I offered to write him a 7-figure ad script for free… and he said NO?

Flash back to 2013:

I was working as a personal trainer at a boutique studio in Ottawa, when another new trainer got hired.

Super smart dude.

We hit it off immediately and became friends.

I ended up leaving the industry a few years later when I got into freelance copywriting...

But he stuck with it and went on to build his own weight loss coaching business.

Now, fast forward to today...

We've both been on our separate entrepreneurial journeys for roughly the same amount of time.

He's chosen the organic path...

And he's been wildly successful at it.

He's got over 100k followers on Instagram...

Prob over 250k on TikTok at this point.

But here's the thing:

The organic game has gotten a LOT harder in the last few years.

And his business has definitely felt the impact.

So he's started experimenting with paid ads...

Specifically retargeting.

(just dipping his toe in the water, not going whole hog on cold traffic yet)

Now, as someone who gone down the paid traffic path...

And who's overseen millions of dollars in ad spend for coaches, consultants, and experts...

It's tough for me to sit idly by and not offer my help.

So I casually threw out an offer to produce a Talking Head video ad script for him.

This would include writing the script and captioning the video files.

All free of charge.

Why?

Two reasons:

First, I genuinely want to see him win.

Second, I'd just finished building a new bot inside ESS AI called the Talking Head Ad Script Bot.

Which meant it wouldn't be as heavy a lift for me as writing it from scratch.

(Because, for the record…I am busy AF these days lol)

Anyhow:

This bot is trained on a very specific script template I've used to generate MILLIONS of dollars in sales for clients.

In fact, I've spent over 7-figures just on AD SPEND running different variations of this script.

So it's proven to work and convert like crazy.

And it seemed like the perfect fit for my friend's situation.

Naturally, I was pretty hyped about it.

But when I threw out the offer...

He immediately started pushing back with random objections.

All this resistance about how he's not a fan of scripted videos...

How it's gonna sound like AI wrote it...

Etc etc.

I was like whatever, it's a favor... take me up on it or don't lol 🤷‍♂️

But I tried to gently challenge some of his misconceptions about the whole thing.

Explained how we'd pull from his existing content so it sounds exactly like him...

How voice cloning works...

All that.

And after a bit of back and forth, he changed his mind.

"Yeah, let's do it."

Cool.

So I said:

"Great, I just need some samples of your writing... and an anchor piece of content where you describe your methodology step-by-step."

Because the script depends on having a solid unique mechanism.

His reply?

"Ehh… sounds like too much work."

Then came up with a bunch more excuses...

And proceeded to waste my time until I said I was pulling the plug.

It was both shocking and irritating...

But also a timely reminder of something I've observed again and again:

Those who pay, pay attention.

You see, when people don't have skin in the game...

They perceive your offer in a completely different way.

Even when it's genuinely valuable.

Free = low priority.

Paid = commitment.

And this is exactly why attracting freebie seekers can kill your business momentum.

When you give everything away for free...

(whether it's your time, your expertise, or your content)...

People don't value it the same way.

They flake.

They ghost.

They waste your time.

For me, this is not about being greedy...

It's about prioritizing signal over noise.

The people who pay are the ones who show up, do the work, and get results.

Those are the people I want in my world.

Some food for thought.

That's all I got for ya today, though :)

Jim Hamilton

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