00 grass to take the edge off the day

7:05 Woody Creek Tavern for lunch-Heineken, two margaritas, coleslaw, a taco salad, a double order of fried onion rings, carrot cake, ice cream, a bean fritter, Dunhills, another Heineken, cocaine, and for the ride home, a snow cone (a glass of shredded ice over which is poured three or four jig­gers of Chivas)

9:00 starts snorting cocaine seriously

10:00 drops acid

11:00 Chartreuse [French liquer], cocaine, grass

11:30 cocaine, etc, etc.

12:00 midnight, Hunter S. Thompson is ready to write

12:05–6:00 a.m. Chartreuse, cocaine, grass, Chivas, coffee, Heineken, clove cigarettes, grapefruit, Dunhills, orange juice, gin, continuous pornographic movies.

6:00 the hot tub-champagne, Dove Bars, fettuccine Alfredo

8:00 Halcyon

8:20 sleep

First, if you don’t know who Hunter S. Thompson is, look him up.

Second, what does this man’s routine tell you?

Third, how productive are you, really?

– Nabeel

P.S. If you’re thinking of launching an paid online community, read this (5-7 mins.)

Tuesday September 12th 2023 at 9 am New York / 2 pm London / 5 pm Dubai.

I’m joined by Wendi Schenkel for a CopySkills guest lecture on…

How to Sell to Women

If you’d like to join us, simply join CopySkills (link below.)

A recording will also be made available to CopySkills members.

Wendi

Wendi Schenkel is the author of The Purse Strings Effect: The Secret to Selling to Women.

It’s a short, no-fluff book that gives you simple principles on selling to women.

Wendi and I have followed each other on Facebook for years and she strikes me as based.

I asked her to deliver this guest lecture so you can write better copy to female audiences.

Not only that, it will help you get more female business owners as clients, if that’s something you want.

More on Wendi

With a Lean Six Sigma Black Belt and a background as a former professional athlete, Wendi brings the rigor of strategy and the determination of a champion to her approach.

Her journey from the world of sports to successful business ownership has cultivated a unique skill set that bridges the realms of practicality and intuition.

Wendi holds a Bachelor’s degree in Metaphysical Science, is a Licensed Counselor, and a Certified Health Coach from the Institute of Integrative Nutrition.

Her extensive training in Hypnotherapy and Solutions-Focused Therapy equips her to guide clients through transformative experiences.

Currently pursuing a PhD in Transpersonal Psychology Counseling, Wendi’s dedication to ongoing learning is unwavering.

Wendi finds her own balance in life as a wife of 25 years, a mother of three adult children, and a proud companion to two Blue Heelers.

Splitting her time between Rochester, NY, and Palm Beach, Florida, Wendi draws inspiration from the tranquility of nature and the vibrancy of diverse cultures.

>>> Yes! I wanna know how to sell to women ​

– Nabeel

Here’s my answer.

Opt-in Intent

How many lead magnets did you opt-in ONLY for the free thing, with zero intention of buying anything from the person?

Before creating a lead magnet, what is your goal? Do you want people to book a call with you? Then why, especially, do you need them to opt-in to see the information before booking a call?

Why not give them the information first, without making them jump through hoops, and let the people who are serious enough to read or watch until the end give you their information?

This goes to WHY they are opt-ing in. Are they opt-ing in for information or implementation?

Someone who gives you their email address because they want to schedule a discovery call is different than someone who gives you their email address to get a lead magnet.

Quality vs Quantity

You can go either way.

Quantity is the objective with most lead magnets. They want to get as many leads as possible in the hopes that a percentage will convert during follow-up. But most of these leads are unqualified and may never convert.

My personal preference is to build a list of buyers, not a list of leads. If you haven’t bought from me and you’re never going to buy from me, I don’t want you on my list.

I’d much rather send email follow-up to someone who has:

• Booked a call in the past
• Purchased a product from me

Information Consumption

How many lead magnets have you opted-in for that you didn’t read or watch? In my case, maybe THOUSANDS.

Most people create lead magnets that only give people more information. But information is available everywhere and for free. And how are they consuming that information? Mostly they do it on YouTube and social media.

People don’t need more information. They need more implementation.

Market Sophistication

Your prospects have been marketed to for years. They’ve signed up for thousands of lead magnets and seen every possible type. Pdfs, videos, email courses, cheat sheets, case studies and more.

If your lead magnet is basic info they can find in a blog post or video, they will come away unimpressed. You asked them for their contact info and didn’t deliver enough value in exchange.

The Perfect Lead Magnet

Given all of the above, the perfect lead magnet is:

• Valuable to your ideal customer and useless to anyone else
• Worth far more than the contact details they’re giving you in exchange
• A tool that aids implementation

What that lead magnet is, I cannot tell you. Only you can answer this question because you know your customer and what their needs are. And if you don’t know your customer, why are you creating a lead magnet?

Fortunately, you can now use ChatGPT, Bing Chat or other tools to help you come up with ideas for effective lead magnets.

If you found this valuable…

And you want my help solving other marketing challenges you have…

I’m giving away a 1-month all-access pass to CopySkills in my Community Launch Quickstart.

​Here’s how to claim your complimentary pass and 4 other bonuses.

– Nabeel

Had a prospect reach out to me asking for help with their autoresponders.

Got on the phone with them…

Told them exactly what I’d do…

Quoted a price…

And told them to discuss and get back to me.

They asked for a performance guarantee.

This was after I sent them a case study demonstrating $300,000 in attributable revenue for a client in the exact same niche.

My response in italics.

We don’t do ROI guarantees.

One, and this is the main reason…

Because we have a solid track record of getting results for our clients.

This should give you a fair indication of what we can do for you.

Here are our case studies:

[LINK]

Please watch them before making a decision.

If our results aren’t good enough for you to feel confident working with us…

Then we’re not the best fit for you and we don’t deserve your business.

I gave them another reason – also relevant – but this was the main one.

They didn’t watch the case studies.

And replied with whatever their arguments were to justify a performance guarantee.

If I responded I’d just be repeating myself.

So I sent back a polite no and that was that.

Now, that may have not been optimal from a sales standpoint.

But when you have results like this…

You’ve earned the right to get paid your asking price upfront and in full.

eCommerce

Coaching program

When your work is featured in industry leading marketing education companies…

You’ve earned the right to refuse to jump through hoops to get clients.

Website: 300,000 visits/month | Newsletter: 130,000 readers

AdSkills is the industry standard for online advertising education

But before you can do any of this…

Before you can have this self-confidence…

You need a proven track-record of results.

So when I tell you:

I can help you go from community idea to community launch in 2 weeks or less.

That’s because I’ve done it.

I’ve launched my own community…

And I’ve managed so many promos…

I can tell you exactly what to do…

And what not to do…

Step by step.

All you have to do is implement.

I’m giving away my Community Launch Quickstart to a handful of serious people who meet all these prerequisites.

– Nabeel

​

Deciding which community platform to use.

This is a dumb place to spend time or energy on.

Every platform has its pros and cons.

And no platform is perfect.

More importantly…

Every platform has almost all the same features.

And they’re all priced about the same.

For example, if you’re in the high-ticket consulting space…

Skool is popular.

Out of all the community platforms I’ve tried Skool is the fastest app.

But Skool also has fewer features by design.

The gamification and leaderboards are a gimmick that lose novelty fast.

And they don’t let you use custom domains yet.

Meaning Skool’s traffic numbers are inflated (also by design.)

The Copywriting Collective and Copy That! use Discord.

Free community, free software – makes sense.

CopySquad and some other paid communities use Discord too.

But unless you fkn live in Discord you’re guaranteed to always be out of the loop.

And the app is a somnambulent sloth.

Slack is a shittier version of Discord.

Discord for Karens.

And you have to pay per user.

Good when your community is small, not so good when ur big.

Mighty Networks and Circle are good.

Both are pretty much the same in terms of features.

MN’s layout and what they call things are weird.

I hate when apps use new names for things that are different to what people have been using since forever.

Sidebar about email software:

Flows?

What, are you on your period? (Guess the movie. Hint: cranberry juice.)

Just call it a goddamn autoresponder like we’ve been doing for decades.

Circle is what I ended up using for CopySkills.

It’s got everything I need.

And they SHIP.

But because they have so many features the app is bloated and slow.

There are other community platforms I’m not mentioning – Discourse, that one James Shramko’s a partner in – but you get the gist.

If you spend more than 15 minutes thinking about this you’ll never make a decision.

Pick one and be done with it.

The real work you need to do is far more important.

I’ve mentioned what that is below.

And how I can help you do it.

>>> Yes! I’m ready to pick one and be done with it ​

– Nabeel

P.S. If you want my opinion your consideration set ought to be in no particular order…

• ​Circle​
• ​Mighty Networks​
• ​Skool​

Why not? I thought.

SaaS companies do it all the time.

CopySkills business model – using the term loosely – is “SaaS without the software.”

And Justin Brooke’s doing it with AdSkills.

I’m copying everything Justin Brooke did because he builds in public.

So what could go wrong?

A freemium SaaS user upgrades at around 2-5%.

That’s decent.

And the lead gen is easy.

Everyone loves free.

But here’s what you don’t realize.

They only upgrade if the free tier exceeds their expectations.

AND if your upsell marketing is dialed in.

You need both.

It is possible to deliver that experience while serving your paid users well.

But it wasn’t the right move for me at the time.

CopySkills was my first attempt at creating a community.

And I was building it on the side.

My copywriting clients took most of my time.

I’m a practitioner.

Not some hack who couldn’t make it as a copywriter who then turned to coaching other copywriters to make money.

And on top of that like an idiot I’d launched a second side hustle – MuslimMan.

We ended up getting to 270-ish CopySkills members.

220-ish were on the free tier.

Less than a handful upgraded.

I didn’t have the time to give the free members enough attention.

And I didn’t have the time to put proper upsell followup in place.

So a few months ago I deleted the free tier and all the free users.

They barely logged in anyway.

And some of them took liberties, pestering me with DMs expecting coaching.

I felt good about getting rid of these freeloaders.

It was a weight off my mind.

It allowed me to serve our paying members better.

And guess what.

New members keep joining at about the same rate or better.

We’ll hit 100 paying members by the end of the month inshallah.

Ain’t that something?

Mind you, I made other mistakes trying to grow CopySkills.

This wasn’t the only one.

If you want launch a community and avoid my mistakes, read this.

– Nabeel

“Free” was the first mistake.

Second, building a community takes a ton of effort from the creator to seed engagement and keep it high.

Third, gamification and leaderboards mean nothing unless there’s a real reason to engage beyond unlocking more courses.

One of the best examples of launching and growing a successful community has been Lemlist (they use Circle.)

They grew to 22,000 members with a superb offer of a free masterclass and bonuses when you invite friends.

But if you scroll through members’ posts today you’ll see there’s little to no engagement.

Most posts get less than 10 likes and less than 5 comments.

In Lemlist’s case it’s fine because the community is another marketing channel.

It’s a way to get people to buy their software.

But if you want to build a real, engaged community you have an uphill battle ahead of you.

One.

Don’t offer a free trial or a free tier.

If you do, don’t expect many to upgrade unless your upsell marketing is excellent.

Two.

Go into it with the expectation that you’ve committed to a 1-on-1 coaching program for a low-ticket price.

Overdeliver for your founding members to guarantee their success.

Three.

Grow slowly and deliberately.

100 engaged members are better than 1000 who barely show up.

Four.

Early on, you’ll have to be the leader driving most of the engagement.

Only once the community hits a critical mass will members start freely engaging with each other.

Five.

Take steps to remove the community’s dependence on you.

Hire coaches when you can afford to and replace yourself as soon as possible.

Six (bonus.)

If you’re thinking of launching a community, I’ve got something you should read.

It’ll take 5-7 minutes.

>>> Start reading ​

– Nabeel

• Ali Abdaal
• Codie Sanchez
• Sam Parr

If you know who these people are and enjoy their content…

It may interest you to know that they’ll be speaking at a virtual summit a couple of weeks from now.

Ali’s gonna reveal behind-the-scenes info about his $5,000,000 per year course business:

• How he gets unheard of course completion rates
• His top student engagement strategies
• Insights into the future of online business

Codie’s gonna share how she bolted a particular strategy onto her business to:

• Add a whole new revenue stream
• Increase customer lifetime value
• Set her up for consistent long-term growth

Sam’s sharing never-before-revealed strategies he’s using to build his new business “Hampton.”

• Look into the mind of a stone cold entrepreneur as he builds his next 8-figure business

If you’d like to learn from any of them – or all three…

This virtual summit is free to attend.

For more info, read this.

– Nabeel

P.S. There are 7 other experts speaking too but I’ve never heard of them.

I’m sure they’re also superb at what they do.

You’re in for an entertaining and profitable two days.

Read every word on the page I’ve shared below.

In it you’ll find an invitation to attend an upcoming 2-day summit for free.

As well as instructions on how to claim:

• 5 bonuses
• A full month of personalized support

…To launch your community by October 1st 2023.

It’s a 5-7 minute read.

>>> Launch your community the right way ​

– Nabeel

Copywriters, business owners and others…

Who tell me about their goals and plans.

They want to know if and how I can help them…

Or what advice I can give them…

Or to which resources I can point them.

On the one hand I want to show them professional courtesy.

And on the other hand…

I don’t care.

If there’s one thing you realize after hearing from these “pick your brain” types…

Is that most of them are talkers.

It’s like that scene in Game of Thrones when the Hound says,

“You’re a talker. Listening to talkers make me thirsty and hungry.”

You need information?

Use Google.

You want help?

I’m at your service.

I have an agency, a community, and a book.

Stop talking and get to work.

– Nabeel

In my day job I have a very public role in my local community. I find this job very rewarding and satisfying. But the thing is this job also comes with extra attention to my personal life.

I have stumbled upon copywriting and believe that copywriting will help me financially as well as being able to use copywriting skills for my job.

But I am holding myself back from establishing myself as a (part-time) copywriter as I am unwilling to use my real personal details for my copywriting.

I dont want people to know I am doing copywriting on the side.

Now recently Nabeel Azeez mentioned about pseudonymous brands and this seems like a very good solution to my concerns. This is something I will have to explore and figure out how to implement.

But what are your thoughts about my situation. Is the pseudonymous brand approach the way to go? Has anyone already done this?

He’s referring to my recent interview with John Caprani; let me know if you haven’t seen it yet.

And John was referring to a recent tweet of mine, where I said…

“Being a personal brand I used to shit on nyms until I realized I was being a boomer. A pseudonymous brand is superior to a personal brand in many ways. As the internet gets accustomed to buying from nyms, a personal brand loses all advantage.”

It’s true.

SaaSWiz, Sol Brah, Wiz of Ecom, Raw Egg Nationalist, the BowTied jungle…

And so many other anons…

Are building serious brands…

And making serious money…

On Twitter and other platforms.

You don’t need to reveal your name and face online to do business anymore.

Moreover, in some ways…

Posting under a pseudonym is easier than posting under your real name…

Because it introduces constraints.

Here’s my response to our CopySkills member.

A pseudonymous brand is perfect for you. There are many examples of copywriters promoting their services under a pseudonym. Mostly on Twitter but on other platforms too.

You won’t have the option of cold outreach via LinkedIn or Facebook, since they require real names, but there are workarounds for that. You’ll also have to make some adjustments to how you present yourself online.

Meaning, you’ll have to pick a starting niche, which I generally don’t recommend. This will make it easier for people to understand who you are and what you do. And your other online properties will need to match this persona you’ll create. Your domain name, your email address and so on.

But how do you get clients if no one knows who you are?

How can people trust you enough to give you their money?

Make them a good offer.

That’s how.

Provide a solution to a problem.

No one will care who you are.

They’ll only care that you get results.

This is true whether you’re anonymous or not.

If you want to know how to create offers clients pay for…

Without needing a sales call…

Join me in CopySkills tomorrow for our live workshop:

​How to Get Your First (or Next) Copywriting Client​

– Nabeel

Or your next client…

Or you’ve been doing it a while and want more clients…

I’m doing a live encore presentation of…

How to Get Your First (or Next) Copywriting Client

This Saturday 2nd September 2023…

At 4 pm Dubai / 1 pm London / 8 am New York

Inside the CopySkills community.

If you want to attend…

All you have to do is join CopySkills

• $20/month
• No contracts
• No long-term commitments
• Cancel anytime

Here’s what I’m going to cover:

• Day ZERO: The one and only job of a beginner copywriter. Using one of my cubs as a case study.
• The simple-yet-obvious reason why you aren’t getting clients. Copywriters hate to hear this but it’s true and it’s not because you suck at copywriting.
• 2 features of freelance copywriting beginners don’t know. Understanding them both will get you more clients than copywriters who are better writers than you.
• How prospects think. This is copywriting 101 and if you don’t understand it you have no business calling yourself a copywriter.
• Getting clients is free and spending money won’t solve your client-getting problems. We’ll prove it to you with this 100% free “tech stack.”
• Case study: how to go from DM to paid in 60 minutes or less WITHOUT getting on a sales call.
• Becoming nichesexual. The idea of “niching down” is correct but too many copywriters do it wrong and slow down their progress. Here’s the only way to do it right.
• No experience, no results, weak af portfolio… but you can STILL get clients by conveying a specific emotion to your prospects that CANNOT be faked.
• The perfect cold DM.
• The perfect cold email.
• The “invisible ick” you’re giving off when you reach out to prospects and how to fix it. No it’s not the perception of desperation.
• Eat this unappetizing and downright unsanitary food to get clients.
• The only content you ought to post as a n00b copywriter.
• Why you keep getting ignored or ghosted and how to go from “send me your portfolio” to “invoice paid.”
• How to “blue check” your online presence without being verified.
• How to sell anything to anyone using the 4 buying archetypes.
• Follow-up game and how to stay top-of-mind without pissing off your prospects.
• Live objection handling. Give me the most common objections you hear and I’ll tell you what to say in response.
• How to get clients as a copywriter without selling Copywriting (with a capital C.)
• Sometimes WOO can WORK. How I got two clients by meditating about money. Your mileage may vary.

The first time I delivered this workshop was last week, for Kyle Milligan’s CopySquad.

So it’s brand new.

And everyone who showed up, loved it.

In fact, here’s what successful Agora copywriter – one of the hosts of the Copy That! YouTube channel – Sean MacIntyre had to say about it.

”I have sat through, I cannot tell you, how many long-winded, loquacious, boring, fluffy, noisy discussions about outreach and how to get clients. And I cannot stress enough just how above and beyond the value that you gave in this particular presentation was. That was really cool, man!”

Joining CopySkills gives you the opportunity to attend this workshop live…

Get all your questions answered…

And get access to a recording of the event inside the community.

But you’re also getting access to:

• 3 courses on content marketing, email marketing and social selling
• Playbooks on specific topics related to copywriting and running a business
• 9 guest lectures from experts on writing, sales, mindset, business, personal branding and more
• The ability to ask any question, any time in our community and get an answer same-day
• Office hours 4 times a week if you prefer showing up to a live call

…And much more.

Come for the workshop and stay for all the additional value you’re getting.

If you’re a copywriter and you want clients…

This is a no-brainer decision.

If you aren’t a copywriter but you work with clients and you want more of them…

This is a no-brainer decision.

If you are a copywriter or you aren’t a copywriter but you work with clients and you don’t have any problems getting clients but you want to master your craft and get better at marketing and running your business…

This is a no-brainer decision.

>>> See you inside ​

– Nabeel

P.S. There’s a special surprise if you become a lifetime member.

But I only have 4 of these special surprises left.

You’ll have to join to find out what it is.

Last week copywriter John Caprani interviewed me about a bunch of stuff.

In this conversation you’ll hear:

• Why copywriters like Ramit Sethi and Joanna Wiebe counter-signal internet marketing and direct response
• How you’re losing clients without hearing a word about it
• Why you’re better off starting a pseudonymous brand rather than a personal brand
• Why you shouldn’t fall for the “Creator Economy” psyop
• How I think about building brands using first principles and second and third order effects

…And much more.

Enjoy

​

– Nabeel

​

I took the attendees through the entire process of client acquisition from start to finish with no steps skipped.

• Why you’re not getting clients
• What clients want
• Freelance copywriter tech stack
• Selling offers not services
• The perfect cold email/DM
• Selling over DMs
• Taking their money

Many of the attendees had been learning copywriting for some time.

But they hadn’t got the first client yet.

A minority had done some client work.

But they were finding it difficult to get new clients.

I thought I’d prepared enough material for 2 hours.

We ended up going for 4.

AND we’re doing a follow-up call because Kyle had a hard stop.

We couldn’t get through all the questions.

If you missed it you might’ve been SOL…

But I’ll be doing an live encore inside CopySkills next Saturday.

Everything you need to reach out to clients and close deals.

And all your questions answered.

Sound like it’s worth your time?

All you have to do is join.

– Nabeel

These past few months we’ve been writing for SaaS companies.

Mostly emails.

A few landing pages.

We did a homepage redesign for an AI startup.

Wrote the copy, did the wireframe and gave design direction.

Client’s web designer implemented.

We wrote two versions to test.

Both crushed the control.

Here are the results:

• +702.28% uplift for variation one
• +325.86% uplift for variation two

Check the PS for a hi-res screenshot

The client should use both as dedicated landing pages because they’re two different appeals.

Imagine paying a copywriter once and getting two landing pages that print money.

If you’re a business owner…

Dropkick Copy can do this for you.

Reply to this email if you’re interested.

If you’re a copywriter…

This client was an inbound lead that came in after a client I got using cold outreach sang my praises.

When you do it right…

You’ll only need to use cold outreach for your first 2-3 clients.

After that your business is a snowball of word-of-mouth and referrals.

I’ll be discussing this cold outreach client in detail in my upcoming workshop with Kyle Milligan.

• Why it wasn’t cold outreach but more like room temp outreach
• How you can replicate my results even if you have no experience and no results
• How to identify your prospect’s buying type so you can adapt your sales pitch to close the deal
• What entrepreneurs want, what to sell them and how to take their money
• …And much more!

The workshop is called…

How to Get Your First Copywriting Client

But what I’ll be sharing with you will also work to get your next copywriting client.

And it’ll also work to get you clients if you’re not a copywriter but a freelancer or consultant of any sort.

Workshop details:

• Friday 25th August 2023
• 12 pm New York / 5 pm London / 8 pm Dubai
• $67 entry fee
• Live session with recordings available

>>> Fix your client-getting problem for good ​

– Nabeel

P.S. Bonus gift:

Email me a copy of your receipt after joining and I’ll give you a 1-month scholarship to CopySkills.

P.P.S. Here’s the hi-res screenshot of our homepage test results.

I gave him some advice 6 years ago.

He took that advice and made millions.

​He’s my greatest marketing win.

Nate tweeted this recently.

“Every day that passes that you aren’t printing cash… it’s not just a missed opportunity. That money is LOST forever. Can make more in the future sure but the money you didn’t make today can NEVER be gotten back. You need to be printing NOW.” (Original)

Ain’t that the falafeling truth.

Opportunity cost is real.

Let’s say you’re a new copywriter.

You’re hand-copying, reading books, going through courses…

And doing the things you think will make you successful.

Except you’re wrong.

You’re doing the wrong things.

And that’s why you’re unsuccessful.

Because every day that passes that you aren’t getting clients…

Is not just a missed opportunity…

That client is lost forever.

Sure you can get clients in the future.

But the client you didn’t get today can never be closed.

You need to get clients NOW.

If you want to know how to get clients…

I’m hosting a live workshop this Friday called…

​How to Get Your First Copywriting Client.

– Nabeel

P.S. Email me a copy of your receipt after you join and…

I’ll give you a 1-month scholarship to CopySkills.

12 pm New York / 5 pm London / 8 pm Dubai.

Live workshop.

Recordings available.

How to Get Your First Copywriting Client

EVEN IF you have NO experience and NO results

Bonus:

1-month scholarship for CopySkills if you send me your receipt.

Stuff we’ll cover:

• How to fix the invisible “ick” you’re giving off when you reach out to prospects
• ​The simple-yet-obvious reason why you aren’t getting clients (No, it’s not your copy)
• Why you keep getting ignored or ghosted
• Becoming nichesexual, the only RIGHT way to niche down & not kill your progress
• The only content you ought to post as a n00b copywriter
• How to go from “send me your portfolio” to “invoice paid.”
• The only emotion you need to convey to get clients with no experience or results
• The unappetizing and downright unsanitary food you can eat to get clients
• How to “blue check” your online presence without being verified
• Follow-up game and how to stay top-of-mind without pissing off your prospects
• How to get clients as a copywriter without selling Copywriting (with a capital C)
• The 4 buying archetypes you can use to sell anything to anyone
• How to go from DM to paid in 60 minutes or less WITHOUT getting on a sales call
• Live objection handling. Get custom responses to your most common objections
• Why spending money won’t solve your client-getting problems
• The 100% free “tech stack” you can use to start landing clients today

…And much more!

>>> Get your first – or next – copywriting client ​

– Nabeel

P.S. Remember to send me your receipt if you want the 1-month scholarship for CopySkills.

P.P.S. I’m bringing a special guest with me so you DO NOT want to miss this workshop.

Were you at the webinar?

Apparently 500,000 people signed up.

And people who showed up late had trouble logging in.

Here are 7 things I learned from the webinar and the promotion leading up to it.

1. When launching a new product start promoting early.

I think they were posting about the webinar and running ads for a month.

This is not because people need advance notice.

Most of your audience won’t see your message.

And those who do need to hear it many times before they’ll take action.

2. The classic long-form webinar still works when done right.

“Right” means a lot of things here – authority, goodwill, incentives, content, delivery etc.

I never show up to live online events because I prefer to watch the replay at 2x speed.

But for this, I showed up early and stayed until the end.

3. Proof is the best persuasion.

Every aspect of this launch was proof and a demonstration that Hormozi knows how to do marketing.

When he taught concepts in his webinar he tied every single one to real experience in one of his businesses.

In fact he made me realize how little proof I have for the things know about marketing and rethink how I present my business.

4. The overwhelming majority of entrepreneurs on the planet know very little about marketing.

I was surprised by all the normies in the chat when Hormozi went through the offer stack.

The chat went nuts when he gave it away for free.

5. All the people criticizing this launch, the webinar, the book etc are far less successful than Hormozi.

I’ve made this mistake in the past and realized how stupid I was being.

Just get over yourself, Nabeel, and learn what you can from the guy.

6. Most of your audience are freeloaders and will never buy anything from you.

The sooner you come to terms with that, the more peace of mind you’ll have as an entrepreneur.

I saw this chick post in a marketing Facebook group:

Who has hot-takes about the Hormozi webinar?

Not a single hot-take in the comments.

Here are two.

First, if you watched Hormozi’s free content for 2 years…

Came to the live webinar…

Saw how much he’s giving away…

And didn’t buy at least 1 copy of the Collector’s Edition…

You will never be successful.

7. Most people who claim to be marketers don’t care about marketing and are LARPers.

This is the second hot take because of the amount of omg why is he being so promotional and salesy during the webinar b!tch@ss-ed-ness I saw.

Anyway, seems like the launch was a success because Hormozi’s team sent out an email saying they sold 200,000 Collector’s Editions out of 300,000 printed.

I expect they’ll sell the rest over the next 24-48 hours.

I bought a 10-pack of the hard covers.

I’ll be giving them away to the next 10 people who become lifetime members of CopySkills.

– Nabeel

P.S. If you’re a business owner and implementing all of Hormozi’s $100M Leads strategies is too much work for you, reach out.

Dropkick Copy can help.

The early seasons of Mad Men taught a lot more marketing & advertising.

They wrote the ad men showing their work.

Don coming up with “It’s toasted!” for Lucky Strikes, for example.

They also show Don coaching his creative team as they work on campaigns for him.

In one episode they’re working on Mohawk Airlines.

Peggy and Salvatore come in with new work.

“It’s obvious. I’m uninvolved.”

After staring hard at Salvatore’s artwork he takes a red pencil and outlines a child on the board.

“What about that?”

“It’s sentimental,” says Peggy.

After some back and forth, Don pushes her to do better.

That’s the quote at the top of this email.

“What did you bring me, daddy?”

She comes up with the Big Idea.

“Put that in your book,” meaning she should put it in her portfolio.

It’s a legit banger.

But all this is kind of advanced.

There’s a more important bit of advice in an earlier scene.

The other copywriters are presenting their work to Don.

Kinsey’s ideas all revolve around puns about American Indians.

“Stop writing for other writers.”

Man, oh man, if that isn’t true for many of the novice copywriters I see today.

Writing to impress other copywriters when they should be writing for the market they’re selling to.

Here’s some recent feedback I had to give one of our CopySkills members.

I don’t understand your question because you’ve embellished this post unnecessarily. You don’t need to write copy to impress other copywriters. Just give the context and ask your question clearly.

He was trying to ask a question.

This should have been simple and straightforward.

But his post was so pretentious and self-indulgent I couldn’t understand what he was saying.

Get to the point.

– Nabeel

P.S. Whenever you’re ready, here’s how I can help.

• Need copy? Dropkick Copy​
• Need training? CopySkills​
• Muslim man? 40 Hadith on Masculinity​

P.P.S. Want to watch the Mad Men clips I just talked about?

I’ve used her in the past and they did good work.

I paid her in advance like I do for all my contractors.

And even paid more than her quote, to cover PayPal fees.

Gave her a relaxed week-long deadline.

Two weeks went by and I still don’t have my videos.

And worse, she wasn’t responding to my follow-ups.

Yesterday I got my videos and a bullshit excuse why she couldn’t get in touch.

Plus she sent me my videos on some goofy file transfer service ’cause the files were too big…

Instead of just upgrading her Dropbox.

I didn’t say anything.

But I’m never hiring her again.

Nor will I ever recommend her to anyone.

A woman might be seeing several men concurrently…

Yet each man feels like he’s the only one she’s spending time with.

This is the secret of client retention.

And as silly and irrational as it sounds…

This is more important than ROI.

Seriously.

More important than how much money you make the client…

Is how you make the client feel.

Clients want to feel like they’re the priority.

Like they’re your only client.

The more effective you are at doing this…

The longer you’ll retain them.

Dozen matter if you have 20+ clients.

Act as if you have only one.

This is not easy to do.

Learn from these hoes.

– Nabeel

P.S. Whenever you’re ready, here’s how I can help.

• Need copy? Dropkick Copy​
• Need training? CopySkills​
• Muslim man? 40 Hadith on Masculinity​

Would you ask for a refund in this situation?

This is something that happened to me. Read it all first before you reply and tell me. And I’ll tell you what I did and why.

From December 2017 to May 2018 (or around about that time) I paid Traffic & Funnels (T&F) approximately $40,000 to teach me how to get clients.

I first joined their flagship program, ClientKit (CK.) That was $9800 for a 10-week program. Once that was done I joined their next tier up, CK Elite. Can’t remember the exact price but it was around the $10,000 mark back then. Four payments of about $10,000 each.

And did I get any clients out of it? One. A $1,500 project from someone I met in CK. I bet on myself in a big way and LOST $38,5000. Pissed off is an understatement.

I learned some months later they were going through a bunch of internal issues. Victims of their own success. When you scale a company you create mess and technical debt. A lot of things break. And T&F was scaling aggressively when I joined.

Turns out, I wasn’t the only one who was having a less-than-stellar experience. There were a lot of complaints about the support and results (or lack thereof.) At one point, one of their customers sued them, or threatened to sue them, or tried to get a class action lawsuit going. And one of their VIP customers broke off to create a competing product, taking a lot of the disgruntled students with him.

I know all this because one of the co-founders posted about it on more than one occasion. This is all common knowledge if you were around Facebook back then so I’m not saying anything revelatory.

Dunno how many refunds they had to give out but it’s a fair guess to say that number is not insignificant. It got so bad that the founders had to do damage control, posting in their client community about improvements they were making, how things were going to get better, yada yada yada.

This is my recollection of events from 2018, so they may not be perfect. But all of this happened. And I don’t know what T&F is like now; pretty sure they fixed all their issues because they kept growing.

And despite everything that was going on… All of the complaints and disgruntled customers and refunds they had to give out… Despite the fact that I dumped 40 grand down them and didn’t make my money back…

I didn’t ask them for a refund.

Business was slow and I really could’ve used that money back. But I didn’t ask for a refund. Let me tell you why. Maybe this is cope or cognitive dissonance or me rationalizing in hindsight, but this is what I remember. I looked at the situation in a few ways.

1. Did I use all the resources and support they made available? I did not.

I actually didn’t realize this was a group coaching program until halfway through. This was also the winter my dad passed on, so I didn’t log in for two weeks after signing up. Might’ve only active in the program for maybe 3 weeks out of the 10 allotted. And I only implemented around 20% of the program. Didn’t launch my webinar funnel. Didn’t get to the paid traffic part of the program.

Can I blame them for my lack of action? No. It was my own damn fault I didn’t get results.

2. Did I want to be THAT GUY? Did I want to be a refunder? I did not.

On top of the fact that I couldn’t ethically claim a refund, I didn’t want bad vibes that come with refunding. Call it woo-woo but I believe what goes around comes around. Plus, the high ticket space is small and people talk. You don’t wanna be known as a refunder.

No client has ever asked me for a refund.

3. Did I learn things that made me a lot more than $40,000? I did.

A few valuable marketing concepts like the 2-step. You might know this as the Auto DM campaign. I learnt it from them and then was one of the first people to popularize it on Twitter.

Sales, even though I don’t sell the way they teach. Qualifying people over DM, selling on the phone.

I learned how to write for the high-ticket space. Being in and around these people exposed me to the ideal customer, the business model, the pros and cons. Writing for a handful of clients in the high-ticket space has made me multiples of six figures and made my clients millions.

I also learned how NOT to built a business. One of the reasons why I’m still boutique is that I want ALL my clients to win. I don’t want 15% success rates, or worse, which is common in the high-ticket space. Not only does this model suck for customers, it sucks for the people working in these companies. There are plenty of stories.

4. Did I get an intangible ROI, something you can’t measure in dollars and cents? I did.

Being around 7- and 8-figure business owners. This was HUGE. Before T&F I was only hanging around other copywriters. Your average copywriter’s holy grail is $100,000 per year. In CK I was around people who’d make $100,000 per day. And I realized making six figures a year is EASY.

I met some magnificent copywriters/entrepreneurs. Sarah Temte, one of only two writers I’m professionally jealous of. Dennis Demori, we’ve collabed on a bunch of stuff. Sam Ocean, who’s doing big things partnering with creators. Fraser Wylie of Lambros fame, who wrote copy for Andrew Tate. Mike Mark, who ended up becoming my best client ever long after I’d left CK.

Mental Game. This was all Taylor. He’d casually drop aphorisms here and they’d be a paradigm shift. This one is vivid and I quote it often: paying your tuition.

Every entrepreneur has to pay their tuition. You can pay it over 6 months or you can pay it over 10 years. And you can’t graduate until you’re paid up. You might as well pay it NOW… SO THAT you can have the success you want NOW.

Normies and Coffeezilla-types will not get this. You have to be an entrepreneur to understand.

5. Did I die? I did not.

I did have to eat shit for many months until my business and finances recovered. But I made it all back and then some.

I’m good. My family’s good. My business has been growing every year. $40,000 well-spent imo. Charge it to the Game.

Alhamdulillah.

– Nabeel

P.S. If you think $40,000 is a lot of money to learn business, it’s not. I’ve invested over $100,000 in my education.

P.P.S. If you think this is a negative review of T&F, read it again and pay attention this time.

P.P.P.S. Whenever you’re ready, here’s how I can help.

• Need copy? Dropkick Copy​
• Need training? CopySkills​
• Muslim man? 40 Hadith on Masculinity​

Housekeeping: I’m leaving ConvertKit.

If you want to come along for the ride, be sure to click on some links in my emails.

You don’t need to buy anything if you don’t want to.

But your clickedy-clack will tell me that you’re engaged and reading my shizzle.

Inactive subscribers will be treated like a Muslim boy’s foreskin.

BTW if you’re curious and want to know where I’m going, let me know.

I feel bad for this dude.

He’s just an email marketer trying to get some visibility.

Only problem is he did it the wrong way…

By poasting “value.”

Tried to value-poast in a FB group and got roasted by the group owner, an internet marketing legend

Now there’s nothing wrong with teaching what you know.

It’s the best way to demonstrate expertise.

But that presupposes you have expertise and know what you’re talking about.

When you don’t…

When what you’re poasting is wrong…

That happens

See those 112 comments there?

That’s 112 people joining in to roast him, whether they have a clue or not (most dont, they’re just following the group owner’s lead.)

And he may never recover…

Because people nowadays are too weak to endure criticism.

Sidebar: I see this with our CopySkills members.

One blunt copy critique, one less-than-favourable piece of feedback…

And they have a meltdown.

They stop submitting work and they stop showing up entirely.

Many such cases.

I don’t feel bad for them.

On the contrary, I think to myself… Really, you’re that soft?

If you’re a noob… don’t valuepoast.

You don’t have enough experience to put what you know in context.

So your poasts end up being half-baked and specious at best…

Or downright wrong at worst.

Don’t fake it till you make it (terrible advice btw.)

If you feel like an impostor 9 times out of 10 it’s ’cause you are one.

So where does that leave you with regard to content marketing and promoting your services online?

Well, if you’re a noob copywriter…

Don’t poast.

Focus on mastering your craft, getting better clients and doing client work.

And if you must poast…

There’s only one type of content you can credibly speak on.

I’ll be talking more about this in an upcoming workshop for Kyle Milligan’s Copy Squad.

The workshop isn’t about content marketing.

It’s about how to get your first 1-3 clients as a noob copywriter without spending a penny.

Is that something you’d be interested in?

Update your preferences here (check the “I’m a copywriter/marketer” box)…

OR opt-in here (it’ll add you to the CopySkills waitlist)…

And I’ll send you the registration link when it’s live.

Love, peace and chicken grease,
Nabeel
​aka Yours Beardly
aka the Beardashian
aka The Gyal Dem Sugar
aka The Pumpum Pummeler
aka Mister Four Wives Inshallah

P.S. Whenever you’re ready, here’s how I can help.

• Need copy? Dropkick Copy​
• Need training? CopySkills​
• Muslim man? 40 Hadith on Masculinity​

Ecom Creative Powerhouse

You’ll notice something interesting.

The course is designed to help brand owners build in-house creative teams…

So they can create direct response video ads at scale.

Anvar’s giving away his secret sauce in the hopes that…

Brand owners will buy the course, go through it and say…

F this I’m just gonna hire Anvar’s team to do it for me.

But every course of this nature has an unintended side-effect.

Ambitious entrepreneurs can use the knowledge, systems and processes to…

Clone Anvar’s agency!

I mean, what is this…

• My Agency’s A-Z Process For Scripting, Shooting and Editing CPA-melting video ads for Meta & TikTok
• 21 Winning Scripwriting Frameworks For UGC, VSL & Non-narrated Ads Tested On $50m In Spend
• Database Of 347+ Vetted Actors and Content Creators To Save Thousands Of $$$ Wasted On Bad Talent
• The NEW Way Of Producing Thumb-Stopping Hooks & B-rolls, That Will 2x Your Avg. Playtime & Cut Your Ad Costs
• Step-By-Step Guide For Hiring, Vetting & Training Your In-house Creative Team, For 1/3rd Of Agencies’ Retainers
• 13 High-Impact Iterations To Multiply The Scale Of Your Winning Campaigns And Prevent “Creative Fatigue”
• Our Creative Testing & Scaling System For Scaling To $20k/Day (and beyond…)
• And a lot more to help you win…

…Other than an agency business in a box?

Even if you’d rather be a solo consultant for video ads…

You gotta admit…

This is a great place to start.

>>> Screw email copywriting… become an ecom creative powerhouse ​

– Nabeel

It’s not your skill.

It’s not your results.

It’s sorta maybe your niche but not exactly.

This is the ONE factor that affects how much you can charge for your services and how much money you’ll make as a copywriter, marketer or any kind of service provider.

How close are you to the the conversion i.e. the sale i.e. the money?

Or to put it another way…

How easy is it to attribute money made or money saved to your work?

• Funnels that work on cold traffic.
• Long-form text or video sales pages.
• Email list management.
• Conversion rate optimization.
• Ads that bring in new customers.

These are some of the most lucrative marketing services you can sell.

And some are a lot easier to sell than others.

Email marketing?

Hard sell or not as easy to sell as you think.

You’re fighting an uphill battle against clients who think emails out to be a magazine spread.

Video ads for eComm?

EASY SELL.

Clients are testing 10+ per week… sometimes 10+ per day… to find one ad they can scale.

So they need an endless amount of video ads to throw at ad platforms.

And they’re willing to pay top dollar for the best ads.

Because the best ads will allow them to spend $100,000 per day profitably.

So if you’re interested in selling marketing services…

Sell what clients want to buy.

You’ll have a much easier time building a business.

With this in mind…

My friend Anvar recently released a course where he teaches you…

Not just how to create video ads but also…

How to build a video ads team so you can scale production.

>>> Check it out ​

– Nabeel

P.S. Do not take this advice lightly.

Selling what people want to buy is the difference between…

Struggling to make $10,000/month and…

​Clearing $50,000-$80,000 months with ease over and over again.

See, to be successful only writing copy you have to be superb.

But if you’re average or just getting started…

Copy PLUS something else will help you stand out.

More importantly, with Copy+ you can put yourself in a category with far less competition.

Take my friend Anvar, for example.

Direct response copywriter and he’s pretty good, too.

Except he doesn’t write copy; at least, not in the way I do.

Anvar runs an agency called Creative Flywheel.

And he makes direct response video ads for eComm brands.

He’s damn good at it too.

Anvar used Copy+ to work with 73+ clients and generated 10s of millions of dollars for them.

So when I heard he’s teaching his methods on how to produce direct response video ads…

I just had to tell you about it.

But be aware…

Copy+ means you have to develop new skills.

You can’t just type into a Google doc and call it a day.

But if you’re willing to put in the effort…

You’ll make 5 years of business/income progress in one year.

>>> Check it out ​

– Nabeel

I signed up for Hyros a couple of weeks ago. Still haven’t finished setting up my tracking.

Just two examples.

I have a bookmarks folder for all my course logins. Many of them, I’ll never go through. Most of them, I’ll never finish.

​Copywriters​

Information isn’t the problem, it’s implementation. I heard Ray Edwards say you don’t need to know what to do, you need to do what you know. Once you start taking action for real, you’ll soon find coaching more important than information.

​Business owners​

Don’t buy a course when what you really need is someone to do it for you.

You think you’re gonna save money by doing it yourself? LMFAO. You’re not going to do it yourself; you’re too busy. Now you’re out the course money, plus the opportunity cost of not getting the thing you want to do, done.

Just hire someone to do it right the first time.

– Nabeel

P.S. My tracking will be set up and my ads will be launched. Soon-ish. The mark of a successful copywriter is that they’re so busy with client work they have no time for their own marketing. Kind of a cop-out answer but it is what it is.

P.P.S. I’m a published author.

Some of my work was featured in Harry Dry’s newsletter.

He runs marketingexamples dot com.

Can you guess what his newsletter does?

He shares a bunch of interesting marketing he finds online and offline…

And then comments on why he thinks it’s good.

This is the easiest way to build authority and credibility as an expert.

Curation + commentary = authority

You’re gathering interesting stuff and packaging it up for busy people to consume fast.

That means you’ve got the pulse of the industry and you know what your market cares about.

You’re commenting on said interesting stuff and explaining what’s going on and why it’s interesting.

That means you have expertise on the subject matter.

Put it all together and you become someone people in your industry ought to pay attention to.

There’s a catch, though.

Persistence.

You can’t just do it once or twice.

Chris Orzechowski wrote “Email of the Week” for 55 weeks straight.

And it doesn’t have to be written.

You can do YouTube or a podcast.

Short form video can work, though you’ll need much more volume because it’s ephemeral.

And it helps to know what you’re talking about.

You don’t have to be an expert.

Beginners can do this too.

Teach what you learn as you learn it by breaking down real-life examples.

Eventually, people will think you’re an expert.

And by then, you’ll have done so many reps that you will be.

Here’s Harry Dry’s bit about my copy.

***

I love this abandoned cart hook

“Did you know you can expense your…”

In fact, the whole email is superb.

One of series that adds $8k / mo in revenue.

For a higher resolution click here​

***

Correction: It made 8k in 2 weeks so 16k / mo.

It’s a bit odd seeing your copy marked up.

After 100,000+ reps you tend to write like that intuitively.

– Nabeel

P.S. Whenever you’re ready, here’s how I can help:

• Need copy? Dropkick Copy​
• Need training? CopySkills​
• Muslim man? 40 Hadith on Masculinity​

P.P.S. Show Harry Dry some love and subscribe to his newsletter. Link.

Excellent show.

Bit heavy on the feminism but it’s not anachronistic, which makes the feminist bits tolerable.

It’s Mad Men for comedy and just as good.

I see a lot of similarities between the two shows.

One in particular stands out.

If you haven’t watched either you’ll still understand what I’m about to say.

Midge (Mrs. Maisel) owes her career to Lenny Bruce (one of the pioneers of stand-up comedy as it’s performed today.)

In season one, Midge gets blackballed right as she’s getting started and can’t book gigs anywhere in New York.

During a set, Lenny invites Midge on stage to do a short set before he does his own.

He sees something in her and his endorsement lifts the ban and starts her career for real.

Her innate talent then allows her to rocket past other comedians in success and stardom.

Something similar happens between Peggy Olson and Freddy Rumsen, and then Don Draper in Mad Men.

Freddy “discovers” Peggy has an innate talent for copywriting and mentions it to Don.

Don, as creative director and a copywriter himself, is astute enough to give her a shot and mentors her until she becomes a Copy Chief and manages her own team.

Behind every strong independent wahmen is a man who gave her her shot, or one who pushes her to achieve her potential.

Note: The same is not true with the genders reversed. A woman involved in a man’s success typically plays a supportive role which, while important, is fungible.

Back to the strong independent wahmen.

The phenomenon I described didn’t just happen back in the day, it happens now, today.

These days, feminists call the phenomenon something gay like “male allies.”

Yuck.

Or if you’re on the opposite end of the gender war it’s called “simping” or “captain save-a-hoe.”

Much closer to the truth, but still inaccurate in the scenario I’ve described above.

It’s simping when the woman is incompetent and doesn’t deserve a shot.

And there are a lot of incompetent women who are where they are today, undeservedly, because of simps.

But…

When she’s talented and competent…

When she’s willing to do whatever it takes…

When she does deserve a shot…

It is male magnanimity, our “noblesse oblige,” that inclines us to help.

I knew this copywriter, Sharon (not her real name.)

Single mom.

One time she posted a frantic appeal in a copywriter Facebook group.

Rent was due and she didn’t have it.

She need to make some money fast.

A lot of the copywriters gave her ideas on how to make some money.

It was apparently lost on them that she can’t pay rent with ideas.

I reached out to her and bought two blog posts from her for the rent she needed to cover.

Paid her in advance.

Got the blog posts back and they were meh, not bad but not good either.

Gave her a testimonial anyway.

Later on I’d check in with her from time to time.

She was always struggling.

I’d try to advise her to do x, y and z to work with better clients and make more money.

But she never listened and she never implemented.

It’s like her identity was fixed at struggling single mother and she didn’t want to change that.

Broke is a situation.

Poor is a state of mind.

I stopped helping.

She was no Peggy Olson, no Midge Maisel.

So my magnanimity was wasted on her.

– Nabeel

P.S. I don’t mentor female copywriters. Or male, for that matter. But you can get the coaching and support you need in CopySkills.

So last week a prospect reached out to me for some email copy.

The brief would be to create a text-only, direct response-style email flow for abandoned checkout which we will be split testing against a ‘designed’ abandoned checkout flow. happy to hear counter points to best number / type of emails in the flow with any data you have. Looking for a quote for this please!

Sounds reasonable?

Sure it does…

If you’re retarded.

Now I already knew the answer to this question but I asked him anyway before telling him what I thought of his brief (don’t worry, I was nice.)

How many sales are you getting daily? How many abandoned carts are you getting daily?

His reply:

0 and 0. This is a new brand we haven’t launched yet.

Do you see where I’m going with this?

I’m gonna spell it out for ya anyway.

The main problem is he’s got his priorities ass-backwards.

All of his energy and investment should go into customer acquisition until he hits is first million in sales.

Spending even one braincell of thought on A/B testing rich text vs designed cart abandonment emails…

When you haven’t launched the goddamn brand yet…

Is a waste of fucking time.

The secondary problem is statistical significance.

Now I’m no nerd in a labcoat but in order to run a successful A/B test you have to understand a bunch of statistical shit like…

Hypotheses, sampling, p-values, etcetera, etcetera.

Long story short, this is why the vast majority of marketing testing is bullshit…

Because barring a few professionals, most people don’t understand this stuff.

Pop quiz:

How long will it take you to get to statistical significance on an A/B test when you have zero traffic?

Infinity hours that’s how long.

So here was my response to said prospect.

A/B testing your abandoned cart isn’t a good use of your time or money.

See? Told you I was nice.

Good thing I have this email list.

So what can we learn from this prospect Reader?

Here’s what you can learn if you’re a business

1. Don’t waste your time and money A/B testing anything until you’ve gotten to $1 million in revenue.
2. Designed vs rich-text is a stupid test to bother with in the first place. Just pick one and stick to it because…
3. You don’t need to send perfect emails (you can’t even if you tried.) You need to send a lot of emails. You need a lot of copy, period. All this hair splitting and pedantry will do nothing but slow you down and make you less money.

The more copy you can write and the faster you can publish it, the more money you’ll make.

>>> Dropkick Copy can help

Here’s what you can learn if you’re a copywriter:

1. If you don’t know them and are unsure of their competence, never take the prospect’s question at face value. In many cases they have no idea what the hell they’re doing and it’s up to you to be the adult in the room. Always ask follow-up questions.
2. Not always, but often, stupid inquiries like these are a red flag and you should be wary of taking people like this on as clients. If you’re new and can’t afford to lost the prospect, do what you have to do but keep it transactional and don’t make any concessions.
3. It takes time and experience to develop your intuition so you know when to push back. That’s why it helps to have someone more experienced in your corner to guide you.

On the third point, I had office hours this morning for CopySkills and one of our members had a specific pricing question for a prospect.

We worked through the pricing and we also role-played how to have the sales conversation.

Tomorrow, I’ll be giving our members’ feedback on their copy during our copy critique office hours.

On Wednesday, we have cold outreach office hours.

Plus if you can’t make the office hours you can ask any question or submit any copy for critique in our Circle community.

Just make sure you ask good questions, because I call out stupidity in the community.

>>> Join CopySkills today ​

– Nabeel

3 years ago I wrote a blog post reviewing Matt Bacak’s Secret Email System.

Recently I looked up how much that article’s made me to date.

$4,631.47… $3000 of it passively.

Some nice pocket money here

Not only that, it got Matt Bacak’s attention.

Matt’s a legend in the internet marketing so it was a feather in my cap.

​

He cold DM’d me, I never shared the article with him

I wrote a case study about it in the Copy Campus Facebook group which I don’t believe I’ve shared with you.

So if you’d like to know how to make semi-passive income writing reviews of other people’s products, keep reading.

Easy Affiliate Marketing for Copywriters

I just wrapped up an affiliate promotion where I made a smidge over $1,800 selling a $6 ebook. And I’m going to show you exactly how I did it.

But before I do that, let me tell you why I’m writing this post I’ve noticed several posts in this group and in the RMBC group, as well as callers on RTAB, where writers mention they’re waiting to get paid or that they’re saving up money so they can buy RMBC, Justin’s Letter, or Copy Accelerator LITE.

The good news is because you’re a copywriter you don’t need to get more clients or wait on your clients paying your invoices to make some quick cash to pay for whatever you like. I honestly don’t think any other kind of marketer could pull this off. Not at this level of efficiency, anyway.

‘Cause during this week-long promotion:

• I sent just 365 clicks to a sales page
• Made 147 sales
• Converted at 40% and
• Made $5 a click

I did this with a tiny list of < 1,000 people half of whom weren’t signed up to receive content about internet marketing. I also used my small social media audience of ~11k across Twitter (10.3k,) Facebook, Instagram, and Linkedin. And finally, about $300 in paid traffic, using the most basic campaigns anyone can deploy in a few clicks.

In a minute, I’m going to break everything down for you, step-by-step. We’re gonna go over the content strategy, paid traffic and economics of a successful affiliate promotion.

But first, there’s a caveat. For this promotion, the offer owner gave all affiliates 100% commissions on the front end and OTOs. He also ran retargeting campaigns. And because visitors were cookied for 60 days affiliates made a ton of “free” sales. Given these conditions, when you attempt the affiliate promotion strategy I’m about to share, your mileage may vary.

But even if you made an extra $1k per month. It’ll be the easiest money you’ve ever made. And this strategy has the potential to earn you an extra $3-$5k per month on autopilot. So, with that said, let’s begin.

Here’s what you’ll need:

• Website
• Email list
• Product to promote
• Google ads account
• Optional – Facebook and Twitter ads accounts
• $5-10 per day per platform for ads
• 30 to 60 minutes per day for 7 days

Don’t have a website? Don’t have an email list? Don’t want to run paid traffic? No problem. The strategy will still work. You’ll just make less money with it. And you’ll have to rely on a lot of social media promotion. And hope you get lucky with SEO. However, I’m presenting this strategy to you based on the assumption that you are willing and able to do all of the above.

Your affiliate promotion strategy:

1. 8-day launch sequence with 9 emails
2. Product review page + “bridge” landing page
3. Branded keyword campaign on Google Search
4. Boosted post on Facebook targeting page followers (optional)
5. Follower look-alike campaign on Twitter (optional)
6. I’ll go over each of these individually.

1. Content Strategy

EMAILS

The offer owner should’ve provided you with email swipes. This will cut your work in half. Because you’ll just take the swipes and improve on them. Otherwise, you’ll have to write all the emails yourself. Not a problem, because you’re a copywriter. Your email sequence will look something like this.

DAY 0 – DAY BEFORE THE LAUNCH

You’ll tease the promotion. A one-sentence survey email designed to get replies.

DAY 1 – LAUNCH DAY

You’ll reveal the product and send people to the product review. You should’ve already bought and gone through the product. One, because people who promote products they don’t own or don’t use are liars. Two, because it will make your review better than all the other affiliates who didn’t buy the product. Three, because knowing what’s in the product will allow you to create a bonus gift that you can offer people who buy using your affiliate link.

DAYS 2 TO 6 – CONTENT

The swipes I got for the offer I was promoting were all short and all hard sells. Now, I could’ve sent them as-is but I didn’t want to burn my list, so I added good content of my own and closed with copy from one of the swipes. For the call-to-action, I’d send them to either the product review or a landing page summarizing the offer, bonuses, and the exclusive bonus gift from me.

DAY 7 – CART CLOSING

Two emails on the last day. One at 8 am and one at 8 pm. With past promotions, I’d get a bunch of sales on the last day. Sometimes up to 50%. But with this recent affiliate promotion… The majority of the sales came during days 2-5.

RESEND TO UNOPENS

I send the day’s email between 6-8 am. Then I’d resend to unopens at 8 pm. But I never sent the exact same email. The subject line was different. And the body of the email was shorter. Sometimes linking to a “blog post” which was really just the morning email republished on my website. I also excluded customers from the segment I was emailing. They emailed me their receipts and I tagged them manually. The cart closing emails on the last day were not resent.

CONTENT

You only really need one piece of content and that’s the product review page. The “bridge” landing page can be helpful if you’re also promoting the product on social media, and to test against the product review with paid traffic.

I took the extra step of publishing 3 of my content emails on my blog. This gave me more options to promote on social media. I also republished a few of the emails as posts on Facebook, Instagram, and Linkedin. On Twitter, I’d summarize the day’s email in a Tweet and link to the blog version, the product review, or the bridge page.

2. Paid Traffic

This was the easiest part of the entire promotion. I ran 3 campaigns across Google Search, Facebook, and Twitter from day 2 to day 7 of the promotion. Some of the campaigns ran longer than others.

Google search ads sent the most clicks and was the cheapest. Twitter was expensive but sent a lot of clicks. I messed up the objectives on the Facebook ads so I didn’t get as many clicks there but got a lot of impressions.

In total, I bought 1,041 clicks for $258.

• CPC on Google was $0.16c and $0.35 for 2 campaigns.
• CPC on Twitter was $0.21 and $0.31 for 2 campaigns.
• Average CPC on Facebook was $1.68 across 4 campaigns (I think I screwed up somewhere when setting these up.)

GOOGLE SEARCH ADS

I ran two branded keyword campaigns. One campaign sent traffic to the product review. The other to the bridge page. The campaigns took me 5-10 minutes to setup and launch. Both campaigns targeted the same keywords, the product name and the author’s name, using what’s called a “single keyword ad group.”

So the campaign structure looked like:

• Campaign » 2 ad groups » 1 ad per group

The budget was set at $10/day for both campaigns.

The product review performed better, sending double the clicks at half the cost per click. Total, I got 503 clicks for $106.

FACEBOOK ADS

This couldn’t be simpler.

1. I posted to my public page
2. Hit the boost button
3. Selected engagement (wrong) or website clicks (right) as the goal
4. Chose “people who like my page and their friends” as the audience
5. Set the region to “Worldwide” and age to 18-65+
6. Set the budget to $5/day
7. And clicked submit.

I did these for 4 posts. The most expensive one, I turned off after a couple of days. I let the rest run until the end of the promotion.

And I don’t know if it was user error on my part (probably) or if the numbers on the ads manager were glitching, but Facebook shit the bed. 300 clicks but only 40 landing page views for $67. I know it wasn’t a website performance issue, because both the product review page and the bridge page loaded in less than 2 seconds.

TWITTER ADS

I ran 2 campaigns on Twitter. One targeting people who had engaged with my Tweets. The other targeting followers of the book author. I only promoted two tweets. But tweeted 18 times over the week promoting the offer.

Between organic and paid, I got 498 clicks for $85.

WHICH CAMPAIGNS TO LEAVE “ON”

At the end of the promotion, my EPC was $1.75 and my average CPC was $0.25. I would leave these on indefinitely:

1. The branded keyword campaign on Google
2. The follower look-alike campaign on Twitter

I could probably fiddle with the Facebook campaign so it’s working properly and run that indefinitely too. Now, based on these numbers, this strategy worked like gangbusters but only if exclude “labor cost.”

Which is why it’s important to talk about…

3. Economics

To earn those 1041 clicks, I did about 10 hours of work. It might have been more, but I wasn’t tracking my time. Assuming my effective hourly rate is $100, $1,000 of labor should be included in the CPC.

In which case:

• My CPC becomes $1.20
• Against EPC of $1.75
• For an ROI of 1.46X

And even though the math is still in my favor, it’s much less profitable that I thought. However, in doing far too much work…

I DISCOVERED A MINIMUM VIABLE PROMOTION

Of which there are 2 parts.

The first part is this:

If I focused only on writing the copy – that is, the emails, product review, and bridge page and delegated all the publishing to a Virtual Assistant, I could cut my work down to 3 to 5 hours. And the remaining 5-7 hours of work will cost me $5-10 per hour instead of $100, cutting the total cost of labor in half.

And in this case:

1. The CPC would drop down to $0.73
2. Against EPC of $1.75
3. For an ROI of 2.4X

The second part is this:

Because the paid traffic was so cheap, once the promotional assets are created the ad campaigns can be run indefinitely, as long as EPC > CPC.

The email campaign can be automated and run several times a year by getting subscribers to opt-in, or by delivering to new subscribers as part of a welcome sequence or some other automation.

Then, the labor cost amortizes to zero over time and the only expense is paid traffic.

Summary & Conclusion

You don’t need to go out of pocket to fund your copywriting education. Find a product you can sell, sell it and get paid. It’s far more enjoyable and exciting to use your skills as a copywriter to conjure money from thin air, which you can then use to pay for whatever luxuries you wish.

And there are five more benefits, for a total of six:

1. You can supplement your income without adding more client work. Just 10 hours of work and you’ll make money for years.
2. You gain “FU Cashflow” which is similar to “FU Money” in that it gives you balls. The difference is, it’s immediately accessible to you and you don’t have to wait years to amass enough of it to feel the benefits.
3. You hone your craft as a copywriter. You’re risking your own money and time and this will give you both experience and perspective.
4. You demonstrate to potential clients that you walk the talk, that you’re willing to put your money where your mouth is. Because who the fuck wouldn’t want to hire a baller who runs his own promotions, spends his own money on paid traffic and understands the math that governs all of Direct Response.
5. It’s better than writing free samples because you get paid to write the copy. And if you keep the campaigns running you’ll get paid commissions FOREVER.

You know, somebody messaged me the other day, interested in joining CopySkills, and asked me whether I teach direct response principles.

No, MF… I don’t teach direct response. I LIVE IT.

– Nabeel

P.S. If you’d like even more detail about this affiliate promo strategy, my friend Dennis Demori interviewed me about it. Watch it here:

​

​

Do you think it’s credible that the best player in the NBA only practices 3 hours a week? Does that happen? Or do you think they’re practicing 3 hours in the morning and also 3 hours in the afternoon and they give up their lives? The most incredible thing I saw in the NBA was that all of these men literally gave up their lives to play that game. To perfect it.
​
And that’s true for anything. Whether you want to be a filmmaker, an investor, an athlete, an actor, a surgeon. It’s an immutable law of physics, and you need to just get over it, that you need to put tens of thousands of hours. And if you cannot, or won’t, you should not expect the success and you should not complain. ‘Cause it’s not free.
​
– Chamath Palihapitiya

From this week’s episode of the All-In pod. Listen from 21:56 to 35:50. Link below.

I don’t know yet whether I’m going to be successful.

I’ve put in a few solid years but I need at least 10 more.

So when I say this, know that doesn’t come from a place of condescension.

The truth is, many of you won’t be successful.

Because you want the results without the willingness to do the work.

I see this with business owners who want the benefits of marketing without paying the costs of marketing.

I see this with copywriters who want the benefits of consulting without paying the costs of skill development.

Taylor Welch has an interesting synthesis of this where he says, and I paraphrase:

You have to pay your tuition. You can pay it over decades or your can pay it over months. But everyone has to pay whether they like it or not. And it’s only after you pay that you get the success you want.

Cosmic Laws aren’t broken except by miracle.

– Nabeel

P.S. When you’re ready to pay your tuition:

• Work with Dropkick Copy​
• Join CopySkills​
• Buy my book, 40 Hadith on Masculinity​

P.S. Here’s that link to the All-In Pod.

​

​

For the first hour of your work day, work on things that put money in your pocket.

For example, writing a daily email or writing copy for your own offers.

I’ve done it and it works.

However, I’ve found through practice I have near infinite energy when working on my own projects and limited energy when doing client work.

If I leave client work to later in the day, I don’t get as much done.

And that’s a problem because I’m a working copywriter and most of my income is still from client work.

But if I get my client work done early and have the rest of the day to work on whatever I like, I don’t get tired.

“You fight like a young man, with nothing held back.”

So, while Settle is right, I’d modulate his advice based on my own experience.

And so, here is my advice to you.

Creative work is based on energy management, not time management.

Work with your energy levels and you’ll get more done.

Stick to arbitrary notions of when to do X, Y and Z and you’ll be working against your energy levels.

This is also why it is mental masturbation to read about the daily routines of successful people in an attempt to emulate them.

Reading cannot take the place of doing the work to know yourself.

– Nabeel

P.S. Whenever you’re ready, consider:

• ​Dropkick Copy – my copywriting agency
• ​CopySkills – coaching for Global South copywriters
• ​MuslimMan – media company and newsletter for Muslim men

You’ll notice something that, thus far, you’ve only read in books.

Zarak has a $2500 course for scaling an agency with AI.

Josh Rosenberg has a $250/month membership that keeps marketers up-to-date on the latest AI developments.

Many such cases.

But here’s the thing:

Everything you need to know about AI is on the internet for free.

And the AI space is developing so fast that any product you buy will be obsolete in a few months.

So why are people buying products about AI?

People will pay for the curation, systematization and synthesis of information.

In the vast majority of cases, information products are never about information.

Information is free.

But analysis requires expertise, experience, taste and time.

That’s what people are paying for.

They’re buying time.

The time it takes to develop expertise, gain experience, form a point of view and synthesize information into something useful.

So if you know something people don’t…

Or you can do something other people can’t….

Sell it.

There’s a customer for everything.

– Nabeel

P.S. Whenever you’re ready, here are 3 ways I can help:

1. Business owners: work with my marketing agency, Dropkick Copy​
2. Copywriters: master your craft and work with better clients in CopySkills​
3. Muslim men: buy my book, 40 Hadith on Masculinity: How to Be a Good Man​

P.P.S. Here’s another realization you come to after you’ve been marketing a few years. There are only two selling propositions or promises you’re making to the prospect. You’re either making them money or saving them time. Every other selling proposition is a variation of one of these two.

P.P.P.S. The only copywriter/marketer I listen to regarding AI is Sam Woods. He has an AI newsletter called Bionic Marketing. Subscribe to that and look up all his podcast interviews about AI.

Saw this on Twitter today.

A Mexican handyman left a hand-written (or what appears to be hand-written) sales letter on this entrepreneur’s doorstep.

I’ll briefly mention what makes this an almost perfect ad for his business.

For a hi resolution photo of this letter, see the postscript

Here’s what makes the letter special:

• Handwritten. Personal correspondence. Doesn’t look like junk mail.
• Clear headline with curiosity, benefit and urgency
• Empathy. “We did not want to bother you…” and “I’m writing this letter to you personally.”
• Simple english. No jargon. Clear offer.
• Unique mechanism. OHT (what’s OHT? You have to read to find out.)
• Answers common objections via unique mechanism and artwork.
• One clear call to action.

There are machines that write “hand-written” letters.

Fascinating contraptions.

Price per letter varies depending on how many you want to send.

I don’t believe this letter is one of those.

It’s messy.

There are mistakes that have been written over.

In fact, if it was machine-written and they designed it this way, they’re geniuses.

In any case, I wish more copywriters wrote like this.

But they’re too busy “copywriting” to make the sale.

Oh, I forgot to mention the most powerful “sales tactic” used in this letter.

Sincerity.

– Nabeel

P.S. If you want to write as well as Jose the handyman, join CopySkills.

P.P.S. If you own a local business and want me to write you a letter like this for a direct mail campaign, book a call.

P.P.P.S. Here’s the high resolution photo of this letter.

My sister sent me this picture of our maternal great grandfather over WhatsApp.

Tuan Jamaldeen

Our family are ethnic Malay Sri Lankans.

Tuan Jamaldeen is Malaysian.

But his great grandfather was Japanese.

That means my great great great great grandfather was Japanese.

Making me and my siblings as much as 1/64th Japanese or 1.56%.

I shall walk around in a kimono, wearing two katanas henceforth.

Isn’t it interesting how little we know of our ancestry and heritage?

This is not the case in other cultures.

For example, some Arabs can recite their lineage for many generations from memory.

At one point I could recite the Prophet Mohammed’s ﷺ lineage going back to Prophet Abraham, peace be upon him.

Some Muslims can recite the Prophet Mohammed’s ﷺ lineage all the way back to Prophet Adam, peace be upon him, but to go back past Prophet Abraham, peace be upon him, one must rely on apocryphal reports.

There’s no marketing or business lesson in this email.

I just thought it was cool so I wanted to share it with you.

– Nabeel

P.S. Join CopySkills today.

CopySkills is at 88 members and growing daily.

Took longer than I expected but…

We’re going to hit our first 100 members in less than 1 year.

​

As soon as we hit 100 I’m planning to celebrate…

By giving the top 10 most engaged members in the community…

A free month of membership.

(Gonna PayPal them 20 bucks.)

Circle, the platform I built CopySkills on, tracks member engagement and gives them a score out of 10.

Our current leaderboard

​

​

But that’s not the only way our members can get a free month of CopySkills.

I’m currently running a janky, manual AF affiliate program…

Open only to our current paying members.

If they refer new members who stick around for at least 45 days…

I’ll PayPal them 20 bucks.

Easiest way to make a profit on CopySkills

If they refer 2 members a month…

And those members stick around for at least 45 days…

They be getting 40 bucks back.

That means I’d be paying them to be in CopySkills.

Ain’t that something?

This isn’t passive income, though.

They’ll have to work for it because they have to sign up new members every month.

But it gives them an offer they can promote while also marketing themselves online.

What happens when they start signing up 25 or 50 or 100 new members every month?

Now they’ve built a new income stream.

That means they’re less reliant on client work to pay the bills.

And they can be more discerning about who they choose to work with.

And that means they get what we all got into copywriting for.

Freedom.

Which makes joining CopySkills the best decision they’ve ever made in their lives.

IDK about you, but I’m excited for what’s in store for remainder of 2023.

We are SO back.

– Nabeel

P.S. If you’re wondering why a copywriter might promote an offer relevant to other copywriters when their target audience is business owners…

Here’s what really happens as you start marketing yourself online.

Most people post content about what they know.

So copywriters will talk about copywriting.

And talking about copywriting, while it does get you on the radar of potential clients…

Tends to attract an audience of copywriters as well.

For a long time, I was frustrated by the fact that so many copywriters followed me and so few business owners.

I’m a practitioner.

I do client work.

I didn’t want to be one of those barely above average copywriters who sells copywriting courses to beginners because they couldn’t make any Ps doing client work.

That tension was good for me because it allowed me to focus on mastering my craft and getting results for clients.

And even though I have a tiny audience compared to other influencers…

Eventually, my “copywriter audience” grew large enough that I couldn’t ignore them.

And they were asking for my help.

So I said fuck it and leaned into it.

But…

I wasn’t gonna be like those other copy coaches.

This is Yours Beardly we’re talking about.

I needed an angle.

I needed a way to stand out.

Copywriting training is a crowded market full of better copywriters than me with more results ($1 billion in revenue generated, for example.)

I needed a story.

Because in a crowded market, whoever tells the best story wins.

CopySkills is the ONLY training program for Global South copywriters.

No one else serves this audience.

Other coaches only want to serve “First World” copywriters – USA, Canada, UK, Australia.

The kind that’ll pay $3000/month for coaching.

The kind that’ll drop $5000 on tickets, flights, and hotels and fly halfway across the world to a copywriter conference.

Global South copywriters can’t do that.

They’re too “poor.”

They need too much coaching.

It’s too much work to serve them.

So they’re ignored – fuck em.

Here, miss 3rd world copywriter who makes $250/month…

Here, miss single mom copywriter trying to put food on the table…

Here, mister Ugandan copywriter who can’t buy things online because payment processors refuse to do business with African countries…

Download this free lead magnet…

Join this free Facebook group…

Subscribe to this free YouTube channel…

Aren’t you grateful?

Am I not merciful?

Feel like you’re making progress…

But never master your craft, never work with better clients, never raise your rates.

And feel shitty and sorry for yourself because you can’t afford to pay $4997 for a course or $999/month for a coaching program.

Not anymore, though.

Yes, you have to pay for CopySkills (we’re not communists.)

Yes, you still have to deal with all those payment processor hassles (pay us in Bitcoin.)

But you can finally get the coaching and support you need…

So you can finally feel like a professional, working copywriter.

And sure, maybe you’re not making $10,000/month or even $5,000 or even $3,000 overnight.

But you’re making progress.

One client at a time.

One project at a time.

One retainer at a time.

$1,000/month… $2,500/month… $4,800/month.

Where will you be a year from now?

How about three years from now?

Can you imagine it?

You couldn’t before.

​With CopySkills, you can.

​

This isn’t a film critique.

This is a marketing lesson.

Have you seen anyone talking about Oppenheimer on social media?

I haven’t.

Maybe it’s ’cause of the way my social graph is set up.

On my social feeds…

Everyone’s talking about Barbie.

No one’s talking about Oppenheimer.

THAT is marketing.

Before you can persuade, you must first be noticed.

A mediocre product with phenomenal marketing…

Will beat a phenomenal product with mediocre marketing.

I don’t make the rules.

– Nabeel

P.S. My use everyone/no one is rhetorical.

P.P.S. Follow me on Instagram.

Village by the sea.

Stay humble and stack sats.

Gach rud, the tradition will live on forever.

It’s Hotep Thursday.

Recognize any?

You would if you were in the right community.

Shared language makes people feel like they’re in a tribe.

Like they know something others don’t.

Like they’re with their people.

In-group members behave more favourably to each other than to out-group members.

Many racial and ethnic communities would rather do business with each other.

If you can create an in-group with your audience, a sub-culture of your own, you’ll access a tool of persuasion as old as humanity.

One of the reasons why email lists and podcasts are so powerful.

An email subscriber or podcast listener is of a higher quality and worth more than a YouTube subscriber or TikTok follower.

And when you layer on shared language you deepen the relationship.

Speak in a patois your audience understands and your non-audience does not.

They’ll love and reward you for it.

– Nabeel

P.S. Whenever you’re ready, here are 3 ways I can help:

1. If you’re a business owner, Dropkick Copy can help you sell more stuff. Book a call today.
2. If you’re a copywriter, CopySkills can help you master your craft and get better clients. Join now.
3. If you’re a Muslim man, my new book will show you how to be a Good man. Start reading now.

Now search YouTube for “Jocko St. Crispin.”

You’ll see an excerpt from episode 15 of the Jocko Podcast where Jocko attempts to recite the speech.

Despite not having any experience or training as an actor, the recitals are night and day.

You listen to Olivier, you hear an actor playing a king.

Playing at war.

You listen to Jocko, you hear a general addressing his warriors.

The difference, obviously, being combat.

Olivier had never experienced combat.

Never even served in the military.

Jocko’s a retired combat leader with a 20-year career in the Navy Seals.

He’s been involved in, and led men through, brutal fighting in Iraq.

You learn a couple things from this:

One.

There’s a world of difference between a teacher, mentor or coach with real experience in what you’re learning and one who knows the subject in theory.

Two.

It’s short-sighted to do tasks yourself you’re no good at, when you can afford to hire an expert to do it better and faster.

For example, let’s say you write your own copy.

You can spend an hour writing 1 email that makes you $1000.

Or you can pay a professional copywriter $1000 to write you 4 emails in 1 hour that each make you $500, or $2000 total.

In doing so, you bought back an hour of your time AND made $1000 more than you would have doing it yourself.

I’ve caricatured the numbers to demonstrate how to think like a CEO.

Even in a sub-optimal scenario–a weak copywriter–you’ve created leverage and profit.

​What happens when you work with strong copywriters like Dropkick Copy?​

Peace,
Nabeel

Cold email works best with soft offers that are low friction and do not require a significant risk or commitment on the part of the prospect.

The goal of cold email is not to sell them on your product or service, it’s to get them to reply to you.

If we assume that your offer has a long sales cycle–say, for example, it’s intangible like HR consulting–it’s unlikely a cold email campaign with a hard sell will be effective.

The only time you’ll get a positive response is when the prospect needs your services right now.

At any given time, the number of prospects who fit these criteria are 1-3% of the total pool of leads.

This is a problem because in order to win one deal, you’ll need 300-1000 leads.

But what about the 97-99% who fit your ideal customer profile and aren’t ready to buy right now?

That’s where Sideways Prospecting comes in.

We’re not going to ask them to buy “HR consulting.”

We’re going to ask them to do something else.

Like be interviewed on a podcast.

You’ll be following all the steps of a consultative sales process.

We’re just calling them a different name.

Your mini-webinar can be sent as background information about the podcast host.

The discovery call is the pre-interview “vibe check.”

The podcast interview is the sales call.

And so on.

Obviously the podcast must be authentic.

You must, in fact, publish a podcast featuring the people you interview.

A good place to start would be your past and current clients.

The added benefit to this approach is you’ll be building a brand and creating marketing assets you can repurpose anywhere.

In keeping with the HR Consulting example, a cursory Googling shows there are only two podcasts about HR in the UAE.

How does this make you money?

Well, a few of your podcast guests will be ready to buy right now.

And you’ve just done them a favour by making them micro-famous.

The rest of your guests will need HR consulting down the line.

Guess who they’re going to think of?

As long as you maintain the relationship, you’ll be converting 100% of your prospects.

Now or later, doesn’t matter.

This is not the only way Sideways Prospecting is done.

But if you sell an intangible offer or you have a long sales cycle e.g. Enterprise B2B sales,

Develop and publish a niche podcast where your customer avatar is the star of the show.

Write your cold outreach with this strategy mind.

And watch your positive replies, sales calls, and revenue skyrocket.

This is the way.

If you want our help writing cold outreach campaigns, reply to this email.

Hell, we can produce the show for you, soup to nuts.

We’ve done it before.

We can even build you an in-house media company capable of (eventually) generating 100,000,000 impressions per year.

That much exposure would cost you $10,000,000 per year in online advertising.

You’ll be paying 1000X less for it.

​Let me know.

Yours Beardly,
Nabeel

P.S. If you’re not interested in investing $10,000-$20,000 per month to have someone build an in-house media company for you…

We can still help you inside CopySkills.

Several business owners and marketing professionals have joined and are getting, essentially, a Micro-CMO in their back pocket.

We’re reviewing their copy.

We’re collaborating on marketing strategy.

We’re advising them on tactics.

We’re coaching them during office hours.

And a whole lot more.

​Individuals can join CopySkills for $19.99/month.

And you can also…

​Enroll your entire marketing team for $99.99/month.

P.P.S. Mason just opened up his CopyMBA Inner Circle to the public.

I asked him how much it costs.

It’s $4,000.

$19.99/month vs $4000.

Up to you.

P.P.P.S I didn’t invent Sideways Prospecting.

My former client Mike Mark did.

He’s the founder of Coaching Sales.

If you need sales reps, don’t talk to Cole Gordon unless you want to get ripped off or you enjoy working with lemons.

Talk to Mike instead.

Tell him I sent you.

Rents have gone up in my area.

My landlord would’ve been entitled to a $5000 increase.

But they’re required to give a minimum of 90 days notice before raising rent.

They didn’t.

Days before the lease renewal date, they tell me they want to increase.

I said no way.

The real estate agent who helped them rent the property would’ve taken care of this and followed all the regs.

But the landlord didn’t want to pay the real estate agent’s $150/year management fee.

This is the second year they’ve missed out on a rent increase they’re legally entitled to.

Total opportunity cost: $10,000

We’re renting at 50% of the going rate.

Now I’m gonna give the agent a 100% bonus for having my back.

Azeez family 2 – Landlord 0

Investing in your business is the same way.

Lately I’ve been talking to a bunch of founders.

Some of them balk at my rates.

It’s OK and I understand.

They’ve likely not worked with professional copywriters before.

But investing in good copy isn’t magic, it’s math.

If I said to you:

Give me $3,000 once and I’ll give you an additional $30,000 per month…

Would you say no?

What’s the difference between that and paying $3000 for a lead nurture or cart abandonment campaign?

Congrats, you avoided spending $30,000 and…

Lost out on $300,000-$500,000 per year in additional revenue.

Hashtag golfclap.

Just book a call bro(ess).

And business owners aren’t the only culprit.

I see the same behaviour in copywriters who won’t invest in CopySkills…

Or join for a few months then quit, saying they “can’t afford it.”

Mashallah you’re saving $20 bucks a month and…

Lost out on mastering your craft, increasing your rates, making more income and working with better clients.

Real galaxybrain play.

– Nabeel

P.S. If you’re a business owner and ready to work with Dropkick Copy, book a call.

P.P.S. If you’re a copywriter, join CopySkills.

P.P.P.S. If you’re a business owner and want to train your marketing team, join CopySkills for teams.

P.P.P.P.S. If you’re a Muslim man, buy my book 40 Hadith on Masculinity: How to Be a Good Man.

P.P.P.P.P.S…. just kidding lol

Adios muchachos

You can sell a 5-email campaign for $500-$1,500 or a 10-email campaign for $1,000-$3,000.

Since it’s not a huge investment you can close the deal over DMs.

That might take you an hour of back and forth or no time at all since some people will say yes on the spot.

Then you do an onboarding call for about 60 minutes; sometimes you won’t need one.

Writing the emails will take you 1.5-3 hours.

Effective hourly rate = $100-$200.

Sell one of these a day.

Take weekends off.

It’s hard work to be sure.

Certainly not “passive income.”

But it’s $10,000 a month made $500 at a time.

And while 10k is the holy grail for a lot of copywriters, many would be well-fed and content at $3000/month or $5000/month.

Even selling one or two of these packages a month makes a meaningful difference in one’s income.

Especially if one lives in the Global South.

You can apply this to all sorts of copy, not just emails.

Ads, landing pages, social media posts, articles, lead magnets, white papers and so on.

And those clients won’t be worth just $500 to you.

Do a good job for them and they’ll end up paying you $10,000 to $100,000 or more over the course of your relationship.

They’ll also refer their friends.

You can build your entire career and a 6-figure freelancing business off of these simple, $500 projects.

But there’s a catch to all this.

First, you have to be a good enough copywriter that your work gets results.

Second, you need to know how to sell over DMs or email.

Third, if you’re new to the game, you must be willing to send 100 cold emails/DMs to get 1 client.

Lucky for you, when you join CopySkills you’ll get help with all 3.

• All your questions answered. Business, sales, marketing, client management and more
• Unlimited copy critiques so you keep getting better
• Growing course library to level-up your skills
• Guest lectures from the best copywriters & marketers in the galaxy
• Engaged & active community full of supportive copywriters helping each other win

But don’t join if you’re expecting to mindlessly consume content and you’re not going to do the work necessary to master your craft and work with better clients.

>>> Join us today for as low as $19.99 per month ​

– Nabeel

P.S. We also have a plan for teams. You can enroll unlimited team members and get a private consulting forum for $99.99 per month. Check it out.

I told him it’s because he wasn’t doing the work.

Or that he’s doing it incorrectly.

He doubled down, blaming the fact that he’s from Nigeria.

Complained he has many obstacles to overcome.

But I know many successful African copywriters.

The reason they’ve been successful while many of their compatriot copywriters haven’t is that…

They don’t let the fact that they’re from Nigeria, Kenya or Zimbabwe…

Prevent them from doing what they have to do.

Stop blaming the fact that you’re from Africa.

Stop believing you’re a victim of circumstance.

Everyone has challenges to overcome.

We have many African copywriters in CopySkills.

And I’m well aware of their challenges.

Many of our resources were created specifically to help Global South copywriters.

For example, Jay Makoni’s guest lecture on how to get paid…

That is, how to physically get clients’ money into your hands…

When you live in a developing/3rd world country.

But these resources are of no use if a copywriter thinks they’re a victim.

Once you start believing that everything is your fault…

That the life you have is the life you want…

And you have control over what happens to you…

All of which are true…

And then take action based on these beliefs…

You’ll start making progress.

We do have some resources in CopySkills to help you develop the right beliefs.

But as far as my experience goes…

Physicality (action) creates mentality (thinking) more easily than the other way around.

That’s why CopySkills is less focused on information and more focused on implementation.

With that said…

If you’re ready to stop believing you’re a victim…

And if you’re ready to start taking aggressive action…

So you can create the life you want…

>>> Join CopySkills for as low as $19.99 per month ​

– Nabeel

P.S. We’ve just added an annual subscription. Pay for one year upfront and you get 2 months free.

P.P.S We also have a lifetime all-access pass that many of our members prefer because they’re long-term thinkers.

In yesterday’s email I told you I’d tell you more about the Danny Postma case study…

From DM to Paid in 60 Minutes.

If you haven’t read yesterday’s email or the case study…

Look through your inbox, they’re both in there.

Anyway…

The cart abandonment campaign I wrote for Danny’s AI SaaS, HeadShotPro…

Has been live for two weeks.

And he sent me the results.

According to Danny the campaign’s made $8000 since turning it on.

So if nothing else changes…

These 10 emails will make him an additional $208,000 per year.

He paid me $500 for them (you’re not going to get this rate, so don’t ask)…

So that’s an ROI of 41,600% in the first year.

But HeadShotPro is growing fast.

Which means more traffic which means more abandoned carts.

So the incremental run rate the campaign adds will go up as well.

I wouldn’t be surprised if Danny tells me a year later…

These 10 emails I wrote made him an extra $500,000.

Here’s another cool report he sent me.

This is a bit fiddly to read. Of the people who got email 1, 47% bought. Of the people who got email 2, 38% bought. And so on.

And if I’ve run the numbers correctly…

This campaign recovers 85 out of 100 carts.

That’s an 85% conversion rate…

And that is INSANE.

And in a few cases…

The campaign was so good it “reduced conversions.”

Here’s what I mean.

So good they don’t want the emails to stop

Some users were deliberately not buying because…

They were collecting the cart abandonment emails like Pokemon cards.

Pretty sure this dude in the screenshot bought after all that.

Given all of the above…

It’s safe to say that Danny’s happy with how this project turned out.

So he rehired me on the spot…

To write some more emails and landing page copy.

And off of the engagement from his posts talking about the results, I got…

17 new leads.

3 became clients.

2 I’m about to close.

2 I referred to my copy cub because my rates are beyond their budget.

2 I refused to sell because they don’t need to invest in copy right now; the Goodwill this bought me means they’ll hire me down the line.

1 triggered the asshole tax (see yesterday’s email.)

And the remaining 7 are still in the pipeline.

So with that said…

If you’d like to turn a few emails into a few hundred thousand dollars in additional revenue…

Reply to this email and let’s see if we can perform alchemy.

Yours beardly,
Nabeel

P.S. Even if you book a discovery call via Dropkick Copy you’re still gonna have to pass my pre-qualification via email.

So you might as well reply and we get it out of the way now.

P.P.S. The rate I charged Danny for the cart abandonment emails, I practically gave them away.

The only reason I did that is cos I was doing a case study for CopySkills.

And I cos I want more client results in the SaaS niche.

Therefore, you won’t be getting this extortionate discount.

You’ll be paying my normal rates, which are substantial.

If that’s alright by you, go ahead and reply.

Today’s email is a lesson in being a professional consultant.

When you DM me as a prospect who needs help with copy…

I’m likely to give away the entire solution for free and only charge for implementation.

But that’s only if you’re cool.

If you give me bad vibes, I’m going to MOG you.

Take this one prospect from yesterday, for example.

One of my SaaS clients, Danny Postma, shared early results from the abandoned checkout campaign I wrote him.

You might remember Danny from my “From DM to Paid in 60 Minutes” case study. More on this in my next email.

So a bunch of founders who follow Danny commented, asking for an intro.

I reached out to one of them and we chat over DM about some emails for a B2B subscription service.

I quote him a price.

This was his response.

Tell me you’ve never worked with legit copywriters without telling me you’ve never worked with legit copywriters.

Now don’t get me wrong…

It’s cool if you aren’t used to investing in quality copy.

And I’m more than willing to consult with you on why my services are worth the investment.

But this mf’s tone rubbed me the wrong way.

And this was after he saw the results I was able to get Danny.

My reply:

Results speak for themself.

For any reasonable person, this ought to be enough proof.

But no, he doubled down.

The equivalent of asking me to poast fizeek.

Anyway, that was enough to persuade him.

But it wasn’t enough to fix his attitude.

You don’t need to watch the video ffs. I’ve summarized the results in the tweet. He didn’t even bother clicking. IMBECILE.

At this point I’d had enough.

He Triggered the Asshole Tax

The asshole tax is a premium you add to your rates for the inconvenience of dealing with difficult clients.

If you’re a service provider, dealing with clients is your job.

So any client can be dealt with for the right price…

Though we all have limits and lines we won’t cross.

You can set whatever premium you want for your asshole tax.

And it doesn’t have to be fixed.

The more of an asshole the prospect/client is, the bigger the tax.

In my prospect’s case, it’s just a few emails so I set the asshole tax at 500%.

The goal of the asshole tax is to incentivize said asshole to fuck off. Or pay an obscene fee to incentivize you to put up with the asshole-ry.

Mission accomplished.

How to Set Boundaries as a Consultant

When you’re a freelance copywriter starting out…

Or any kind of service provider…

Even if you’ve got a little experience…

It can be difficult to set appropriate parameters for the behaviour you’ll accept from clients.

When you’re new, you have no idea what bad behaviour looks like…

So how do you know what boundaries to set?

And I’m not gonna lie to you.

Early on in your career…

You’re gonna have to eat some shit and deal with stuff you don’t like…

Just to build your portfolio and get testimonials and case studies.

Everyone’s done it.

Everyone’s compromised at some point.

Anyone who tells you otherwise is bullshitting you.

Eventually once you get a bit of experience…

You’ll be able to identify bad behaviour.

But maybe you’re shy or an introvert or a people pleaser…

So you don’t have the confidence to speak up for yourself.

That confidence comes with time as well.

Finally, you’ll gain enough experience and confidence that you’ll develop intuition.

Intuition will allow you to spot red flags before you even enroll them as a client…

Like the example above.

Now, you can figure all of this out by trial and error like I did.

You can deal with your fair share of assholes and not get paid enough to do it.

OR…

You can join CopySkills and get:

• All your business, marketing & client management questions answered
• Unlimited copy critiques so you keep getting better
• Growing course library to level-up your skills
• Guest lectures from the best copywriters & marketers in the galaxy
• Engaged & active community full of supportive copywriters helping each other win

For as low as $19.99/month.

>>> Enroll in CopySkills today ​

Shalom,
Nabeel

P.S. What does any of this have to do with Jonah Hill?

Jonah Hill’s been in the news these past few days because…

He’s a man who’s willing to set boundaries…

And define standards of behaviour he expects from women he’s romantically involved with.

You can look up the details online.

And FWIW…

If you’re a man who doesn’t want his women posting pics online…

Maybe don’t date a pro surfer/model in the first place.

This chick, Hill’s ex, was bipolar too.

And waited until Hill just welcomed his first child with his current gf…

To release the texts from Hill that she’d screenshotted.

Hill made the first mistake by dating her…

But he’s not the bad guy here.

More on this in my book…

40 Hadith on Masculinity: How to Be a Good Man.

Look it up if you’re interested.

Last year I predicted we’d add at least $300,000 to this client’s revenue.

My prediction came true.

If you run paid traffic to a book-a-call funnel…

I’m going to show you how to slash your cost per booked call and…

Add hundreds of thousands of dollars in additional top-line revenue…

Without improving your ads.

You’re about to see the results of one year of consistently emailing your list 3 times a week.

Results

• 1089 sales calls booked
• 89 front end units sold
• 9.81 bookings per email on average
• 0.80 new clients per email on average
• $317,180.49 front-end revenue from email
• $217,843.02 cash collected or 68.70%
• 20-30% of total revenue from email
• 10.3X ROI

With an UNDERPERFORMING sales team (you’ll see why in the video)

Client Background

• Financial niche
• Group coaching offer
• $5,000 nominal price point (again, you’ll see why)
• Main traffic source was YT ads
• No organic presence

What We Did

• 3 emails per week
• Resend to unopens on off days with new subject/preview
• Direct response with hard sell and one CTA to book a call
• No content, no “value”

How We’d Improve Results

With a few improvements to our email strategy and their offer and sales process…

This client can more than double their email revenue.

You’ll have to watch until the end to find out what those improvements are

​

Enjoy
Nabeel

​

Important:

1. I’m not anonymizing the client’s name because he’s a build-in-public-type and shared this interaction on Twitter. You’ll also learn more when I give you all the context.
2. Before you can do this you need a decent social media profile (optimized pfp and bio, some followers and content) and some way to demonstrate competence (results or portfolio.) You don’t need to be as experienced as me or have results like mine. You can do this as a beginner, it’ll just be a little harder. E.g. you might close 1-3 clients out of 100 DMs.
3. In situations like the one you’ll see below, speed is the most important factor. Whoever responds the fastest gets the deal.
4. Your rates will depend on the context.
   1. Who you are – your brand and your experience
   2. Who the client is – big name or nobody
   3. Their business model – low-ticket or high-ticket
   4. Your goal – make a profit or get your foot in the door
   5. Your minimum hourly rate – see Freelancer Pricing Playbook

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I got tagged under this post by a friend and DM’d him immediately. This is not cold outreach. He expressed buying intent so he’s a warm lead. But we don’t know each other. He doesn’t follow me and I wasn’t following him. He’s legit though. Like the pickup artists say, “How would you open?” Sinple. Continue reading…​

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READ THE CASE STUDY

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Yours beardly,
Nabeel

Many who claim to be copywriters can barely string a coherent sentence together in any language, let alone English. This is a problem because to sell you must first be understood. And you cannot be understood if your writing has all the hallmarks of an aspie mong. Before you learn copywriting you ought to learn writing. In this free lecture, we are going to fix that.
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Allow me to introduce you to Megha Lillywhite, a scientist and self-taught art and literature buff who quit pursuing her PhD to teach the Western Canon. She is not a copywriter. No copywriting guru has heard of her. You have to be a very online Twitter person to come across her work. And yet, I’d wager your writing will improve more in these 90 minutes than it has after going through all those copywriting courses and books.
​
Join CopySkills and Megha Lillywhite for our free lecture, “Write Like a Writoor.”​
​

“Write like a Writoor” is a free lecture by CopySksills and Megha Lillywhite on June 24 2023 at 9 am EST

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What you can expect when you attend:

Edgar Allan Poe was not only the father of Horror and Detective Fiction, he was also a master of creating Mood. Mood is that ineffable vibe that a person gets when they read a piece of writing. It’s what seems to reach out from the white spaces between the words, crawl under your skin and make your goosebumps stand up. This lesson is a breakdown of some of Poe’s best writing to show you how he does this.
​
​Writing principles taught in the lesson:

1. Be able to recognize a metaphor and how to deploy it so that it’s powerful instead of cringey
2. Learn what information to leave out of your writing to engage the reader’s imagination
3. How to appeal to and manipulate the reader’s senses

>>> Register for the free lecture here ​

See you there,
Nabeel

P.S. You have to attend live. There will be no recordings (except for CopySkills members.) Sign up now.

Today I’m sharing my copy critique of an email a CopySkills member sent to her list.

This member helps men quit pornography and sex-related addictions.

She’s brilliant and she’s doing God’s work.

Sidebar: One of the perks of being in CopySkills is unlimited copy critiques. For 20 bucks a month I’ll be your copy chief.

A lot of people think copywriting is about the words.

That somehow there are magical words you can use to get people to buy.

And while there are certain secret literary techniques one can use to boost sales…

They count for less than 10% of a sales message’s effectiveness.

You’ll see why in a minute.

Here’s my feedback on the email in question.

Background: In this email the coach tells the story of her recently divorced friend dating a guy “by accident.”

QUOTE

The email is interesting and because it’s more of a story, there’s not much to critique with respect to the copy. However, speaking as a man this example is an outlier and not helpful to the majority of your audience.

It’s a great story for women who want dating/romance/sex to “just happen” and for men to “just get it.” But the men are thinking,

“So I have to spend $5,000 on furniture I don’t need for the remote possibility of dating a divorced broad with kids? Fuck this shit let me go watch another gangbang video.”

I guarantee every man who read this email thought that. I know you’ve got this cool big sister/mommy vibe that a lot of men will be comfortable with but you still have to appeal to the male brain if you want to help us.

You can improve this email and your content in general by extrapolating general principles that men can apply right now to improve their chances of dating and sex IRL.

For example, dating coach Dante Nero aka Beige Philip has his “5 bricks a day” rule, which is talking to 5 women every day. Here’s an explanation (audio only.)

​

Creating these rules and naming them will give you and your audience shared language and motifs. This is important in building a relationship with them and eventually getting them to hire you.

UNQUOTE

Notice I didn’t say anything about her copy.

In order of importance, the results of your sales message are determined by

1. Understanding your audience
2. Making an appropriate sales argument
3. Using the right words

All three are essential but without 1 and 2, 3 is irrelevant.

Many of the copy critiques I do for CopySkills members involve fixing 1 and 2 before we start on 3.

But that’s not all you get.

Membership includes:

• All your business, marketing & client management questions answered
• Growing course library to level-up your skills
• Guest lectures from the best copywriters & marketers in the galaxy
• Engaged & active community full of supportive copywriters helping each other win AND
• Unlimited copy critiques so you keep getting better

>>> Join CopySkills today (lifetime membership is the best value)

Sincerely,
Nabeel

​

Here’s a cold email I received.

It’s not amazing.

Why did I open and reply?

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Notice:

1. PSL formula (Perfect Subject Line; more on this below)
2. Use of humour
3. Inclusion of links, images and gifs (which many don’t recommend)

It did a lot of things right and so it didn’t need to be an amazing email.

1. It got to my inbox. This is more important than anything you’ll do. Your number one goal is to get noticed.
2. Relevant benefit in the subject line got me to open the email. I’m not interested in selling my agency right now but it’s on every agency owner’s mind.
3. Personable body copy that sounds like a human talking to another human.
4. Rich signature that shows me this is a real person that I can look up online (and I did.)

I sent her a connection request and if I want to talk to someone about selling my agency, she’s top of mind.

How can you apply this to your cold outreach?

1. Send an email from a domain and not a gmail/yahoo/outlook. Make sure you have your deliverability basics covered – SPF, DKIM, DMARC. Buy your domains on Google domains so you can do a one-click install of Google Workspace email inbox with SPF & DKIM records included. DMARC is one line of code you need to add and you’re good to go.
2. Use the PSL formula in your subject line. Benefit + Specificity + Curiosity. You can take it a step further by using the first line of your body copy as faux-preview text. I teach this in detail in my course, Profitable AF Emails, which CopySkills members get for free (along with other courses and guest lectures.)
3. Sound like a human and not a robot. A social skills course will help more than a cold email course. But if you need a social skills course you’re NGMI as a copywriter.
4. Rich signature with pfp, business name/domain and contact details.
5. You don’t need cold email software, inbox warmup, spintax, none of that shit. You don’t need to send 10,000 cold emails a day.

If you want more cold outreach help, join CopySkills.

We have a dedicated cold outreach coach, Océane, who’ll help you get clients.

Several of our members already have, with her help.

>>> Yes! Help me get clients ​

Love peace and chicken grease,
Nabeel

P.S. Starting a series of live streams about the business of copywriting soon. Plan on turning it into a free course down the line to attract people to CopySkills. You’ll want to join us so you can get the content before the unwashed masses, attend live and ask questions.

What’s your ballpark average monthly revenue rn?

​

Wanna pick my brain?
Book a private consult​

​

Whenever you’re ready…

Here are Three Ways I Can Help You

1⃣ If you’re a business owner

Consider working with Dropkick Copy. We’re a boutique direct response copywriting studio. Easy to work with, nail your voice and never miss a deadline.

​Results | Book a Call​

2⃣ If you’re a copywriter

CopySkills is a community and training program for copywriters in the Global South. We’ll help you master your craft and work with better clients.

​Manifesto | Join Now | Train Your Team​

3⃣ If you’re a Muslim man

Read my book, 40 Hadith on Masculinity: How to Be a Good Man. Available in pdf.

​Get Instant Access | Subscribe to MuslimMan​

​

Did a Friend or Colleague Send This to You?

If you enjoyed this email and you want more, consider subscribing to my weekly newsletter. I write for copywriters and business owners. You’ll get one to three emails per week, sometimes more.

​Sign Up Now​

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About Nabeel Azeez

“Nabeel is the Swiss Army knife of copywriters.” – Dennis Demori

“One of the smartest, most authentic business consults around.” – Mike Cernovich

“He’s a master of content and digital branding.” – Alexander Juan Antonio Cortes

“Is it just me or does every ‘copywriter’ have the same tone? Except Nabeel.” – SaaSWiz

“Nabeel doesn’t realize he’s a rare breed. That bearded animal can make paint drying sound riveting.” – Mike Mark

Bald. Bearded. Magnificent. Oh, And he writes a bit of copy too. Nabeel Azeez is a direct response copywriter and marketing consultant in Dubai, U.A.E. He’s writing this in the third person and telling you about it because he enjoys meta-humor or meta-humour, depending on whether or not you are familiar with diphthongs.

Nabeel is the co-owner of Dropkick Copy, a boutique direct response copywriting studio. He’s also the founder of CopySkills, a community and training program for copywriters in the Global South, and MuslimMan, a lifestyle brand for Muslim men. He lives in Dubai, UAE with his family.

If you have provided personal, billing, or other voluntarily provided information, you may access, review, and make changes to it via instructions found on our website or by emailing us at nabeel@nabeelazeez.com. To manage your receipt of marketing and non-transactional communications, you may unsubscribe by clicking the “unsubscribe” link located on the bottom of any marketing email.

Emails related to the purchase or delivery of orders are provided automatically – Customers are not able to opt out of transactional emails. We will try to accommodate any requests related to the management of Personal Information in a timely manner. However, it is not always possible to completely remove or modify information in our databases. If you have any questions, simply reply to this email or visit our website to view our official policies.

Housekeeping: If you’re not a copywriter, marketer or business owner please unsubscribe.

Earlier this week I posted an abrasive rant inside CopySkills.

I sent the same rant to you in an email.

Beyond the profanity in the rant….

I also used verboten words not uttered in politically correct company.

Words like gay and retarded.

On purpose.

I’ll explain why in a second.

Shortly after publishing my rant, I got a DM from one of our members.

“We have gays in CopySkills.”
“That’s OK, I don’t think our gay members would want us to walk on eggshells on their account.”
“OK. I don’t know them well.”
“Then why are you messaging on their behalf?”

I like this member and I was being polite.

The subtext of my message was…

“Why are you getting offended on someone else’s behalf?”

I actually don’t know whether anyone in CopySkills is gay.

I never asked.

And they never said anything.

Because it’s not relevant. And I don’t care.

But if there are any and if they were offended, they would’ve messaged me.

Or they would’ve objected by leaving a comment under my post.

Or they would’ve canceled their membership.

But it’s 2023 so let’s be honest…

They really would’ve done all three AND tried to cancel me.

But none of these things happened.

So our well-meaning member’s worry was misplaced.

The thing is, I’ve been “canceled” twice before.

And still, I used those words.

Why?

1. One, because I try my best not to self-censor.
2. Two, because I don’t want CopySkills members or anyone I associate with to self-censor.
3. Three, because I don’t believe minorities want, need or deserve special treatment.
4. Four, because if you don’t like my beliefs, who I am or the way I talk, I want you to voluntarily disassociate from me (by unsubscribing, for example.)
5. Five, because when it comes to business I genuinely do not give a fuck where you’re from, what your genitalia are or who you have sex with.

​

Bitches, fags, lesbos and trannies are welcome… if your copy converts. Don’t like this brand of inclusion? Tap the unsubscribe link below.

​

It’s interesting to note that my TRUE “inclusivity” (such a bullshit word) is not reciprocated by the rainbow mafia and its acolytes.

But it doesn’t matter.

They can suck a dick, pun intended.

“A revolution is nothing more than a group of men standing in one place and saying ‘Enough!’”

You too can use repulsion in your marketing.

And you don’t have to be vulgar like me.

You can be subtle about it.

Microaggressions, if you will (another bullshit word.)

For example, unless I’m talking about a specific woman, I only use masculine pronouns.

A CEO is always a he.

Salesman, not salesperson.

Etcetera.

But I go even further.

I associate masculine pronouns with positive situations and feminine pronouns with negative situations.

Here’s an example from the CopySkills manifesto:

“The strategist has advanced skills and knows all the right clients who pay the big bucks. He charges based on value. He gets paid royalties. And he works a 3-day work week. The labourer is the one the strategist delegates to. She gets paid by the hour if she’s lucky, by the word if she’s not. No royalties for her. And 60 to 80-hour workweeks.”

I started doing this ever since I heard Seth Godin exclusively use feminine pronouns as descriptors.

And you might think these distinctions are silly but you’d be dead wrong because…

Words are magic

That’s why a profession like copywriting exists.

If you want to change the way people think and behave…

If you want to be a magician…

>>> Join CopySkills ​

Love, peace and chicken grease,
Nabeel

P.S. If you didn’t like the language or ideas in this email please unsubscribe.

I train copywriters at CopySkills so it’s not in my best interest to reveal this.

Coaches who teach copywriting as a business opportunity will never tell you…

There’s an IQ floor to become a copywriter.

Anywhere from 110-120.

If you have an IQ below that you’re NGMI.

Another thing they won’t tell you.

Non-native English speakers will have a much harder time getting clients and delivering usable work.

Service delivery has gotten easier because you can ask ChatGPT to rewrite your work in native English.

But you’re still at a disadvantage when interacting with clients.

Their bias combined with your insecurities.

Coaches will point at the exceptions.

Don’t believe them.

Evaldo doesn’t count.

Here’s a perfect example.

Yesterday, I sent out an offer to my list for an unlimited copywriting service.

All these replies were from people who didn’t understand plain English or thought I was hiring.

​

Nevertheless, I treated them respectfully and as if they were positive replies until proven otherwise.

But I know what I know.

– Nabeel

P.S. If you’re a copywriter with an IQ above 110 and you have a sufficient grasp of the English language to credibly deal with clients and deliver usable copy, join CopySkills.

P.P.S. By the way, if you subscribed to my newsletter via the Creator Network, I write for business owners, copywriters and marketers. If you are none of these things, feel free to unsubscribe. No hard feelings.

Written by yours beardly.

Not subcontracted.

Not AI.

No contract, no obligation, cancel anytime.

Haven’t finalized price yet.

Thinking $5k-$10k/month.

Reply if you want in.

– N

This is a rant I posted in CopySkills. I’d originally intended it for our paying members but the message is too important to keep private. You’ve likely heard this message before. But not my way. I’m certain of it. There is profanity. If you can’t handle this, unsubscribe immediately. Rant begins after the image.

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A CopySkills member canceled their membership recently. He sent me an email explaining why.

On the plus side, at least he had the courtesy to send an email. On the minus side, I wish he hadn’t because his reasons for canceling were infuriating.

You’ll see why in a second.

In the 6 months since my last retainer got canceled, I’ve only managed to earn $3400. The problem isn’t CopySkills, or even the profession (I love marketing/copywriting). It’s just me. I’m not being consistent with marketing my biz. Haven’t consistently tweeted, emailed or started a yt channel or even DM’d people. For now I’ve decided to get a job.

​

Heysoos Fucking Crisco

I cannot even begin to describe how MONUMENTALLY GAY this is. Nevertheless, I will attempt to do so.

1. Quitting the only positive thing you’ve done to grow your copywriting business is retarded. No one can claim money issues over a $20/month membership unless you live in utter squalor. You have a laptop, a smartphone and internet access, therefore you are not poor. Maybe if CopySkills was $97/month or $500/month you’d have a legitimate reason. But it isn’t, so you don’t. There are people with room-temperature IQ making $100,000+ per month. If you can’t figure out how to make $20+/month online you absolutely must quit copywriting forever.
2. Imagine being such a pussy that you refuse to send DMs to get clients. You are not above cold outreach. No one is. Even copywriters making $200,000+ per year do cold outreach. I was sending cold DMs as recently as a month ago. When you have zero clients your only jobs are learning and sending cold outreach. Fuck everything else.
3. Who the fuck said you have to tweet, launch a newsletter and start a YouTube channel to get clients? And then on top of that, because you can’t do any of these things–that you literally could go your entire career without doing and still make a million dollars–why the fuck would you literally smash your own kneecaps with a sledgehammer and paralyse yourself into doing nothing, so much so that you end up having to quit freelancing to get a job? Make it make sense!
4. Imagine having access to two coaches who are successful full-time copywriters, guest lectures from the best experts in the world, S-Tier courses that can help you get results for clients and build your own brand, the ability to ask for unlimited help on anything that could come up in your copywriting business… and then not using any of these resources. You deserve to fail.
5. Never overplay your hand. This member who canceled had several opportunities to get clients. I even referred opportunities to him. But he made the mistake of overestimating his skill, his status, and his leverage. He thought he was owed $10,000/month but the truth is he didn’t deserve it. That’s why he lost long-term clients–legit influencers who could’ve kept him working for decades–and that’s why he’s looking for a job. Stay humble or the freelancing business will humble you.

This copywriter will never be allowed in CopySkills again. Just because we charge $20/month doesn’t mean there aren’t any standards. Having copywriters like this around brings the quality of the community down. I don’t want his poverty mindset rubbing off on you.

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There is only ONE WAY to guarantee failure: QUIT.

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Sincerely,
Nabeel Azeez

P.S. I’m hosting a free guest lecture with ROGUEWEALTH next week on How to Run Sales Calls. It’s free to attend live. Recordings will be made available to paying CopySkills members.

​

Do you have BDE or BVE?

​

Wanna pick my brain?
Book a private consult​

​

Whenever you’re ready…

Here are Three Ways I Can Help You

1⃣ If you’re a business owner

Consider working with Dropkick Copy. We’re a boutique direct response copywriting studio. Easy to work with, nail your voice and never miss a deadline.

​Results | Book a Call​

2⃣ If you’re a copywriter

CopySkills is a community and training program for copywriters in the Global South. We’ll help you master your craft and work with better clients.

​Manifesto | Join Now | Train Your Team​

3⃣ If you’re a Muslim man

Read my book, 40 Hadith on Masculinity: How to Be a Good Man. Available in pdf.

​Get Instant Access | Subscribe to MuslimMan​

​

Did a Friend or Colleague Send This to You?

If you enjoyed this email and you want more, consider subscribing to my weekly newsletter. I write for copywriters and business owners. You’ll get one to three emails per week, sometimes more.

​Sign Up Now​

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Not What You’re Expecting?

If you don’t want emails like this any more, choose what you do and don’t receive here. To stop getting all emails from me, click here.

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About Nabeel Azeez

“Nabeel is the Swiss Army knife of copywriters.” – Dennis Demori

“One of the smartest, most authentic business consults around.” – Mike Cernovich

“He’s a master of content and digital branding.” – Alexander Juan Antonio Cortes

“Is it just me or does every ‘copywriter’ have the same tone? Except Nabeel.” – SaaSWiz

“Nabeel doesn’t realize he’s a rare breed. That bearded animal can make paint drying sound riveting.” – Mike Mark

Bald. Bearded. Magnificent. Oh, And he writes a bit of copy too. Nabeel Azeez is a direct response copywriter and marketing consultant in Dubai, U.A.E. He’s writing this in the third person and telling you about it because he enjoys meta-humor or meta-humour, depending on whether or not you are familiar with diphthongs.

Nabeel is the co-owner of Dropkick Copy, a boutique direct response copywriting studio. He’s also the founder of CopySkills, a community and training program for copywriters in the Global South, and MuslimMan, a lifestyle brand for Muslim men. He lives in Dubai, UAE with his family.

If you have provided personal, billing, or other voluntarily provided information, you may access, review, and make changes to it via instructions found on our website or by emailing us at nabeel@nabeelazeez.com. To manage your receipt of marketing and non-transactional communications, you may unsubscribe by clicking the “unsubscribe” link located on the bottom of any marketing email.

Emails related to the purchase or delivery of orders are provided automatically – Customers are not able to opt out of transactional emails. We will try to accommodate any requests related to the management of Personal Information in a timely manner. However, it is not always possible to completely remove or modify information in our databases. If you have any questions, simply reply to this email or visit our website to view our official policies.

If you like automated emails, Brennan Dunn’s your guy. Me? I write the emails, I send the emails. And so cuzza that, if you’re new to my list this’ll be the first email you’ve got from me. So allow me to (re)introduce myself.

My name is Nabeel Azeez. I’m a copywriter. Not a creative advisor. Not a persuasion ninja. Not a revenue enlarger.

Copywriter.

And I happen to own some businesses. There’s Dropkick Copy where I write and send emails for clients. There’s CopySkills where I train copywriters. There’s MuslimMan a newsletter for Muslim men. They do alright. Keep me in bread and butter.

Here’s what mfs say about me:

Nabeel is the Swiss Army knife of copywriters.​
​Dennis Demori

One of the smartest, most authentic business consults around.​
​Mike Cernovich

He’s a master of content and digital branding.​
​Alexander Juan Antonio Cortes

Is it just me or does every ‘copywriter’ have the same tone? Except Nabeel.​
​SaaSWiz

Nabeel doesn’t realize he’s a rare breed. That bearded animal can make paint drying sound riveting.​
​Mike Mark

If you know these names, you’re my people and we’ll get along just fine. If you don’t, you probably ain’t.

I recently published a book, 40 Hadith on Masculinity: How to Be a Good Man. And I’m writing another book, which was called Dragon Energy: The Tao of Personal Branding. But I’m thinking of renaming it How to Use What No One Else Has to Live a Life No One Else Can. Which title do you prefer? Hit reply and let me know.

Now that the introduction’s out of the way, I want to share some BTS stuff. Let’s take a look at my newsletter growth over the past couple of weeks. ConvertKit recently gave me access to Creator Network and hoooleeee sheeeeeeeyiiiiiiit the growth is insane.

I took some screenshots.

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183 new subs in 7 days

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11X growth in new subs in the past 30 days

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97% of subs from Creator Network

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Before Creator Network

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After Creator Network

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21 subscribers in April

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216 subscribers from May 1 to 13

These are 100% free. I’m not paying for any of them. But I’m a little worried about the quality. If you’re new to my list and you subbed via Creator Network, you have no idea who I am. You don’t know, for example, that I’m an “anime mullah” as described by Oz Sultan. I’ve not yet heard a more accurate description.

In fact, you likely just clicked “Yes” to sub to all the newsletters recommended to you. Which means, to me at least, you’re a low-quality subscriber until proven otherwise. If I’m wrong, hit reply and tell me. Or better yet, prove it.

INNERCIRCLE gets you 10% off all my shit on Gumroad. Shop now.

See, I’m a sales supremacist and I don’t believe all subscribers are created equal. There’s a hierarchy that goes clients > customers > call-bookers > gonna buy but not ready yet > subscribers > never gonna buy (that’s the unsubscribe link and you should click it right now if you have no intention of buying anything from me.)

For months now I’ve been thinking of making this a Buyers Only list. And one of these days I’m gonna pull the trigger.

AVOID THE CULLING

How do you like your eggs?

​

Wanna pick my brain?
Book a private consult​

​

Whenever you’re ready…

Here are Three Ways I Can Help You

1⃣ If you’re a business owner

Consider working with Dropkick Copy. We’re a boutique direct response copywriting studio. Easy to work with, nail your voice and never miss a deadline.

​Results | Book a Call​

2⃣ If you’re a copywriter

CopySkills is a community and training program for copywriters in the Global South. We’ll help you master your craft and work with better clients.

​Manifesto | Join Now | Train Your Team​

3⃣ If you’re a Muslim man

Read my book, 40 Hadith on Masculinity: How to Be a Good Man. Available in pdf.

​Get Instant Access | Subscribe to MuslimMan​

​

Did a Friend or Colleague Send This to You?

If you enjoyed this email and you want more, consider subscribing to my weekly newsletter. I write for copywriters and business owners. You’ll get one to three emails per week, sometimes more.

​Sign Up Now​

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About Nabeel Azeez

“Nabeel is the Swiss Army knife of copywriters.” – Dennis Demori

“One of the smartest, most authentic business consults around.” – Mike Cernovich

“He’s a master of content and digital branding.” – Alexander Juan Antonio Cortes

“Is it just me or does every ‘copywriter’ have the same tone? Except Nabeel.” – SaaSWiz

“Nabeel doesn’t realize he’s a rare breed. That bearded animal can make paint drying sound riveting.” – Mike Mark

Bald. Bearded. Magnificent. Oh, And he writes a bit of copy too. Nabeel Azeez is a direct response copywriter and marketing consultant in Dubai, U.A.E. He’s writing this in the third person and telling you about it because he enjoys meta-humor or meta-humour, depending on whether or not you are familiar with diphthongs.

Nabeel is the co-owner of Dropkick Copy, a boutique direct response copywriting studio. He’s also the founder of CopySkills, a community and training program for copywriters in the Global South, and MuslimMan, a lifestyle brand for Muslim men. He lives in Dubai, UAE with his family.

If you have provided personal, billing, or other voluntarily provided information, you may access, review, and make changes to it via instructions found on our website or by emailing us at nabeel@nabeelazeez.com. To manage your receipt of marketing and non-transactional communications, you may unsubscribe by clicking the “unsubscribe” link located on the bottom of any marketing email.

Emails related to the purchase or delivery of orders are provided automatically – Customers are not able to opt out of transactional emails. We will try to accommodate any requests related to the management of Personal Information in a timely manner. However, it is not always possible to completely remove or modify information in our databases. If you have any questions, simply reply to this email or visit our website to view our official policies.

A lazy Sunday issue for you.

Everyone’s talking about King Charles III’s Coronation.

A lot of people were too cool for it.

Something something monarchies something something they’re just like us something something privilege.

Bollocks to that.

I saw ways to make money.

And I’m sharing them with you.

The images do the talking.

Glamour Sells in Silence

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A Sidechick Can Become Queen; Believe in Yourself

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“Children’s Clothing” Ought to Be Miniature Adult Clothing

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Hope Inspires Loyalty

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Trends Are Fleeting; Appeal to Timeless Human Truths

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Your Revenue After Dropkick Copy Takes Over Email Marketing

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SHOP NOW

Did you watch the coronation? What did you make of it?

​

Wanna pick my brain?
Book a private consult​

​

Whenever you’re ready…

Here are Three Ways I Can Help You

1⃣ If you’re a business owner

Consider working with Dropkick Copy. We’re a boutique direct response copywriting studio. Easy to work with, nail your voice and never miss a deadline.

​Results | Book a Call​

2⃣ If you’re a copywriter

CopySkills is a community and training program for copywriters in the Global South. We’ll help you master your craft and work with better clients.

​Manifesto | Join Now | Train Your Team​

3⃣ If you’re a Muslim man

Read my book, 40 Hadith on Masculinity: How to Be a Good Man. Available in pdf.

​Get Instant Access | Subscribe to MuslimMan​

​

Did a Friend or Colleague Send This to You?

If you enjoyed this email and you want more, consider subscribing to my weekly newsletter. I write for copywriters and business owners. You’ll get one to three emails per week, sometimes more.

​Sign Up Now​

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Not What You’re Expecting?

If you don’t want emails like this any more, choose what you do and don’t receive here. To stop getting all emails from me, click here.

​

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About Nabeel Azeez

“Nabeel is the Swiss Army knife of copywriters.” – Dennis Demori

“One of the smartest, most authentic business consults around.” – Mike Cernovich

“He’s a master of content and digital branding.” – Alexander Juan Antonio Cortes

“Is it just me or does every ‘copywriter’ have the same tone? Except Nabeel Azeez.” – SaaSWiz

Bald. Bearded. Magnificent. Oh, And he writes a bit of copy too. Nabeel Azeez is a direct response copywriter and marketing consultant in Dubai, U.A.E. He’s writing this in the third person and telling you about it because he enjoys meta-humor or meta-humour, depending on whether or not you are familiar with diphthongs.

Nabeel is the co-owner of Dropkick Copy, a boutique direct response copywriting studio. He’s also the founder of CopySkills, a community and training program for copywriters in the Global South, and MuslimMan, a lifestyle brand for Muslim men. He lives in Dubai, UAE with his family.

If you have provided personal, billing, or other voluntarily provided information, you may access, review, and make changes to it via instructions found on our website or by emailing us at nabeel@nabeelazeez.com. To manage your receipt of marketing and non-transactional communications, you may unsubscribe by clicking the “unsubscribe” link located on the bottom of any marketing email.

Emails related to the purchase or delivery of orders are provided automatically – Customers are not able to opt out of transactional emails. We will try to accommodate any requests related to the management of Personal Information in a timely manner. However, it is not always possible to completely remove or modify information in our databases. If you have any questions, simply reply to this email or visit our website to view our official policies.

I rarely beef with people online anymore but today I got into it with this troll.

My first instinct was to ignore it but then figured…

Why not do what Ben Settle does and profit off him?

So for the next 24 hours only…

Get 25% Off All My Products on Gumroad

​Here’s how.

Happy shopping,
Nabeel

P.S. I’d be grateful if you’d boost this tweet by leaving a comment and retweeting

​

Nabeel Azeez
@NabeelAzeezDXB
Since @ChadOfArabia doesn’t understand the difference between an implication and an accusation
I’ve decided to grift off his poor reading comprehension
For the next 24 hours only
GET 25% OFF ALL MY PRODUCTS ON GUMROAD
Use code CHADOFARABIA
Link to my store in bio pic.twitter.com/TNqJ3YxS5p

May 5th 2023
0
Retweets
4
Likes

Whip out your if you got this email.

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Wanna pick my brain?
Book a private consult​

​

Whenever you’re ready…

Here are Three Ways I Can Help You

1⃣ If you’re a business owner

Consider working with Dropkick Copy. We’re a boutique direct response copywriting studio. Easy to work with, nail your voice and never miss a deadline.

​Results | Book a Call​

2⃣ If you’re a copywriter

CopySkills is a community and training program for copywriters in the Global South. We’ll help you master your craft and work with better clients.

​Manifesto | Join Now | Train Your Team​

3⃣ If you’re a Muslim man

Read my book, 40 Hadith on Masculinity: How to Be a Good Man. Available in pdf.

​Get Instant Access | Subscribe to MuslimMan​

​

Did a Friend or Colleague Send This to You?

If you enjoyed this email and you want more, consider subscribing to my weekly newsletter. I write for copywriters and business owners. You’ll get one to three emails per week, sometimes more.

​Sign Up Now​

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Not What You’re Expecting?

If you don’t want emails like this any more, choose what you do and don’t receive here. To stop getting all emails from me, click here.

​

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​

About Nabeel Azeez

“Nabeel is the Swiss Army knife of copywriters.” – Dennis Demori

“One of the smartest, most authentic business consults around.” – Mike Cernovich

“He’s a master of content and digital branding.” – Alexander Juan Antonio Cortes

“Is it just me or does every ‘copywriter’ have the same tone? Except Nabeel Azeez.” – SaaSWiz

Bald. Bearded. Magnificent. Oh, And he writes a bit of copy too. Nabeel Azeez is a direct response copywriter and marketing consultant in Dubai, U.A.E. He’s writing this in the third person and telling you about it because he enjoys meta-humor or meta-humour, depending on whether or not you are familiar with diphthongs.

Nabeel is the co-owner of Dropkick Copy, a boutique direct response copywriting studio. He’s also the founder of CopySkills, a community and training program for copywriters in the Global South, and MuslimMan, a lifestyle brand for Muslim men. He lives in Dubai, UAE with his family.

If you have provided personal, billing, or other voluntarily provided information, you may access, review, and make changes to it via instructions found on our website or by emailing us at nabeel@nabeelazeez.com. To manage your receipt of marketing and non-transactional communications, you may unsubscribe by clicking the “unsubscribe” link located on the bottom of any marketing email.

Emails related to the purchase or delivery of orders are provided automatically – Customers are not able to opt out of transactional emails. We will try to accommodate any requests related to the management of Personal Information in a timely manner. However, it is not always possible to completely remove or modify information in our databases. If you have any questions, simply reply to this email or visit our website to view our official policies.

I made a new friend on Twitter this week.

His name’s Noah Zender and he builds products for an AI startup.

Before that, he was involved in a VC fund.

He also writes a weekly newsletter called Building Blocks, which promises to make you a smarter entrepreneur in just 5 minutes a week.

Coming from the startup/VC space, Noah’s done a lot of networking and he’s got the process dialed in.

I guess that’s ’cause meeting new people is a VC’s job.

While we were talking, he told me he documented his system in a Notion database and free training called No-Sweat Networking.

I’ve just gone through it myself and I can see how this will save me a lot of time.

Think about it:

Instead of sending 100s of cold emails and DMs per week that get ignored, why not build a handful of high-quality relationships that’ll generate 100x the revenue in the long-term?

Noah would like to share his No-Sweat Networking training and database with you in exchange for your email address.

You can get instant access here.

Enjoy

What’re you up to this Sunday?

​

Wanna pick my brain?
Book a private consult​

​

Whenever you’re ready here are…

Three Ways I Can Help You

1⃣ If you’re a business owner

Consider working with Dropkick Copy. We’re a boutique direct response copywriting studio. Easy to work with, nail your voice and never miss a deadline.

​Results | Book a Call​

2⃣ If you’re a copywriter

CopySkills is a community and training program for copywriters in the Global South. We’ll help you master your craft and work with better clients.

​Manifesto | Join Now | Train Your Team​

3⃣ If you’re a Muslim man

Read my book, 40 Hadith on Masculinity: How to Be a Good Man. Available in pdf.

​Get Instant Access | Subscribe to MuslimMan​

​

Did a Friend Send You This?

If you enjoyed this email and you want more, consider subscribing to my weekly newsletter. I write for copywriters and business owners. You’ll get one to three emails per week, sometimes more.

​Sign Up Now​

​

Not What You’re Expecting?

If you don’t want emails like this any more, choose what you do and don’t receive here. To stop getting all emails from me, click here.

​

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​

About Nabeel Azeez

“Nabeel is the Swiss Army knife of copywriters.” – Dennis Demori

“One of the smartest, most authentic business consults around.” – Mike Cernovich

“He’s a master of content and digital branding.” – Alexander Juan Antonio Cortes

“Is it just me or does every ‘copywriter’ have the same tone? Except Nabeel Azeez.” – SaaSWiz

Bald. Bearded. Magnificent. Oh, And he writes a bit of copy too. Nabeel Azeez is a direct response copywriter and marketing consultant in Dubai, U.A.E. He’s writing this in the third person and telling you about it because he enjoys meta-humor or meta-humour, depending on whether or not you are familiar with diphthongs.

Nabeel is the co-owner of Dropkick Copy, a boutique direct response copywriting studio. He’s also the founder of CopySkills, a community and training program for copywriters in the Global South, and MuslimMan, a lifestyle brand for Muslim men. He lives in Dubai, UAE with his family.

If you have provided personal, billing, or other voluntarily provided information, you may access, review, and make changes to it via instructions found on our website or by emailing us at nabeel@nabeelazeez.com. To manage your receipt of marketing and non-transactional communications, you may unsubscribe by clicking the “unsubscribe” link located on the bottom of any marketing email.

Emails related to the purchase or delivery of orders are provided automatically – Customers are not able to opt out of transactional emails. We will try to accommodate any requests related to the management of Personal Information in a timely manner. However, it is not always possible to completely remove or modify information in our databases. If you have any questions, simply reply to this email or visit our website to view our official policies.

​

When I finally decided to go all-in on working for myself, it was because of my father. He was my biggest inspiration. But not the way you think. You see, the reason why I work for myself is that I do not want to be like him.

I’ll explain why in a minute.

Because I first want to tell you I admire him a great deal. He was a gentleman in the truest sense of the word. His was a life of sacrifice and service. To provide for his family, he spent two-thirds of his life away from home.

Dad grew up in a Sri Lankan slum called Slave Island. My mom too, in the same slum – they were neighbors, actually. He signed up to work on a cargo vessel when he was 17. He sailed around the world and used his wages to put himself through high school and then a merchant marine education. Eventually, he made it to Ship Captain.

I remember him being away for months at a time, coming home on shore leave for a few months, then leaving to do it all over again. He was at sea until his 30s, so, a little over 10 years.

Then, he hung up his uniform and got a desk job with the same shipping company. And worked that job another 10+ years. 25 years at the same frickin’ company. But, the thing is, he never made it beyond middle management.

He should have been a C-level executive, or at least a VP, by the time he had retired. His colleagues used to tell me stories about him. This dude was such a G, he’d give vessels in dangerous waters navigation instructions over the phone. He trained several junior people who eventually got promoted above him.

I honestly can’t understand why he never got the props he deserved. No one had a bad word to say about him. My guess is that was his downfall. Dad wasn’t into office politics. Just kept showing up, keeping his head down, and doing his work. The consummate professional.

I used to wonder whether he was salty about getting overlooked for so long. If he was, he never showed it. Eventually, it was time for him to retire – I think he was 68 at the time. They gave him a gold watch for 25 years of service and peace’d out.

Now, he could finally relax. So he packed up all his stuff, got rid of his Dubai apartment, and moved back home to Colombo. Time to live the good life.

Two years later, my brother and I lowered his body into his grave with our own two hands.

Lung cancer.

Dad was a lifelong smoker. By the time doctors figured it out, it was too late. Still, I never actually expected him to go out like that. Thought he’d be around to see at least a couple of his grandkids grow up.

He was as fit as a fiddle right up until he retired. I don’t ever remember him getting sick with a cold or the flu or any of that shit. Went to bed at the same time and woke up at the same time, every single day. Didn’t work out or anything but his body composition was stable the entire time.

If I had to guess what did him in, it was retiring. Work was the only thing keeping him going. Without his job, he had no “reason” to live and his body just gave up. But that’s just speculation on my part.

I say all of that to say this.

Remember I told you I desperately didn’t want to be him? Yes, he was a G. Yes, he provided for his family like a man. Yes, he was a good father to me, my brother, and my sister. Yes, I loved him.

But I don’t want to work a desk 8 hours a day, 5 days a week, for 10+ years, away from my wife and kids 11 months out of the year, have my kids grow up without me, watch fucking scrubs get promoted over me because they kissed the right arses, and then retire and go back home to die because I’ve literally worked myself to death.

Nah, son. FUCK that! I ain’t going out like a chump. And in the latter part of his life, my Dad lived like a chump.

I don’t blame him. I can’t.

He did what he had to do. Maybe that took more courage than saying “to hell with it” and doing what he wanted. And like I said, he had his fun in his youth. But by the time I was old enough to see it, he had lost most of his masculine energy.

Lemme ask you this, dear reader: What’s the point of blazing like a sparkler only to fizzle out?

So, a few years ago, when I finally realized I could do my own thing, that I could live like a wolf and not like a sheep, I decided I would never allow myself to become like my father.

Even if I had to take a hit to my job security and my quality of life. Even if I had to go months where I was one client away from homeless. I would not live life my Dad’s way.

And for damn sure, I would never show my children this way. I’m going to show them another way. The Dragon Energy way.

Talk soon,
Nabeel

P.S. You’ve just read the preface of Dragon Energy: the Tao of Personal Branding. Started writing it in 2018 and didn’t finish. I need to finish. Over the next few weeks I’ll be live-writing the first draft, with you as my audience, as a forcing function. Please reply to this email with any feedback.

​

​

Need help? Book a private consult​

​

​

Whenever you’re ready…

Here are Three Ways I Can Help You

If you’re a business owner

Consider working with Dropkick Copy. We’re a boutique direct response copywriting studio. Easy to work with, nail your voice and never miss a deadline.

​Results | Book a Call​

If you’re a copywriter

CopySkills is a community and training program for copywriters in the Global South. We’ll help you master your craft and work with better clients.

​Manifesto | Join Now | Train Your Team​

If you’re a Muslim man

Read my book, 40 Hadith on Masculinity: How to Be a Good Man. Available in pdf.

​Get Instant Access | Subscribe to MuslimMan​

​

​

Did a Friend or Colleague Send This to You?

If you enjoyed this email and you want more, consider subscribing to my weekly newsletter. I write for copywriters and business owners. You’ll get one to three emails per week, sometimes more.

​Sign Up Now​

​

​

Not What You’re Expecting?

If you don’t want emails like this any more, choose what you do and don’t receive here. To stop getting all emails from me, click here.

​

​

​

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​

​

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About Nabeel Azeez

“Nabeel is the Swiss Army knife of copywriters.” – Dennis Demori

“One of the smartest, most authentic business consults around.” – Mike Cernovich

“He’s a master of content and digital branding.” – Alexander Juan Antonio Cortes

“Is it just me or does every ‘copywriter’ have the same tone? Except Nabeel Azeez.” – SaaSWiz

Bald. Bearded. Magnificent. Oh, And he writes a bit of copy too. Nabeel Azeez is a direct response copywriter and marketing consultant in Dubai, U.A.E. He’s writing this in the third person and telling you about it because he enjoys meta-humor or meta-humour, depending on whether or not you are familiar with diphthongs.

Nabeel is the co-owner of Dropkick Copy, a boutique direct response copywriting studio. He’s also the founder of CopySkills, a community and training program for copywriters in the Global South, and MuslimMan, a lifestyle brand for Muslim men. He lives in Dubai, UAE with his family.

If you have provided personal, billing, or other voluntarily provided information, you may access, review, and make changes to it via instructions found on our website or by emailing us at nabeel@nabeelazeez.com. To manage your receipt of marketing and non-transactional communications, you may unsubscribe by clicking the “unsubscribe” link located on the bottom of any marketing email.

Emails related to the purchase or delivery of orders are provided automatically – Customers are not able to opt out of transactional emails. We will try to accommodate any requests related to the management of Personal Information in a timely manner. However, it is not always possible to completely remove or modify information in our databases. If you have any questions, simply reply to this email or visit our website to view our official policies.

If the following names mean nothing to you, you aren’t the intended reader for this email.

Stop reading and go do something else.

​

Why the red arrow? Keep reading to find out

​

Every year, direct response marketer Peter Tzemis puts out a list of the best copywriters to follow.

His list is the subject of much controversy but it’s a genius marketing tool.

Here’s why:

• Stroking the egos of influencers in any industry is an easy way to get them to share your content
• A list, even an unordered one, will create controversy about who’s on the list and the order of appearance
• The simple act of mentioning their names in a piece of content allows you to borrow their authority by proximity; Tzemis goes as far as including himself as the last entry every year
• Every successful copywriter reading this list will get fired up; why am I not on this list?
• By celebrating and promoting others in your industry, you create goodwill; the guy who organizes and hosts a party has innate social status

What I take away from this article:

1. I’m going to be on Peter’s list in 2024
2. I’m going to publish my own yearly list

Anyway, that’s enough of a marketing lesson for today.

Who TF is Zarak?

I was at dinner with Anvar Jabirov and Ammar Sultan, two agency owners in the eCommerce space.

We were talking about all the marketers who’ve moved to Dubai recently.

Zarak’s name came up.

This was the first time I’d heard of him.

So I looked him up on Twitter and followed him.

And a few weeks later, Tzemis’ article comes out.

Turns out this guy Zarak’s been behind the scenes printing $$$.

At 18 years old Zarak tripled Activation Health’s email revenue.

And his agency Mailer Profit manages the email lists of a bunch of direct response supplement brands.

And he also has his own email list you gotta pay to subscribe to – excellent strategy and I might do this myself.

Recently, Zarak’s been launching his own offers, which he promotes exclusively to his email subscribers.

You may remember the AI Copywriting Accelerator I promoted last month – the one where I negotiated a 50% discount for you in lieu of an affiliate commission – that was Zarak.

And He’s Back With a New Offer

A couple of days ago he DMs me asking to promote his new offer launching on Monday.

The last promo I ran for him was successful, so of course I said yes.

No 50% discount this time though.

And I’m not passing on the commission either.

You had your shot.

If you didn’t take it, that’s on you.

So about this new offer.

I’m not going to say anything about it now but I’ll give you a hint.

If I had to summarize the value of this product in less than 3 words, it’d be:

Staying Power

If you want staying power as a copywriter, marketer or business owner over the next two decades, this product is how you do it.

I’ll be sharing all the deets starting on Monday.

The promotion will run for 5 days and end at midnight on Fri/Sat.

And I’ll be emailing every day – maybe even twice a day.

But in every email I’ll give you the option to opt-out of the promotion.

For example, if you don’t care about developing staying power in your business and industry, click here and you won’t receive any emails about Zarak’s offer next week.

This won’t remove you from my email list.

But even if you don’t care about staying power, I wouldn’t click that stop-promo link.

Many of my subscribers read every single email in a promo I write, even if they don’t want to buy, just to watch me work.

With that said, let me know you’re excited about this announcement by replying with a “” – 3 boom emojis if your phone doesn’t display them for some reason.

You reply will also give me an indication of how many of my subscribers read until the end.

See you on Monday.

Sincerely,
Nabeel

I was scrolling Instagram and I saw Cannon Hotep reacting to a video from Kid Rock. He says, “Grandpa’s feeling frisky today…” He looks down and makes a pulling motion with his hand. What he’s pulling is out of frame.

The camera pans as he raises an MP5 submachine gun and aims at several cases of Bud Light downrange. He then proceeds to empty the entire magazine on full auto, shredding the beer cans.

Weapon spent, he turns to the camera and yells, “F*** Bud Light and f*** Anheuser Busch.” Apparently, he published this video to protest Bud Light signing Dylan Mulvaney as an official spokesperson.

But here I was thinking, “Is this an ad for Bud Light?”

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And this was a reaction video, not the original. I imagine there were hundreds more reaction videos. Add up all the views–original and reactions–and you end up with a ton of free advertising.

But that’s the social graph for one person. Now add up all the other impressions from all the content created about this news. Hundreds of millions? Billions?

100,000,000 impressions at a $100 cost per mil is the equivalent of $10,000,000 of earned media. Bud Light got it for free. And while this might turn out to be a money-loser long term–look at Gillette–the marketer in me is jealous.

Here’s the number one marketing problem all brands deal with:

“How do we get people to notice us?”

The UK spends over £20 billion/year on advertising. Of this, 4% is remembered positively, 7% is remembered negatively and 89% is not remembered at all. That means, in the UK alone, £18 billion per year of advertising is not noticed by consumers. At All.

If you have enough traffic you can sell anything

You can suck at converting people into customers but if you have a non-stop firehose of them seeing your products, they’re gonna buy. Through sheer force of will you’ll even convert your haters ’cause they wanna see what the fuss is about.

The problem is, traffic is expensive. $10m for 100m impressions if you’re buying ads. That’s why businesses spend so much time on Conversion Rate Optimization, offer design, product-market fit, improving Marketing Efficiency Ratio and so on. We’re trying to do more with less.

What if you could get those impressions for free or pay a fraction of that $10m? That’s what people like Alex Hormozi, Iman Gadhzi, Andrew Tate, Sneako and many others have been doing.

Alex Hormozi said he spends $70,000/month on content marketing, and to get the same results via advertising he’d have to spend millions per month. And last I checked, Andrew Tate’s “The Real World” membership community has over 150,000-200,000 members paying $49 month.

Build your own media company

But you don’t have to be internet-famous to do this. You can replicate this model on a smaller scale, like we did with Mike Mark and Joel Erway.

In its most basic form, all you need is a copywriter, a social media manager, and a video editor. They can be contractors or full-time. And depending on experience, you’ll be investing $5,000 to $10,000/month.

And now that short-form vertical video is ubiquitous, the publishing workflow is simpler than it was before. This is why short-form content agencies are sprouting like weeds. You’ll need more than short-form, though that depends on your niche and product.

Now here’s some more good news.

When you start taking content marketing seriously, your advertising becomes more effective. This is obvious, because people who know you are more likely to engage with your ads. We helped Mike Mark triple his ROAS and Joel Erway turned several of our successful organic posts into ads that ran.

If you’d like exact details on how to build your own in-house media company, check out my course Daily Content Machine.

Or if you prefer, Dropkick Copy can do it all for you. We can take on two new clients this month. Reply to this email if you’re interested.

Sincerely,
Nabeel

Tl;dr:

1. Objectives and key metrics for each team member
2. Asynchronous daily huddles make meetings unnecessary
3. SOP and checklist library for getting everything out of your head
4. Monthly commits – 3 projects each team member delivers every month
5. Backlogs and sprints to keep track of, and do, everything that needs doing

You ever gotten chewed out by a client before?

I have.

To be fair to him, I deserved it.

And I think he only spoke to me the way he did because he knew I could handle it.

Anyway, I took it on the chin.

I’m a copywriter and having a thick skin comes with the territory.

So here’s what happened.

A while ago, this client promoted me to “marketing director.”

And for the first 3-6 months, I failed at the job.

The thing about managerial roles…

You can’t see the effects for 3-6 months.

There’s a time lag between cause and effect that’s role-dependent.

For frontline employees, the feedback loop is daily or weekly, so they see results instantly.

For managers, this feedback loop is quarterly.

For executives, it’s yearly.

CEOs may wait several years to see their decisions play out.

What was it I did wrong as marketing director?

Well, I went from being a copywriter, a frontline employee, to managing a team.

Dropkick Copy is a two-man boutique.

Now, I was managing a team of 3 and a few contractors.

And I had never managed a marketing team before.

My instinct was not to micro-manage when, in this particular situation, I had to do it until everyone was working according to plan.

I expected everyone to be self-starters, resourceful, multi-talented, fast executors, all that shit…

I expected them to be me.

But they weren’t me.

So everyone was kind of doing their own thing.

Going through the motions without supervision.

And not working like a team.

After getting yelled at by my client, though, I decided think like a manager.

Lucky for me, my client knows a lot about managing teams so he showed me what I needed to do.

Here are the 5 tools I got from him to manage my marketing team.

5 Tools to Manage Your Marketing Team

1. Objectives and key metrics

For each role, this document lists:

• Tasks and responsibilities
• How performance is measured
• What good and bad performance look like

That’s the jist of it, though I’m sure there are variations.

The key is being specific and detailed.

Employees need to know what good work looks like to the company or they’ll do whatever.

This document should be reviewed quarterly at one-on-ones.

Maybe more often that if an employee is falling behind.

2. Asynchronous daily huddles

This client had a fully-remote team doing daily huddles on Zoom.

Not just that, but weekly, monthly and quarterly meetings too.

We had people in the Philippines, China, Dubai, England, France, Mexico and the USA.

It’s retarded.

There’s no point working remotely unless you’re also going to work asynchronously.

And everyone was using the company Slack, so for my team we did our daily huddles in our channel.

In a daily huddle you mention:

• Wins from yesterday
• Goals for today
• Whether you’re stuck with anything

Depending on the size of the team, huddles take 5-20 minutes on a video call.

Or each team member can type a comment in less than 60 seconds and post it in their channel at their convenience.

3. SOP and checklist library

If what you do is in your head, it’s useless to everyone else.

Write it down or record it on video.

The SOP library helped me show my team exactly how I wanted things done and train new team members.

4. Monthly commits

These are larger projects that’ll take more than a few days to complete.

Each team member has to commit to delivering 3 of these projects every month.

At the end of the month, we see whether they delivered and if not, why not.

This helps the team make progress on the big stuff that moves the needle.

5. Backlogs and sprints

In any team there’s always more work than manpower or resources.

You have to be able to prioritize which projects you’re gonna work on.

The backlog keeps track of everything that needs to get done.

And you pick projects based on how important they are to the business.

Sprints get everyone working on one project at the same time.

The alignment and focus mean projects complete faster and that more projects are completed.

That’s essential for clearing the backlog.

6. Bonus tool: Creative library

Over the 3 years I worked for this client we must have produced 3000-5000 pieces of content.

• Social media
• Graphics
• Video
• Audio
• Articles
• Landing pages
• Sales pages
• Scripts
• Emails
• Web design/copy

All saved on a Google Drive.

You need a way to catalogue, organize and retrieve it all.

Good folder structure and file naming is important.

I had real a real problem with team members naming files and folders in disorganized ways.

And to catalogue and retrieve them all, a spreadsheet is fine.

But you can use fancier tools like Airtable, Roam, Notion, etc.

Wish I’d known to catalogue sooner

There are hundreds, maybe thousands of pieces of copy I’ve written for clients that I didn’t save for my own records.

Those archives are worth a lot of money

Do you use any of these tools?

Have I missed any that you’ve used and found helpful?

Let me know by replying.

I might pick up a few new managerial skills from you

Cheers,
Nabeel

P.S. Whenever you’re ready here are 3 ways I can help:

1. If you’re a business owner, work with my copywriting agency, Dropkick Copy. Book a 15-minute discovery call.
2. If you’re a copywriter who wants to master your craft and work with better clients, join CopySkills for as low as $20/month. Individual | Teams | Read the Manifesto​
3. If you’re a man who cares about self-improvement, buy my new book 40 Hadith on Masculinity: How to Be a Good Man. Get instant access.

P.P.S. Not interested in emails like this? Update your newsletter preferences here.

Would you like to make $10,000+ per customer instead of $100?

Without selling $10,000+ products/services.

I got this email from Ramit Sethi today.

Guess they’re switching course platforms.

​

Over 10k from one customer.

While not a recent customer, over the years I’ve bought 8 of his courses and paid him over $10,000.

His courses are priced from $197 to $10k (I never bought the 10k course.)

​

My IWT course dashboard

And I’m one customer.

He has thousands.

Many of whom bought every course in his catalog, spending well over 20k.

And I don’t believe we’re outliers.

That’s the power of building a relationship through an email list (supported by social selling, short- and long-form content.)

This is something we do for our clients.

And while I can’t claim all the credit…

Since we’re only one part – copy & creative – of a marketing department…

We conservatively helped Mike Mark produce about $5-7 million over the 3 years we worked together.

​

​

Joel Erway’s take-home income was close to $600,000… during the pandemic… after his ads stopped working… and we only worked together for 9 months.

​

​

For William Brown we booked 900 sales calls over 7 months.

​

​

We produced over $300,000 in 3 months for Jay Campbell & Nick Andrews.

​

​

And we turned Frank Kern into Kyle Sulerud’s reply-guy.

​

​

This is what we do.

And we’re world class.

We can do the same for you, if you want.

>>> Book a 15-minute discovery call ​

Note: We offer premium services at premium rates. We don’t work with brokies and we only work with people we like.

Sincerely,
Nabeel

P.S. If you aren’t a business owner and this email wasn’t relevant to you, update your subscription here. For bonus points, reply to this email and tell me what you want to see more of.

Copy/pasting a rant I wrote for my CopySkills members.

Why You’re Always Playing Catch-Up

If You’re Not Rich or Don’t Have Easy Access to Credit

I saw this on Twitter today:

Some information is better kept behind high priced paywalls. You make shit $38, get $1m-$2m and fuck up the entirety of the mechanism/industry. You traded $2m for unfathomable saturation & destruction of your business long term. Grow up.

This is why copywriters in the Global South are always playing catch-up. Unless you’re rich or you can put large purchases on a credit card, you will never have access to the type of information available in $3000/month coaching programs or $20,000 high-ticket mentorships.
​
FFS, some people can’t even checkout via Stripe or PayPal if they’re from certain countries. They can’t even buy a $10 book on Amazon.
​
Many of you don’t understand what I’m trying to do with CopySkills. You will not find this level of coaching and access to expertise anywhere for $20/month.
​
​Some members canceled their subscriptions and I’m left shaking my head. None of them are where they ought to be in their copywriting careers. Skill-wise and business-wise, they’re fucking noobs.​
​
Where else are they going to go? Are they gonna hang around free Facebook groups hoping for free education and advice? Keep downloading free lead magnets? Subscribe to yet another free newsletter?
​
​This is the copywriting equivalent of being a goddamn panhandler. Short-sighted as fuck.​
​
​Here’s something else you need to understand.

With the time I spend helping people in CopySkills, I could close two new $3000-$5000/month retainer clients for Dropkick Copy every month. That’s the equivalent of adding 150-250 new members to this community every single month for a fraction of the effort.
​​
​I’ve talked to everyone who’s joined and I know where you’re all at with respect to your income, client base, copywriting and business skill. Many of you are squandering the opportunity I’m giving you.​
​
When you waste time doing random side shit instead of putting your head down and doing the work. When you barely show up in the community. When you don’t submit copy for critique. When you don’t do lead generation for your business. When you aren’t building your personal brand…

You will neither progress your skills nor grow your business.

I don’t need your $20/month. I need you to do the work and become CopySkills success stories so I can show you off to the marketing world.​
​
​And when you finish reading this, I don’t want any rah-rah comments below either. Do the fucking work and let your results do the talking.

Want to master your craft and get better clients?

This is the type of coaching you’ll find inside CopySkills on a daily basis.

Sign up today and get instant access to everything we have to offer.

>>> Individuals | Teams | Read Our Manifesto​

Sincerely,
Nabeel

P.S. Don’t want CopySkills emails? Update your subscription here.

Novice copywriters write this way.

• You’re worried about..
• You can’t…
• You hate that…
• You wish…
• You feel like crap because…

It’s fine for beginners.

Shows they understand pain points.

But the truth is there’s subtle psychology at play when they use language like this.

And it’s costing them sales.

How come?

Those are the avatar’s pain points, right?

Why would it cost sales?

A few days ago a Facebook friend of mine asked me to give his VSL a quick once over and let him know if there’s anything he could improve.

I don’t normally do this but I have a feeling he’ll hire me soon, so I obliged.

Took me all of 5 minutes.

Here’s the feedback I sent him.

I shared it with my CopySkills members first but it’s too important to keep behind a paywall.

That’s why you’re reading this now.

Here are 4 tips to get better customers with your copy.

1. The bad stuff happened to me, the good stuff happens to you

When you make proclamations about the reader’s state, negative in particular, it’s easy for them to say no and stop reading/watching.

“Actually, no, I don’t feel like that. This guy doesn’t know what he’s talking about.” ** Smashes back button **

Put the negative state on writer and the positive state on the reader.

“I felt bad, so after trying x, y, z I discovered a, b, c and now I feel better. How’d you like to feel blah blah too.”

You can also talk about the pain points your customers experience from the perspective of clients.

“Nabeel felt all this bad stuff and so…”

The prospect will identify with the client, “he’s just like me.”

And if you want to use proclamations, you can.

But push them further down the page.

You have to wait until you’ve built some credibility and they start to trust you.

Wait until they’ve read/watched some of it and are committed to watching more.

2. Promise to remove pain and you’ll attract low-vibe customers

When you focus on the pain and the ‘what’ you attract low-vibe people.

Low-vibe people want quick-fixes and don’t want to do the work.

When you focus on the pleasure and the ‘how’ you attract high-vibe people.

If you’re selling a product that requires work on the part of the customer, you want high-vibe people.

Low-vibe buyers become high-vibe state buyers when they hit rock bottom and finally decide to change their lives.

So if you sell to the high-vibes the low-vibes will eventually come along.

3. Set expectations at the beginning

You have to get and keep their attention.

And you have mere seconds to do it.

The first 10-30 seconds should set expectations for the rest of the VSL.

”In the next 5 minutes I’m going to show you how you can x, y, z.”

The same applies to text.

My new copy cub Veronica is writing an article for me and we’re working the introduction.

It’s a common tendency for novice copywriters to waffle, also called “clearing your throat.“

I taught her the “yes set.“ Here, let me demonstrate.

What’s your answer when you read the following?

“Do you want to get clients without getting on sales calls or sending proposals? How about delivering client work without meetings or revisions? By the time you’re done reading this, you’ll know how to…“

Btw, this is a resource we’re creating for CopySkills.

Our paid members will get access to it first.

Then we might open it up to the public.

4. Sprinkle social proof everywhere

You have mere seconds to establish credibility with your reader.

Don’t wait until the end to show social proof and client transformations.

Pepper them throughout your copy, starting near the beginning.

Bonus tip #1: engineering not art

To write a piece of copy that converts, the words you use are important.

But you know what’s more important than that?

• Ideas
• Structure

You have to know how to construct a sales argument in a way that gets them to read until the end and buy along the way.

Bonus tip #2: better vs. more