Copywriting Critique - Otherwise known as the Sinister Challenge

[Mike Kavanagh]

I approached @SinisterLex yesterday with an offer to help him do freelance copywriting for free. No charge.
I didn't have confidence in my skills as a copywriter... I didn't think that I had much to offer the market.

He didn't see it that way.

We broke down my mindset and figured out my "why".
Why do I want to do freelance copywriting?
Location independence and the ability to grow capital to start an eventual fastlane.

The challenge he presented me with was this - Write a product description of a fictional 6-slice toaster.

Trying to get into the habit of over delivering, I wrote two things.
A long copy version and a sort copy version.
He also gave me till Tuesday.

Forget Tuesday.

I will be posting both of them in the following posts.
All comments are appreciated as well as any criticisms.

Shall we proceed?

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[Mike Kavanagh]

Our 6-Slice Toaster Makes School-Day

Breakfast In No Time!



Monday morning, you wake up late. You start rushing, trying to get the children ready for school.

Toast for breakfast.


You missed the school bus.


Your breakfast plan broke down. Maybe your youngest dropped her toast. Maybe your oldest is going through that stage where they only eat frozen waffles for breakfast. On top of all that you didn't get to eat either.


Your morning isn't going so well today...


Now you have to make more toast and frozen waffles AND drive the kids to school.

On an empty stomach.


The problem is your toaster. It has seen better days. Being a four slot toaster, you can only make 4 things at once.


Don't worry, I have the solution to all of your breakfast woes -


New from Mountain Homes – The Master Blaster

6-Slice Toaster!


[Photo here]




The Master Blaster comes with these time saving, stress reducing features:

• Built in “Burnt Toast” protection.
  
  
• 6 slots to make anything from frozen waffles to whole grain toast at

the same time!

• 600-Watt coils to reduce toasting time down to less than a minute!

With The Master Blaster 6- Slot toaster, you can feed everyone at breakfast time!
No longer will you have to go hungry in the mornings!



Order today and start making toast tomorrow!

[Order Button]


P.S. Our toaster is so easy to use, your husband can do it!

 

[Mike Kavanagh]

Imagine the perfect morning...


You come downstairs,
The children are dressed for school and sitting at the breakfast table.
You sit down at the table where there are two perfect slices of toast left for you.
You don't have to rush today. You have the perfect cup of coffee and 2 slices of delicious toast.


Sounds like a dream, doesn't it?
It doesn't have to be.


While we can't get your children ready for school, we can make sure breakfast is easier on you.
With our new 6-Slice toaster will make getting everyone fed is quick and easy. No more repeat trips to the toaster.to make more toast.

(Click here to get your 6-Slice dream today!)

 

[Mike Kavanagh]

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[Lex DeVille]

View attachment 12127 View attachment 12128 View attachment 12129 View attachment 12130 View attachment 12131

There you go bro, just do you.

What works for you as long as you're moving forward and helping people.

Based on your copy above I don't know what you're waiting for with Upwork.

Fill out your bio and start applying to gigs. It's good enough. Then practice as you go.

Feedback

The writing is good enough. It's better than what foreigners from third-world countries can do.

Right now it's like a big block of stone. You've got the concept, now chisel it into a fine work of art.

Read it out loud several times and notice where it's hard to finish the sentence. Notice what seems long to you.

Chisel away anything that doesn't need to be there. Make it flow like you're telling a friend.

With copywriting it's your job to write copy first. Design setup is usually done by the client.

So just focus on getting the message across in ways that impact people.

Read it out loud and if it makes you feel something, you're off to a good start.

Once you get your first client, just ask lots of questions to get clear about what exactly they need.

Then boom. Instant copywriter.

 

[Mike Kavanagh]

@SinisterLex
I edited the short copy. When I said it out loud somethings weren't flowing properly. Adjustments have been made.

 

[marklov]

What about the Gary Halbert Challenge?

have you given that a try?

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[Mike Kavanagh]

What about the Gary Halbert Challenge?

have you given that a try?

To be honest no. Here's why.

My problem, as stated in my other thread, The Power I see in Daily Vlogs, @Andy Black and I had a break through.
I get stuck in an education loop.

It's a constant struggle between needing to know more and not feeling like you know enough.
So it's learned helplessness.

What happened here with @SinisterLex and I, was him showing me that I'm not actually helpless.
I feel like many people are stuck like I was.
To reiterate what I said in my message to him, "Cemented to the F*cking sidewalk".

With the Gary Halbert Challenge you are action faking.
How many people do you see that are doing the challenge but only going through the motions?
When you read the letters do you actually see what the purpose is behind them?

I learned more today by coming up with something on my own than I did re-writing 15 letters.

Time to break out the jackhammer and jetpack.

 

[Mike Kavanagh]

Upwork hasn't been working for me today. So I said screw it and went over to Fiverr and posted a gig to write or re-write headlines.
No hiding now.

I don't know why I kept running from this.

The way I look at it is, if I can even do 3 head lines an hour, I've up'd my hourly rate by 4 bucks.
Doesn't sound like much, but I can eat pretty good for two days on $4.

Feet first. The head will follow.

 

[raden1]

To be honest no. Here's why.

My problem, as stated in my other thread, The Power I see in Daily Vlogs, @Andy Black and I had a break through.
I get stuck in an education loop.

It's a constant struggle between needing to know more and not feeling like you know enough.
So it's learned helplessness.

What happened here with @SinisterLex and I, was him showing me that I'm not actually helpless.
I feel like many people are stuck like I was.
To reiterate what I said in my message to him, "Cemented to the F*cking sidewalk".

With the Gary Halbert Challenge you are action faking.
How many people do you see that are doing the challenge but only going through the motions?
When you read the letters do you actually see what the purpose is behind them?

I learned more today by coming up with something on my own than I did re-writing 15 letters.

Time to break out the jackhammer and jetpack.

Yep, exactly why I decided not to do the Garry Halbert Challenge also. I am starting to reprogram myself to see what real action is vs what fake action is. I've done enough fake action for a lifetime...

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[Lex DeVille]

 

[Mike Kavanagh]

Yep, exactly why I decided not to do the Garry Halbert Challenge also. I am starting to reprogram myself to see what real action is vs what fake action is. I've done enough fake action for a lifetime...

Just do something. Hand re-write copy if you need to. Read 10 pages Cashvertising then write your own product description. It doesn't have to be a real product.

I'm not making money hand over fist. Hell, I haven't even gotten a customer yet.
The only thing that has set me apart from everyone else is I did something in the right direction.

 

[raden1]

Just do something. Hand re-write copy if you need to. Read 10 pages Cashvertising then write your own product description. It doesn't have to be a real product.

I'm not making money hand over fist. Hell, I haven't even gotten a customer yet.
The only thing that has set me apart from everyone else is I did something in the right direction.

I've offered to do free copy on fiverr and still haven't gotten a single customer! Just made an intro thread about this actually.

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[marklov]

To be honest no. Here's why.

My problem, as stated in my other thread, The Power I see in Daily Vlogs, @Andy Black and I had a break through.
I get stuck in an education loop.

It's a constant struggle between needing to know more and not feeling like you know enough.
So it's learned helplessness.

What happened here with @SinisterLex and I, was him showing me that I'm not actually helpless.
I feel like many people are stuck like I was.
To reiterate what I said in my message to him, "Cemented to the F*cking sidewalk".

With the Gary Halbert Challenge you are action faking.
How many people do you see that are doing the challenge but only going through the motions?
When you read the letters do you actually see what the purpose is behind them?

I learned more today by coming up with something on my own than I did re-writing 15 letters.

Time to break out the jackhammer and jetpack.

Interesting....I only asked out of curiosity.


Do whatever you please.

I am just passing on my experience.

 

[Mike Kavanagh]

Interesting....I only asked out of curiosity.
Do whatever you please.
I am just passing on my experience.

I agree that it doesn't make an sense going off and trying something new and untested.

and

I meant no disrespect to those doing the Gary Halbert challenge. There is an inherit flaw with the challenge... You are copying copy.
You fall back on Gary's laurels and not your own.

Instead lets take a principle from Cashvertising.... Fear selling, cause it's the most recent thing I've read since I started over.

What's scary to most people? Death is scary. What can cause death? Millions of things can. Lets make something up.

Do you live near a farm?

If you live near a farm you may be in more danger than someone living in the city.
While people who live in the city have to deal with drug gangs and robberies, you have more pressing things to worry about.
Dozens of people who commute near farms are killed every month rolling by hay bales.

These wheels of death are known for rolling at NASCAR speeds with nothing more than a strong gust of wind.
The average hay bale weighs 400 pounds and can be as wide as a Ford Pickup.
Imagine Indiana Jones trying to outrun that...

The bales choose their victims at random and strike without warning. They can be more deadly than rattlesnakes.
Getting hit by one of these and death is assured.

How can you avoid becoming a victim?

We are with a group of activist farmers trying to prevent the needless death caused by these innocent looking killers.
We want to make square hale bale use mandatory.
Sign this petition today and you make living near a farm safe again.

Completely made up. I Googled weird ways to die and came up with it on the spot.
I took two concepts I read about today in Cashvertising, visualization and fear selling, and applied them to something absurd and ridiculous.

I guarantee that you'll be on the look out next time you're in farm country for these 'wheels of death'.

Apply what you've learned to something that they haven't written about.

 

[Lex DeVille]

You are copying copy.
You fall back on Gary's laurels and not your own.

I agree with this. Copying copy can give you a sense of the old school techniques and depending on what's being copied there might be something more to gather from it. It might be possible to gain some insight into the human mind by copying professional copy. To me it seems easier to just do it and get that info as you go.

We live in a completely new era. Fundamentals are fundamentals, but we can learn so much faster than ever before. The world isn't getting slower. It's getting faster and to me it makes sense to move and flow with it. Hand writing letters flows against it.

Writing is writing, don't get me wrong. You gotta practice to get better, but why not practice and make money at the same time? There's really no wrong way as long as you get the results you want. If you just wanna learn copy then the letters might be the right way to go.

If you wanna make money writing copy...

At some point you gotta launch that ship and find out if it floats.

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[Deleted35442]

Basically...

Writing other peoples copy. Going to @SinisterLex for pep talks and self-esteem boosts.

<<<<<

Writing your own copy till you can afford not to making your own product, your own business.

Still don't get this guys obsession in offering pro bono Freelance coaching on an Entrepreneurship forum. But...while we're on the subject...anyone wanna write my copy?

 

[Mike Kavanagh]

Still don't get this guys obsession in offering pro bono Freelance coaching on an Entrepreneurship forum.

Basically, it's helping people and leaving a legacy. That's what most of the older people here were taught.
Give back to the community that gave you the icecream.

@SinisterLex didn't have to help me. He could of told me to F*ck off and proceeded to block me.
That's happened to me before, on an 'seo' forum, when I was 16.

I went to one of the mods/admins and said, SEO is great and all but where do I start.
I proceeded to get torn a new one because there were so many threads detailing it.
I asked where. The next response was shocking.
"Go F*ck yourself."

So I did and I never went back.

Here it isn't like that. I've not talked to a single person who wasn't chill or nice.
People here are concerned with others. It's not all about getting the money, any means necessary.

I spent the last year trying to help a family member with a business only to be mentally beat down.
For an entire year I heard things like

• He's not a mechanic, he doesn't belong here
• He's too slow to work on cars
• You need to learn on your own, if you can't do that, quit
• You are the reason this business is going under

Stuff like that, coming from an IT background where self doubt is common, is pretty friggin demeaning.
I don't care what kind of spirit you have, it will be broken.

Surrounding myself with people like @SinisterLex @Andy Black helps me realize that I am capable of doing and getting shit done.

They are building their legacy around people.
I'm glad they were around to help me out of a dark place.

 

[marklov]

When I did the GH challenge, I thought rewriting the letters were stupid you might find a few of my rants in there lol.

Sometime later I started Cold calling instead because I was too prideful to whore myself out on upwork and I didn't know what to sell.

Recently I have been busting my brain finding ways to scale and started fiddling with DM and its already proving profitable.

I remembered very little from the actual challenge but when I picked up that pen
started writing it all came back to me...because of the hours I spent daily rewriting all those letters

I don't really care about reinventing wheel or doing my own thing, the greats already laid what you need to do
and their advice is backed by a lifetime career, successful sales and failure, I'd rather listen to them.

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.