Want to know how my student, Sam - in just eight months
went from a miserable nine-to-five job
with $136 in his bank account
to making over $16,000 a month?
Keep watching.
Can I really make good money from copywriting?
How long does it take?
When can I quit my nine-to-five job?
How do I get clients?
How do I manage clients?
How many clients do I need to succeed?
And what exactly does it take for a brand spanking new,
fresh-out-of-the-box copywriter
to be successful in this field?
Listen, I get questions like this all the time,
and I get it.
Starting anything new is terrifying,
let alone starting a brand new career,
and I remember feeling that same doubt,
insecurity, and yes, imposter syndrome
when I quit my nine-to-five.
But guys, that was 10 years ago.
So, while I can offer you tips and advice
based on my own experience,
I realize that I might not have the real-time
and relevant answers that you're looking for right now.
Which is exactly why I decided to interview
five of my Copy Posse Launch Pad OGs...
Graduates from my very first season
of my flagship copywriting program.
That way you could get real advice
straight from copywriters who started their businesses
from scratch in 2020.
Now, up until now, this recording has been kept
under lock and key, only available
to my paying students and community members...
But the Posse found this interview so helpful
and so inspiring, that I decided to release this
private recording just for you.
So, today you'll be hearing Sam's amazing journey
into the world of freelance copywriting.
He is spilling all the beans on what the past year
has been like for him - from before he joined the Copy Posse
to what his life looks like today.
And his pricing tips are seriously game-changing,
so you better be ready to take some notes.
Hey, Posse, what's up?
It's Alex, give me a thumbs up below
if you want to see more exclusive student interviews
like this one, and if you're new to the crew welcome.
I put out a new copywriting and marketing video
every single week, so if you want to learn
more about the trends, tactics, and tools
that are working today, go ahead and subscribe below,
and don't forget to hit that bell to be notified
when my next video goes live.
Now, I am so excited for this interview,
because it is proof that despite the challenges,
doubts, and fears that inevitably creep up
anytime you're putting yourself out there
and trying something new,
if you are determined and surround yourself
with the right people... success, freedom,
and financial independence are absolutely achievable.
We'll be starting off this five-part video series
with Sam's story.
So, in this interview, you'll hear about how he was able to
quit his miserable job in 2020,
go from living in a shared dorm-style apartment
with five complete strangers,
to getting his own flat in central London,
having the freedom to jet off to the Canary Islands
on a whim when the UK went into lockdown,
and how we did it all in just eight months
thanks to his freelance copywriting business.
Oh, and don't worry.
He's also going to share exactly how he managed to
scout new clients, and earn big bucks...
16,000 of them to be exact.
So, here's the interview.
So Sam, rewind, tell us what was going on for you
about a year ago, before 2020.
- Sure, so about a year ago,
I was probably in the worst situation
I've pretty much ever been in my life.
Again, referring back to the post that I made.
I was living in - so in London you have
these things called HMO's.
So there's like a three bedroom apartment,
and they divide it into three,
and each room is a separate bedroom for people.
So, my girlfriend and I were living in one of those rooms
with a shared bathroom, and a shared kitchen,
and it was kind of worse
than living in a university dorm.
This is me just getting deep and kind of real.
I was thinking, do I say this information,
but some of the guys that I was living with
were actually (beep), they would (beep),
And I have to say that I don't know these people at all.
They're just living in the same house.
I don't know what my landlord did.
- Often, when you think of a flatmate, you think friends,
but in London, it literally was because housing
is so expensive, they take a regular
three bedroom flat, and then they break it into
three separate leases, and you end up literally
sharing a space with complete strangers.
- Exactly.
So, that's literally what it was.
To make matters worse,
we had a mouse that was running around inside the house.
So, imagine this right...
I'm awake a little bit past midnight sometimes,
just hanging out with my girlfriend,
and let's say one of us needs the toilet.
We had a cockroach infestation in the toilet.
So this is my situation.
I had to take a toilet roll, a broom,
just in case I see the mouse,
which I saw seven out of 10 times.
I'd walk inside the bathroom,
I'd have a hygiene spray,
because these guys were very unhygienic.
I don't need to go into detail,
but I had to take a hygiene spray and my own toilet paper.
I would look on the walls, firstly, for the mouse,
then I'd look on the walls and I'd see cockroaches there.
It was just the worst situation probably in my life.
On top of that, I worked a job that I hated.
I earned peanuts - 1,700 pounds,
which in dollars translates to less than $2,500.
And considering rent prices in London,
I was paying about a thousand pounds
just for living in that room.
You can imagine a thousand pounds
for living in a room in London.
That's how much it costs.
And yeah, that was where I was at.
And I was pretty much broken,
but I'm always somebody who has a bit
of a fire inside them, and I knew I deserved better.
I just knew that this was a period of time
that I had to go through.
I would never ever change it
because that's what lit the fire
under my bum, for lack of better words.
And it was at this time where my girlfriend
was watching, "Madmen."
I don't know if any of you guys have heard of it.
It's a series called, "Madmen" where they're all advertisers
and copywriters and stuff like that.
So she said to me, "Sam, I think you'd be
pretty good at this."
And I looked at it, I'm like, "Oh, like what?
Like what is this?"
And she's just kind of explained what they do.
Then, like Misi said, the God of the algorithm,
whatever you want to call it made Alex's YouTube video.
After I typed in "What is copywriting?"
Alex came up.
Funny enough, she'd just started her YouTube channel.
And I want to pause for a second to say
every single person that's here in this group,
it's like, you're literally here for a reason,
and I honestly, honestly believe that.
You're not just here because you ran into it.
You're here for a reason.
Whether it's your end destination to be a copywriter,
or it's a stepping stone in your journey,
it's probably one of the most important things
that you'll learn, a skill like this.
But yeah, that was my situation when I first started.
(laughing) That's probably the worst.
- Yeah, chills.
Everyone's like, "Oh my gosh, chills."
Oh, me too, you guys.
My whole body is chills.
And I mean, man, when you say you have a fire,
like that is so true.
And I mean, it was kind of crazy too like looking back,
I had no idea the situation you were in
when you started Launch Pad Season One, you know.
You were on all the calls, and you know,
it's not like we got like super deep into like
how shitty everything was,
but it was after the program ended
that we started chatting more, and you told me your story,
and I was like, "Wait, what?"
Because I think the story that you shared before is
so... how much money did you have
in your bank account before and then after?
- When I was looking at Alex's sales page,
I literally had 2,000 pounds in my bank account.
That's how much my net worth was, 2,000 pounds.
But then I did a little calculation, right?
I said, "I'm saving about 300 pounds per month...
every month with this current job,
and there seems to be very little prospect of growth."
So I'm here and I'm doing a little calculation like,
"I wonder how long it would take me to get 50,000
for a down payment on a house?"
And I think the calculation came
up to like think like 10, 12 years.
So I thought to myself, I'm like, "Man, I have 2,000 pounds
in my bank, and at this rate,
it's not going to be much more anytime soon."
So, I was watching a Dan Lok video
and he talks about getting a high income skill,
and Alex's high income skill just happened to come
right in front of me at the time,
and after reading her sales page, to be honest,
that's what sold me.
It was just a no-brainer.
I'd read her sales page, and I just thought to myself,
"Damn, I need to write like that,"
'Cause she sold me right on reading,
and I don't read sales pages,
but hers was one of the first sales pages
that I read end to end, and right at the end,
I was literally... I bought her course at work.
So, I was literally on my desk, I pulled out my card,
I went, "What the hell are you doing, Sam?"
Paid the money, looked at my bank account,
a hundred pounds left.
I'm like, "Okay, I've got to make this work,
or I am going to be in this room
for a very, very long time." (laughing)
- That's amazing, and oh my gosh.
Thank you for like,
the amount of, like the fact that you spent
like literally all your money on...
and putting your trust in me.
It's like hard to even fathom, to be honest,
and I'm so grateful that you did, because
I mean you guys, I mean, you guys know,
everyone in the Launch Pad knows,
I almost get too invested,
like to the point where I can't sleep at night sometimes
because I'm thinking so much about you guys,
and your success, and making sure that none of you
walk away from the program ever being like,
"What a waste," or, "That didn't help me in some way."
So, hoo, like that's crazy.
So, you had a hundred pounds in your bank account,
and then you were the first person to get a client,
and it was week five of the frickin' program.
We hadn't even gotten to the sales page module yet.
- Yeah, so just to expand on that a little bit,
I think this is a very blunt way to put it.
I literally worked my ass off.
Like, I got home from work at 6:30,
that was the truth, the time I'd get home every day.
I'd take a 10 minute breather, maybe cook something to eat
if I was hungry, and I just turned my computer on,
and I would do the Copy Posse,
I would attend the live classes,
and then after that I would just go out of my way,
and I would apply.
Like Alex always talks about taking action,
and for me it was like, I kind of had to take action,
otherwise, you know, like I've got a hundred pounds.
Like, that's it.
I literally, I had to ask my mom for 50 pounds.
I'll never forget.
I called my mom, I said,
"Mom, I don't have money for groceries."
I literally called her.
She wired me 50 pounds, and that was my life.
I had no social life.
You know, I put on a lot of weight at that time,
but I just knew like I had to sacrifice everything
just to kind of make this work.
And funny enough,
my first ever job was from Fiverr, my first ever copy job,
and that copy job paid me about a hundred dollars
for 1,000 variants of changed emails.
And a lot of people, they fear...
They're like, "Oh my God, like, what do I charge?"
"What do I do?"
"What do I, you know, how do I do this?"
And I was just like, man, I'm just going to go for it.
I'm going to try it.
If I don't like it, I know I need to increase my price.
So I tried it, and I quit after like, I think three days,
because my mom was having an eye operation,
and I was still sat there in the hospital,
with my laptop open, writing.
And I'm like, "Man, am I doing this for a hundred pounds?
Like this is stupid.
And then I sent the guy a message.
I'm like, "Hey man, this just isn't working."
Fast forward a little bit more.
There was another guy that messaged me on Fiverr.
I was doing a lot of research on how to sell as well.
My job was in sales,
so I had a little bit of a background in it,
but I ended up getting a guy who needed a website copy.
And initially I think most people on Fiverr
have a very low-ball kind of price point,
but the way I charged a thousand dollars,
the first 1,000 pounds that I ever
charged somebody on my own,
and that was what completely changed my mind.
I think the thing that I did was
I asked him good questions.
I said, "How much do you make if one person
clicks that call-to-action button on your website?"
And because he's a coder, he charged somewhere between
8,000 and 42,000 pounds.
And at this point I was still scared to charge anything
over a thousand, but I just wanted to
hit that four figure mark,
so I was like, hey, I'll charge a thousand.
And the way I justified it is
if one person clicks that call to action button
and they purchase your coding services,
you've just eight X'd my ROI, or 42 X'd it,
depending on which side of the spectrum
you make a sale at.
So that way I'm like, hey like that's actually worth it.
And that kind of changed my mind forever.
When he wired me a thousand pounds,
I used Alex's bonus framework to work his whole sales page.
I still use it like literally, I was writing copy today
for an email, and I was using Alex's framework
from the Copy Posse, because I was just like,
"Oh I don't really know what to write."
You're always going to get across moments like that,
but Alex's course, funny enough, is something
I still go back and refer to time and time again.
- I love that.
I love that, and I remember when you,
so yeah, and I remember when you posted in the group
it was like week five and you're like,
"Guys, I got a client," and everyone was like
"What? Like how?"
And so this is like a little,
I think I already asked you about this, Sam,
but if not, I'm forcing you into it now.
- Sure, sure.
- You're cool to do a bonus masterclass
for all season two Launch Padders on social selling,
and how you were able to get all of those clients on Fiverr?
Because you are just brilliant at it,
and you have so much to share that I'm like,
screw it, let's do a bonus together,
and we'll just do a masterclass,
and everyone who joins season two,
we'll figure out when to do it,
but you can share all of your amazing-
- Yeah, that's very humbling,
and I'm honored to help you in any way I can.
You literally changed my life, Alex,
And you know, I'll say that in front of everybody.
Like just following your stuff,
you know, I'm here in Tenerife, I quit my job this month.
I'm free.
I'm having different level of problems.
Like, oh my god, how do I create a company out of this?
I've just spoken to an accountant.
You're always going to have stress in your life,
it's just different levels of stress as you keep growing,
and now my stress is like, how do I not go to jail?
(laughing)
- How do I make sure I pay my taxes?
High quality problems, right?
Like, if you think about it, your first problem was like,
"I have a hundred pounds in my bank,"
and now you're like, "Hey Alex, I'm wondering if
I could hire you for coaching on how to incorporate
and up-level because my goal is to make at least
20,000 pounds a month."
And I'm like, that is what you call
a high quality problem, my friend.
And so, real quick, 'cause I know we're going over,
but like honestly, I think
I don't think anyone's mad about this.
I think it's so valuable
just the wisdom you're sharing.
So, you finished the program then you ended up,
and again, you don't have to go into
too much detail on this,
but you ended up reaching out to someone
who is now one of your retainer clients who has
like a million followers on YouTube,
and you reached out to him, he had no idea who you were,
you mentioned that you took my program or something,
and then how did that whole thing work out?
- Sure, so just to give a little bit of a brief,
I reached out to a copywriter who was making
10K per month at the time,
because I wanted to revamp my sales process.
Like how do I sell to people?
So, he kind of taught me and, and a lot of these methods
I'll also be sharing in the bonus
of kind of what was spoken to me, etc.
But I did a cold email to a whole list of people.
I'll go more into detail on the bonus,
but yeah, so the prospect actually was Stephen James,
I don't know if any of you guys have heard of
Project Life Mastery.
He's got like one million plus YouTube subscribers.
He sells courses on a bunch of different things.
So, I currently work for him at the moment,
and yeah, so the way I came across it was I emailed him.
He, funny enough, was actually semi looking
for a copywriter at that time, not really looking,
but he was very open to it.
- Just a sidebar, every entrepreneur
is always looking for a copywriter.
They just don't want to filter
through the junk applications they get.
But if someone quality approaches them,
everyone's always looking for a good copywriter.
Sorry to interrupt you, but I wanted to share that.
- (laughing) No, absolutely.
So then I basically, he asked me for some samples
and stuff like that, so I sent over some of the stuff
that I wrote here, from the Copy Posse Launch Pad,
and then he decided to jump on a call.
So we got on a call.
To be honest, I didn't really use any
sales techniques at all.
I just went on, and I just had
a genuine conversation with him.
I told him I was new, I told him that, hey, but
there was always one thing.
Every time I would say I'm new, I would follow it up with,
"But I'm confident that I can do it."
So, I would always show that I can get it done.
I didn't just say, "Hey, I'm new, hey I'm new,
I'm not sure."
It was like, "Hey look, I'm new.
I'm being honest.
I don't have that much experience, however,
Alex has spoken good words of me,
I'm confident in my abilities,
And I'm definitely willing to give this my best crack,
and I think I'll do great."
So, that confidence kind of made him give me a shot.
When it came down to pricing, it was the first ever,
well, I had no idea again, cause I only had one benchmark,
which is my previous client,
and he wanted six emails initially written.
So, the way I framed it was I'm like, "Hey look
my aim is to work with you long-term.
I don't want to work with you on a short-term basis.
I'll let you decide on the price on this first project,
and just consider it done,
because I want to work with you."
And I was just honest, and he came back and he said,
"Hey, I'll give you a thousand dollars for six emails."
And I was like, "Okay, that sounds pretty good."
And yeah, that just became my rate.
And it was like, I learned my rate from a client,
and he liked it so much that he basically hired me again.
After three projects, I spoke to him about a retainer,
and now I'm on retainer writing somewhere
halfway across the world for all of these clients.
I say this just to kind of inspire you guys,
but currently I'm earning anywhere between
8K to 12K, that's pounds, per month.
So that's I think 10 to 14, 12, 13, 14,000 US dollars?
I never knew I can make money like that at all.
Because my whole thing was like, how do I make six figures?
How do I make six figures?
How do I go to the bathroom in peace?
Like, you know what I mean?
Like that was my problems at some point.
It is, it's just crazy.
- I get so emotional thinking about it because
it's like if I wrote this in a headline
from 100 pounds to 12,000 pounds, I mean,
no one would believe it!
They would be like, "That's all hype bull(beep)."
So, thank you for sharing your story.
You have so much incredible wisdom to share with the group.
I'm really excited to go deeper with you in that bonus
for Launch Padders, and like way to go, man.
You've nailed it, and you deserve every single
ounce of success that you've gotten from it.
- Naw, thank you so much, Alex.
And honestly like
my thank you to you is like indefinite,
because it's just, you know, everyday
like I live for what you've allowed me to do.
So, I always tell you, I'm always on Team Copy Posse,
Team Alex Cattoni, and wherever I'm required to
vouch for you I will,
not because it's one of those things that like,
"Oh it's my teachers," because no,
this thing really changed my life, and it really did,
in a way I can't even explain or express.
So yeah, thank you, and thank you guys as well, man.
- All right guys, if you enjoyed that video,
make sure to check out the next one from me right here,
and you can click right here to get a free gift.
If you're still slinging a five-page resume around
like it's 1999, please stop right there,
and watch this video, because ain't nobody got
time or interest to download that attachment.