Y’know, I’m often one to trash gurus and the mindless offspring they produce.
But I’ve never seen as bad of an example as I just did…
The story?
Well, I regrettably ventured into the r/copywriting subreddit. Mayhap the biggest mistake of my copywriting career to date.
And I stumbled upon this hideous website, offer, and freelancer who, despite being 17 years old and despite not knowing the difference between “copy” and “copies” (copywriting write copy, not copies) because he watched one Cardinal Mason video where said “guru” convinced him that it’s making $10k a month as an email copywriter is easy…
Yes, this Cardinal Mason jabroni thinks anyone can make $10k per month from being an email copywriter even if…
You’ve never sent an email in your life
You barely have a grasp on the English language
You don’t know the first thing about being persuasive, let alone writing persuasive copy
You never graduated from high school, which ain’t so much about being intelligent, rather it’s about being alive for 18 years
Now, I don’t know Cardinal Mason personally. But if this is the type of dudes he’s attracting and “guru-ing,” then, well, you best be grateful you found an actual professional email copywriter. (I’m also in the process of creating a course which will help my fellow freelancers actually reach $10k per month if you let dudes like Cardinal Mason dupe you.)
Now, to be fair, this dude did ask for critiques on reddit, which takes balls. And he did do something, which is much better than doing nothing.
It doesn’t make his “portfolio website” any better though… I’ll let you be the judge:
(I’ve cropped out his headline because it was just his name, and I want to protect the guilty.)
Woof!
I mean… I don’t even need to critique this thing, do I? Surely, you know enough about copywriting to see for yourself how god-awful it is.
So, I won’t critique it. But I will critique a part that happens further down on the page, his “About me” section:
So, what’s the problem with this section, besides, well, e-v-e-r-y-t-h-i-n-g?
(I admit) I got a good chuckle out of the line that said he only failed two classes in high school. ONLY! But I kinda respect the honesty…
The other part I got a good chuckle out of is the fact that he claims he studied a lot about copywriting online. Either he’s lying (so much for the honesty part…) or this Cardinal Mason jabroni is really the worst guru that ever graced the world of copywriting.
Either way, none of these issues are the fatal flaw with this “about me” section.
The fatal flaw—and something you can use to directly improve your persuasion skills?
Nobody cares about you. People only care about themselves. And this section only talks about him. Not about the potential reader and what problems he could solve for them, which admittedly, after looking at this dude’s website, I don’t think he could solve ANY problem for anyone.
Fellow freelancers, this is your competition.
Fellow business owners, this is the type of dude trying to scam you. He’d be better off solely relying on ChatGPT because that’s how god-awful his site is.
I don’t say this to be mean (well, okay, I kinda do because suckers like this make the entire industry look bad), but I say it as a warning if you’re thinking about hiring a freelancer:
Do your due diligence.
Yes, even if you want to work with me, I still recommend doing your due diligence.
More:
I kinda feel bad for the dude.
I don’t know what this Cardinal Mason jabroni taught him… But if his first step was creating a website (before he even learned the difference between copy and copies and before he wrote a single word of copy himself…), then once again, the guru you watched on YouTube is misleading you.
Truth be told, I barely even had a website until I was 18 months into my career as a freelancer.
You don’t need a website. You need an offer people want. And you need to be able to back up your offer with a skill set that can help you achieve the promise you offer.
Otherwise, you could end up like this guy:
With an embarrassing website, no offer, and no skill set to even have the confidence of making an offer.
Anywho, I ranted far too long about this.
So, let’s get down to bidness:
Hit reply if you wanna work with a professional email copywriter. We’ll set up a quick call to see if we’re a good fit, then we’ll laugh to the bank together if we are.
For everyone else?
Keep opening and reading these emails. Soon, I’ll have a course ready which will take you to $10k per month instead of listening to the bad advice from gurus like this Cardinal Mason fella.
John
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