I Made $2.3M Writing Like a 5th Grader

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I Made $2.3M Writing Like a 5th Grader

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Aug 23, 2023

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I just flew down to Miami to meet @CardinalMason so I could ask him how he made $2.3 million dollars with copywriting. He shares it all: landing his first client, how to become a god-tier writer, and the business model that made him millions as a beginner. And the craziest part of it all… He started less than 3 years ago. Hope you guys enjoy this one!

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The internet has created a new opportunity

If you can write like a fifth grader you can make millions

And I just found living proof

This is Mason an average kid who went from earning 10 an hour packing boxes

to making 2 3 million by the age of 21

All by learning one skill copywriting

I think it's something that anyone can do

I flew out to Miami to meet Mason and ask him exactly how he did it

And what I learned was insane

With a laptop and a lot of hustle he taught himself copywriting

and started a small freelance business all with zero experience

A few months later he was already making a doctor's salary

Grew it all the way to 48k a month at my peak

In this video we're going to dive deep into his business

and show you exactly what it takes to become a world class copywriter

And we'll cover what I think is the number one secret to why Mason's made millions

Hundreds of thousands of people are using this model to make money

It's the way better way to go

I'm Pat Walls and this is Starter Story

Who are you guys

We're Starter Story

Starter Story

We're here to unveil your scam operation

Oh the scam

Oh yeah yeah

Come on in

I know this is about the legit business

If this is about the scam yeah yeah yeah

This is the crib

All right man

Good to meet you

Give us a breakdown of who Cardinal Mason is and everything that you've built

I was a 21 year old college dropout that got into freelance copywriting

Fell in love with it basically at first sight

Loved it so much that I grew it all the way to 48k a month at my peak

Wasn't sustainable but I did it anyway

I rolled that into building an agency email marketing agency

that did multiple six figures a year

I wanted to share more about my journey of being a copywriter

because I think it's something that anyone can do

So I turned it into a program an education company

Like we did a milli in 96 days

I want to make as many people very wealthy as I possibly can

What exactly is copywriting

Why is it so important

Right

So copywriting is on a high level

It's writing marketing materials for companies

So anything that's spoken or posted on Instagram or posted on Facebook

or in an email or in a text message you get it's written by a copywriter

So like basically all of the communications going from business to the consumer

is written by a copywriter

And the better that that communication is

the more money you're going to make the more people are going to like you

the more people are going to come back and spend more money

Not just like the first customer or the first touch

but like every other touch after that

And so a good copywriter is basically like the messenger from the company to the world

Everyone's like okay wait well like which company doesn't have that

You'd be surprised

It blew my mind to learn how many business owners

like don't have that or know how to do it themselves

I hear that AI is going to kill copywriting

Can you tell me about the opportunity of copywriting

The reality is that AI is good but it's a tool

People need to understand it's like AI does not just instantly know what to do what to write

AI is a tool that copywriters can use to write better write clear

think better have more ideas like just more concepts

But the reason someone's hiring a copywriter

is because they don't even know where to start right

Like a lot of business owners like it's not that they don't have time

or that they just need someone to do it

It's usually like because they need someone to like think on their behalf

AI can't do that yet

And so for now for AI to actually give you good solid copy

that's going to convert and make people like want to hear more from you

it has to be written by a real copywriter first

Any prompts that AI gets has to be from someone who fundamentally understands copywriting

The opportunity here is that there are 35 million businesses

small businesses in the U S alone

There's about 45 to 5 000 freelance copywriters in America

So for it to be saturated every single copywriter would have to have like 3 000 clients

And you only need four or five six clients to make really solid money

like six figures like everyone is really lazy

And so if you think that like

if I get a video talking about copywriting and it has 100 000 views

for any 100 000 views that I get

there's probably another five people that are actually trying it

And four of them are going to give up in like in a month

So like if you actually genuinely want to work

then there's more than enough to go around

You're out of college

You're trying to figure out how to make money online

Tell us about how you got your first client

How did that work

Scroll through constantly just like looking for any type of company that like would hire me

I got one a music blog

They made no money

I think they posted the rate was like 1 5 cents a word

which means for a thousand words I get 15

So that's like actual like minimum wage

I kind of gave myself a pep talk and I was like

all right if I'm going to do this let's do it right

But like you can't just Google companies that will pay me to write copy for them

Like you can't there's no search for that

So I went to Instagram I would just wait for ads

So I would like scroll through every like three or four posts on Instagram would be an ad

And so I eventually found a bunch of companies using that

I figure out who the founder is and then figure out what their email is

And then I would just send them a cold email

Then I got a response saying hey Mason thanks for reaching out

I'd love to get on a call and talk about what this would look like

So I ended up getting on the call

I took it way too seriously

I probably could have been more chill

And I dressed up like I asked my mom I was like should I wear a tie

And she's like I don't know

I think it might be a little bit too much

And he was like all right emails ads blogs

They wanted kind of everything for me

And he was like what would you charge for that

And I was like 2 500 bucks a month

And he was like to me bro like that was like a year of income for me

And I was like that is imposter syndrome

Hey real quick that business you want to start

Let me show you how you can make your first dollar 10 times faster by using case studies

Imagine you could read the exact steps to how someone built a million dollar business

and the mistakes they made so that you can avoid them when you launch

Well at Starter Story we have a library of over 4 000 case studies and business

idea breakdowns where you can do this all backed by real data

For example Luke joined Starter Story and dove into our case study

about a newsletter that makes 25 million a year

year Just one month later he launched his own newsletter that did 5 800

in revenue in the first 30 days

It's simple

He studied what works implemented it and avoided the mistakes of people

that were just a few steps ahead of him

If you're serious about building something check out StarterStory com

We're running a special deal this week

and you can click the link below in the description to get it

Much love and I hope you guys enjoy the rest of the video

Peace

As a copywriter what are the most useful tools

OK so the cool thing about being a copywriter is like you don't really need much

I've always said that like the bare minimum that you can do copywriting with is like 40 bucks

right

So if you have 40 bucks to spend congrats you can be pretty much a copywriter

Like it's domain and a website

So domain off Google domains website off card

I know people that will do it without a website

I don't recommend it

I use MailTrack

You can see people's interactions with your email

You send them one on one like if they open it or forward it or something right

Hunter io is good just to figure out like who people like what their email is

So I mean yeah dude

not really much you need

All right

So you're probably one of the best copywriters in the world

whether you like to admit it or not

I don't know about that one

At least one of the fastest

What would be your advice to people that want to get good fast at copywriting

I mean to get good fast like you just have to write so much

Like when I was at my best was when I was like I said

kind of just cracked out just writing for eight hours a day straight

Again that's not realistic for a lot of people

Like some people have jobs

Immerse yourself in the world of whatever you're trying to do

So like I was reading a lot of copy

I was writing a lot of copy

I was like editing a lot of copy for like some of my teammates

I was you know listening to podcasts about marketing

I was watching YouTube videos

I'm like dude it was all I did

You just have to force yourself to be fast

If you give someone 10 hours to do a task it's going to take them 10 hours

But if you give them one hour it'll take about an hour

And so that's what you realize where it's like you

you will just continually keep adding clients

And you think that if you're currently working 40 hours a week with like three

clients and you add one more then it's going to be like 50 hours a week

week But it's not

You're just going to find a way to squish that in

You think your garbage is full

You think your garbage can is full and you push it down

And you realize that it's only like 25 full

It sounds like the well the network was a big thing for you meeting

meeting Chase who is well connected in the copywriting space

Tell me a little bit more about that building your network

Chase had just had a baby

And so he wasn't actually actively working in the business

He was working like on the business like just trying to do lead gen get clients in

But I knew Chase was like an influencer

Like I followed him on Twitter and he was he was famous to me

I got one of the team members to give me his address

And I went and made like a custom onesie for his daughter

daughter On the front of the onesie it said email marketing is dead

And then crossed out

It said dad email marketing is dad

And he put it on his daughter

And he was like dude who did this

And then someone eventually told him like Mason did that

And so that started like the the relationship and the interaction

And I was I told him I was like dude like listen like

not trying to pump your tires or anything but like I'm a fan

And like I think I could help you a lot

So like if there's anything you need you let me know

And I'll just write it like blogs emails tweets

Like I'll do whatever kind of cool

Like how like he hired he gave me one of my first gigs

Like he gave me a shot

And now tell me about how your experience freelancing in those first few years

has now translated into this bigger business

That is I guess a derivative of this hard work that you put in those days

Can you tell me about that

And then what those businesses look like today

You're probably not going to be a freelancer for like the rest of your life

Like some people can do that if that's like what they want to do

But like what I see a lot is people will sort of reach the top of like freelancer income

which is around 30 to 40k a month

But like if you want to get to like 100 200 500k a month

like you kind of have to build something else

Because you have to hire people

You have to learn new skills

You have to like learn more about fulfillment

You have to become an operator

Like it's all kinds of different skills

Instead of just like trying to like squeeze as much juice as they can out of being a freelancer

they'll usually work with like a couple dozen companies over the course of like two or three

years that they're doing it

But with those people they'll learn from them what they're doing

So like I worked with a lot of agencies

I work with a lot of info guys

I work with a lot of e commerce brands

I kind of have my pick

I know how all these businesses kind of work

I really like the idea of an agency

And so like that was why I chose to go from freelancing to agency

And it made it way easier for me to learn how to do that

I still have a couple of freelance clients that I still work with

Just because I need to stay sharp

I still write for Chase

Like I still like do some stuff for him

I have a series called Alex in my inbox with him

I know that actually

Yeah

So everyone kind of knows at this point like I'm Alex

That's awesome

I didn't know that

You didn't know that

I didn't know that was you

Yeah that's me

That's awesome

My main soul focus

The only thing that I genuinely like want to grow

And the only thing I care about is copying a VA

I think it's the best opportunity to make an impact on my audience

I think I can make a big impact with the people that choose to be part of my team

And we have an opportunity to hit some stupid numbers

You were in this space where you're making a few thousand with your freelancing work

Some people watching this might also be working as a freelancer

And trying to take it to the next level like you did

So what would be your advice to people to go from small time freelancer

to big time like what you're doing

It's such a silly mistake

Basically what people do is they don't understand that they can get like recurring

sort of like agency style retainers

Two three four grand a month to work with a client

And they just do these one off gigs

And they write 100 product descriptions

They get paid 1 000 to do it

And then they're on the chase for the next client

Obviously that's not the right way to go

You don't need to do that

Hundreds thousands of people are using this model to make money

It's the way better way to go

Like if you're only doing like one email a week

And they're paying you 800 bucks a month

Like I'd say that's probably kind of fair

Like you should do more stuff

Provide value dude

Like that's all you have to do

All right what does a day in the life look like for you

Dude my days are very like boring

I wake up late around like nine

I usually stay in bed until like 9 45

I'll walk to the coffee shop get a coffee say what's up go back upstairs lock in

Usually I'll start the day writing something just to like get in the groove

I think it's a good habit to like write every morning

Gets the brain flowing a little bit

So yeah I'll write an email on my list or you know a long message in Slack to my students

or like send to my team or something something

Usually I get on calls in the morning because I have a lot of energy

I can talk about stuff

Most of it is content too

So I'll probably go live once or twice

I'll make a video for TikTok

Usually just like talking to students or being on TikTok

Like that's all my job really is

I go to the gym but like I'm super under optimized

I like to walk around

Like I like to get eight to 10 000 steps a day

Solid

Feels good

And at this point my team is big enough where I can kind of just like think of stuff and

then be like Abby do this or Allie do this or Griff do this or Ben do this

Whoever is in charge of that thing will just like take it and run with it

I'm just like sit with my aquapona

All right

Well the last question we ask for all entrepreneurs is if you could go back and sit on Mason's shoulder

shoulder what would be some things that you would tell him that you've learned along the

way

Don't procrastinate

It was a big one

Don't be afraid of what you think is going to happen

Just try it and see like nothing's ever that bad

Like you're never going to make a decision that completely just derails everything

And the grand scheme of things it's never that big of a deal

I made a lot of mistakes obviously as everyone does in the early days but I would never

change anything

The regret of sending the wrong message to a client or prospect the regret of you know

working with someone that I probably shouldn't have worked with

Like every single thing that I've done has led to this exact moment which I'm happy

that we're here

I like hanging out with you

So I wouldn't change anything

It makes the L's really easy to handle when you have the mindset of in 10 years I'll

never regret anything that I'm doing right now

Every yeah every mistake you make is going to end up being all right

All right

Thank you sir

Thank you man

Follow these steps and you'll be a multimillionaire copywriter

Overnight

It takes no work

You don't have to do anything

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