Did you know that whenever a business owner decides to hire you, they place you in 3 different "buckets" in their minds?

Those buckets depend on:

• What you usually write
  
• What you say you're comfortable writing
  
• (Most importantly) What's your skill level

And guess what?

The bucket they place you in determines how much they'll pay you.

It might not seem fair...

But that's how the direct response industry works.

Copywriters who resist this truth stay stuck and never make it past 3k-4k months.

However...

The ones who understand DR is a game and respect the rules? 

They experience income breakthrough after income breakthrough.

And they do so fast. 

That's what I want for you, my dear Top Gun.

Anywho, let's see those buckets:

1. Small Money Bucket

• Ads
  
• Emails
  
• Short-form
  
• Short video scripts
  
• "Content" (anything that doesn't try to sell stuff)

2. Mid Money Bucket 

• E-com
  
• Landing pages
  
• Email list manager
• "Jack of all trades" (aka you write all sorts of copy)

3. Big Money...

 Here's one of the most common questions I get from newbie copywriters:

"How can I get my foot in the door when I don't have proof that my copy converts?"

Savvy business owners always wonder if they can trust you to write high-converting copy.

If you can't share data or results (aka proof) of previous projects they probably won't hire you. 

But there is a way around this. 

So today I'll show you Dr. Ning's cure for the "no proof" disease.

The cure works fast. 

You don't need to wait months, weeks, or days to see results. 

You don't even have to be a talented wordsmith. You add 2-3 simple-to-write lines to your outreach message and presto - doors magically open.

In fact, here's what I want you to do: 

When you're done reading, apply the cure to all the outreach messages you were going to send today. 

Methinks you'll be pleasantly surprised with the results ;-)

Full disclosure:

This cure doesn't work 100% of the time. 

And when it does work you...

The most powerful lesson in copywriting boils down to this sentence:

This X gives you Y

The X part is also called the vehicle - a method, way, system, or a "thing" that helps your prospect achieve their goal.

However...

If the vehicle is something they've heard before, they stop reading...

…and they won't buy. 

So your duty as a copywriter is to make your vehicle intriguing. 

And one of the skills you need for this is the ability to write curiosity-laden copy.

Curiosity is one of those superpowers that can turn an email, ad, sales letter, or any piece of copy into a blockbuster success.

Instead of pummeling your prospects with benefit after benefit...

You should also present interesting ideas that force people to read every single line of copy.

Makes sense so far?

Cool.

So how do you write curiosity-laden copy?

You need something my good friend David Deutsch, one of the best copywriters alive, calls baiting the hook - you give them 90% of the "what it is" but...

I'm about to show you how to get your first copywriting job with zero experience. All it takes is three simple steps. 

If you’re new here, my name is Ning Li. I've been a professional copywriter for about seven years and I've coached over 400 copywriters. 

I've got a ton of students who come in with absolutely zero experience. They're looking to jump ship and hit the escape button from a job they don't like. They want to get into copywriting so they can work from home, travel, and live the laptop lifestyle. 

So I'm going to show you how to get started, even if you have zero experience. 

Step number one is you need a portfolio with strong samples. You can't get a copywriting job if you don't want to write copy or you don't like to write copy. You have to want to write. 

So the first step is to write and get some samples ready. Write some emails for either a fake product or a real product. You can find one by clicking around on ads on the internet....

In this post I'm going to tell you how to put business owners at ease when they hire you.

This is especially important for newer copywriters without a track record to show a potential client, but don't overlook it if you've been doing this for a while. Many copywriters don't know the checkpoint system, so this will give you an edge over other experienced copywriters as well. 

When you're new and talking to a potential client, they're full of fear. They fear you're going to miss deadlines, you're a bum on the street, you're going to write bad copy, and it's not going to convert. 

This is born out of working with other copywriters, because the majority of copywriters will have all these problems. 

The checkpoint system quells their fears, helping you land a higher percentage of jobs. 

Number one is to have a portfolio and samples. Past experience. If you don't have a portfolio from past experience, that's still okay. You'll want to create...

Part 2  
June 2021 

When I opened my eyes, I was ravenous - I had gone more than 24 hours without food.

I was also exhausted and weak.

I felt… clearer somehow as well.

The memories of the previous night of horror floated back into my mind.

I turned to Angel, who was also waking up, and said, "That was insane… I don’t think I can do the second night. That wasn’t anything like shrooms."

We discussed our individual experiences.

Angel was apparently vomiting the entire night…

But also had beautiful visions of the jungle.

She met and talked to Mother Aya, a wizened old grandmother with dark, bark-like skin.

She saw how this medicine was invented.

If you didn’t know… ayahuasca is brewed from a vine from one plant and a leaf from a totally different plant.

Each ingredient on its own does nothing.

Yet somehow… at some point… a tribe in the Amazon figured out that if you brewed these two completely different plants together,...

I've been a professional copywriter for 7+ years and a copy coach to over 400 copywriters. Today I'm going to give you a complete seven step copywriting tutorial with formulas and examples. So you can write copy, even if you've never done it before. 

Let's get started. 

The first three steps are all research. If you try to sit down and write copy without doing any research, you're going to write crappy copy. So don't do that. Write good copy. 

Let's start with step one. 

Step one is a research step. Know your avatar. What that means is you have to know exactly who you're writing to. You're not writing to everybody. You're writing to one specific person with one specific problem. 

So to get started, you have to think about the product or service you're selling and ask yourself… 

• How old are the typical customers? 
• Are they male or female? What's the split? Is it a 60/40 ratio of male to female? Is it 70/30? 
• What kind of attitude do...

Part 1  
June 2021 

I was confident as I sat down in a big “yurt-like” room for my first ayahuasca ceremony. 

Maybe a little too confident. 

I had fasted the entire day and my stomach was empty.

I had stuck to the “diet” that was given to me for the past 3 days - no sex, no red meat, healthy foods. 

I had done everything I could to maximize the effect of the medicine I was about to receive. 

My wife Angel and I had driven 7 hours from San Diego, California to Sedona, Arizona…

A town in the mountains adorned by red rock walls and mysterious “energy vortexes” according to the internet. 

These energy vortexes are supposedly catalysts for great spiritual change. 

At the time, I was already in the midst of great change. 

I had been doing intensive psycho-therapy work for 2 years - sometimes for hours every day. 

I had made huge, ground-breaking changes already to my finances and mental...

I’m gonna share the #1 copywriting lesson I learned from Gary Bencivenga - one of the all-time great copywriters.

It’s stuck with me my entire career…

Because it’s that powerful.

I’m gonna teach it to you through a story.

You see, copywriting is a lot like fishing.

When you write a piece of sales copy, you’re trying to get a bunch of people to read your words and take an action.

When you're fishing, you're trying to get a bunch of fish to bite your hook.

Here’s the problem.

Say there’s a fisherman named John.

John's like any old typical fisherman.

He walks down to the lake with his fishing pole and his tackle box, and he’s all excited to catch some fish.

So he sets up at his favorite spot under this big old willow tree…

Picks his lucky lure that is super flashy and that he thinks will attract the most fish attention…

Baits his hook, casts his line, and waits.

Believe it or not, the way John fishes is the same way...

WANT MORE FREE SHIT THAT’LL MAKE YOU MORE MONEY?!???

Watch this video I made on the #1 lesson (AND the #1 mistake I see) in copywriting.

When copywriters enter “Ning world,” they focus on 3 pillars to start:

Copywriting - the technical skill of selling through the written word

Clients - how to get clients who pay you the big moneys (and who you like working with)

Mindset - how to not freak out and have mental breakdowns while you’re doing all this (don’t worry, everybody gets them)

Master all 3 pillars, and your income will skyrocket.

Beyond that, if you hit the $30k-$40k a month range, you need NEW skill sets on top of all of that to go even higher. Skills like:

Offer creation
Hiring / delegation
Business operations
Managing a team
Money management

These are skills I’M still working on mastering.

But hey, I’m getting ahead of myself.

I want to ease you into “Ning world”...

Not slam your face into it.

So let me start by sharing the...