How To Create A Portfolio Out Of Thin Air Pt. 1 of 2

"But what if I don't have any experience?!"

So, let’s say you’ve been following everything in this “client getting” series so far.

You researched niches like you saw in PART 3, opted into a bunch of funnels, and you’ve been following some companies’ ads.

Then you took heed on PART 4 and snooped your way into getting a bunch of contact emails of decision-makers that you want to contact.

And then you stepped it up a notch by putting into practice what you learned in PART 5 by actually taking that first step and reaching out to these contacts with an EXPERT cold email.

And you did this daily for a few days — researching companies, opting into offers, studying their copy, and sending out awesome cold emails.

And then?

DUN! DUN! DUN! Somebody contacts you back.

And they’re like “Hey this sounds great, I’d love to hop on a call with you — send over some samples my team and I can look at.”

And then get a big ol’ frowny face and think to yourself, “Well I don’t have any samples. In fact, I have no experience at all. Guess I’m just out of luck and I’ll go kick rocks now.”

In fact, most of the messages I get on Reddit and elsewhere about “How do I get started” almost always lament the fact that “I ain’t got no portfolio!”

Well I got some super great news for you — YOU DON’T NEED ONE!

You see — you’re a copywriter.

That means you’re an alchemist.

You can turn ideas into words and then transmute those words into gold.

You don’t need to wait around for somebody to TELL you to do it.

You can just make shit up!

Back in PART 3 I randomly opted into emails from a dog supplement brand called Wuffes.

Since then I’ve been receiving marketing emails from them.

Now, I am a HUGE dog lover. In fact I’ve owned dogs most of my life.

And I have a tiny, itty-bitty bit of basic knowledge about dog health, the right kind of food to feed them, training, and supplementation.

But in all honesty — not very much.

And seeing as how I haven’t owned a dog in the six years since my best buddy Sam died (RIP) I haven’t really had a reason to keep up with it or remember much of it.

That makes Wuffes — as a random brand — the PERFECT showcase to walk you through how to create a portfolio out of THIN AIR.

So here’s what we’re going to do…

Throughout this week I am going to record an entire over-the-shoulder process of what I would do if I had ZERO portfolio pieces and somebody from Wuffes had emailed me back asking me to “show my work.”

First, I’m going to walk through their current funnels starting with their Facebook ads.

Then?

I’m going to write — in real time as I’m recording my screen — the following content…

• 1 Facebook static ad

• 1 short video (to go on Meta Reels / TikTok)

• 1 Landing page (the page they’ll go to after seeing the ads)

• 1 email

In the process of doing this you’ll also get to see how I utilize AI tools like….

• GPT “Deep Research” and 4.5

• Claude Sonnet 3.7

• Perplexity AI

To essentially streamline and quicken my research and ideation process for the fastest turnaround possible.

And then I’m going to send it ALL to you guys next Monday.

This will be the conclusion and Grand Finale to my “How To Get Clients Series” and it’s going to be a banger.

In fact it’s going to be something I wish somebody would have taught me when I was first starting out.

But here’s the thing — this is going to be for PAID SUBSCRIBERS ONLY.

So make absolutely 100% sure you go ahead and subscribe to the premium version of Copy Kritterz now.

Because - trust me — you do NOT want to miss this.

However, in this quick FREE issue we’re going to talk about the other possibility when you’ve received a response via cold email and that’s the “Test Project.”

STORY TIME!

How I Landed $10k Extra Per Month Contacting Somebody Who Told Me Not To Contact Them

Back in February 2024 I was looking for an extra $10,000 a month so I wanted to pick up a new gig (my wife is expensive).

I was already on contract with a financial publisher for $15,000 a month and my contract essentially barred me from working with other financial publishers (this is not typical if you’re a freelancer, but this contract was a different thing).

Anyway, so I started looking for opportunities in the health niche.

The first thing I did was sign up for Kevin Rogers’ Copy Chief forums (this is not a paid endorsement or anything).

If you don’t know — as a very quick aside — Kevin Rogers is sort of the copy world’s “liaison” he’s super well respected both by big companies who do direct response (and are looking for copywriters) as well as copywriters themselves. He is enormously well connected and incredibly generous with his time.

His Copy Chief forum membership is not cheap (about $120 something a month if I remember correctly).

However, BIG NAME companies go there to find QUALITY copywriters all the time.

They will post jobs there and they know that the people on Kevin’s forum are serious (because they’re paying to be there) and also know what they’re doing (because otherwise they probably wouldn’t even know who Kevin or Copy Chief was).

Not only that, but if you spend a half-way decent amount of time contributing to those forums by sharing insight, samples, and so on and asking for advice then Kevin will take notice and will often RECOMMEND you to people posting looking for writers in his forums.

That being said — it is absolutely not necessary for you to join Copy Chief in order for you to get jobs.

However, I hadn’t checked out his forum in at least a couple years at that point and decided to rejoin and see what was out there.

(This is AFTER already going through the process of researching health companies, gathering contacts, and emailing companies as I’ve already shown you in this series).

One of the posts was for a creative media agency who did most of their marketing for clients using direct response.

The thing is — I had ALREADY seen them posting elsewhere. And here they were ALSO posting on Kevin Rogers’ forum.

But here’s the thing — the post in Rogers’ forum (and elsewhere) EMPHATICALLY stipulated that ABSOLUTELY NOBODY contact them through their personal email.

And INSTEAD — only contact them through their official online application process.

But fuck that — I hate those things. Soulless algorithm machines!

So I completely ignored that and emailed the CEO who posted to absolutely not contact him personally.

Here’s the email I sent (bear in mind they were looking for a Senior Copywriter position with the ability to copy chief juniors),

Kevin from "Copy Chief" sent me over to you.

Well -- not directly. But, I DID hear through the grapevine over at Copy Chief that you needed some experienced copywriters STAT and I'm here to answer the call.

I've been in the industry for 15 years and have worked almost exclusively with Agora (now Marketwise -- MKTW) for the last 9 years. Currently I write for Tradesmith generating hundreds of thousands of dollars a quarter for them.

I used to hold a Senior Copywriter position with them for almost two years before going back to contract (which was my preference) and I have experience training new writers from scratch.

Although I'm from the United States (Atlanta, Georgia) I've been living in Thailand for the last 8 years, which means I successfully copy chiefed and held that senior position while in this time zone.

I live here with my wife and we just had our first kid.

I've primarily written financial copy for almost a decade now and would like to do something in health / wellness for a change.

Don't get me wrong -- I love the financial niche.

However I'm also a big fitness nut. Here in Thailand I co-own a Muay Thai gym and train every day. I'm always reading about new supplements (my personal stack is a well researched combination of about 20 different individual vitamins and supplements I take every day).

I'm obsessed with nootropics, meditation, and other "mindset" hacking stuff.

For me -- the most important part of effective copywriting is finding that "Unique Mechanism" that ties the big promise together and I think there are so many fun and creative ways to do that when it comes to this niche.

I'd LOVE to do a project with you. You could test the waters with me and see what you think. If it goes well we could figure out some kind of arrangement later.

Would you like to get on a call sometime this week?

Looking forward to hopefully chatting with you.

- William

Now obviously this guy who explicitly said that nobody should contact him completely ignored me email, right?

Or worse yet — got pissed off and said “What are you crazy or something! Don’t ever contact me again!”

Actually the opposite happened.

Less than 24 hours alter I received the following email…

If you want to try our test project, I'll be open minded, and assuming what you write impresses me, see if there's a way we can work together.

And of course I agreed.

Here is the exact document I received for the test project

(NOTE — the name of the company is in this document and the product they wanted me to write for as well — DO NOT contact them and name drop me for reasons that will become obvious in a moment. That’s not to say you can’t take a shot and contact them, but do not mention me personally as the reason).

And here is my fulfillment of that copy test…

• The actual copy HERE

• My 10 minute video explaining my reasoning HERE

• My mock video for their graphics team HERE

Now — we had a bit more back-and-forth communication here, but guess what?

Communication dropped off, he stopped answering, and I did not end up getting the position.

Here’s what’s funny though…

A few days later I saw ANOTHER opportunity for a senior copy position with a DIFFERENT marketing company who had a flagship health supplement client.

And they asked for samples.

Well — seeing as how I’d just created this sample for this other company… I sent it over as an example.

And guess what? I got the job and have been working with them for almost a year now.

See how that works?

By doing copy tests and CREATING work out of thin air in just the job-seeking process, you oftentimes can inadvertently create quality portfolio pieces to show other prospects at the same time.

By applying for jobs and contacting potential clients who ask for tests or samples and then creating them in the moment, you defacto build a portfolio of assets that you can then have as ammunition ready to show for the next guy.

And sure — I had lots of copy experience when I contact these people, but I had ZERO health-related portfolio pieces and ZERO health niche experience!

Yet all it took was doing a copy test for one potential client that I was able to easily and quickly submit a sample for the next one (which got me the job lickety-split).

Pretty cool huh?

Now again — keep your eyes peeled for next Monday because in that paid subscriber only video walk-through I’m going to essentially show you how I write portfolio content from scratch.

So make sure you subscribe so you don’t miss it.

P.S. My wife is pregnant again — got some strong swimmers I guess.