#114 · $350K/M AI Automation Expert Answers Questions For 80Mins
You shouldn't feel bad about lying if it's not true, but you also don’t need big social proof. Focus on framing yourself as a single person reaching out, emulate that frame using my copyrighting framework, and look up my videos. You can get people on calls without flashy social proof.
If you lack social proof, just send everything else: personalize first, then identify yourself and what you do, then present your offer. You can also get creative with social proof—for example, mention working with a known company or a $7 million business, even if it's a relative's business, as a foothold. Regarding the video request, I had to pull that sales call video after someone on Alex Ramosi's team asked me to remove it due to liability concerns. As you grow, you'll need legal disclaimers because people may come after you and sue you, which is something I didn't worry about when I was younger.
If you booked the sales call with the client using your own cold email system, that meeting itself is your case study and social proof. When a prospect expresses doubt about whether your system works, remind them that they are sitting on the call with you because the system successfully converted them. Combine that live proof with a risk-free money-back guarantee. Don't look for excuses or validate self-doubt; using your system to get prospects onto the phone is all the proof you need.
I don't want to share my actual email copy here since that's part of what I charge for in Maker School (I have shared it in some previous videos though, so digging through those can get you templates from before I locked that down). But the spirit of the answer: even before I had any social proof, the simplest straight-line copy structure is (1) identify yourself, (2) illustrate why your service matters using some form of proof or association with a positive outcome — you don't need to have worked with a million-dollar business, you can say 'I built a system that delivered X, Y, Z outcome' without clarifying it was for your own company, and (3) make a clear ask at the end. You won't get stellar reply rates with this — even a mediocre copywriter can expect somewhere around 1-2% — but that 1-2%, sustained long enough, eventually gets you meetings you can use to bootstrap, learn about your audience, and write better copy over time.
Of course hiding client identity would be interesting and helpful. I actually do this and make money with Make. I have one or two intro sales calls. Honestly, that's a big point of the value of joining my programs—me showing you stuff like that. I feel like a lot of people are asking me to put all this super deep stuff online for free, but I don't like gatekeeping knowledge. However, the risk-to-reward would be unnecessarily large. One reason people don't do this is because nobody actually shows sales calls; there's a fair amount of liability if something gets found. For example, I've revealed two email addresses in past videos, which is tough because clients might look you up and find a recording of your voice. It's different in a paid program with a limited number of people who respect you and where you don't make a big deal of it. But yeah, I'll be real: there's just a lot of liability. I do have a couple of actual sales calls where I do this and make money with Make. So do whatever you want with that. Everything is obscured and anonymized—super anonymized.