Workshop Diamonds

The only things worth keeping from hour-long sessions. The Playbook = cumulative principles (updated as patterns repeat). Sessions = what each session specifically added. New transcripts get distilled and prepended after every weekly Zoom.

How to use this: run your campaigns from the Playbook. When you want to know "where did that rule come from?", the Sessions breakouts show the story behind it.

🎯 Offers & Strategy

Rule #1 Power of one

  • One offer, one channel, one angle until it works. A second offer only after the first hits $1,000/day profit.
  • Split focus = split resources = slower to everything. One offer + one good ad beats five half-built ones.

Test offers like you test creatives

  • If every angle has genuinely been tested and nobody's buying, the market has spoken — kill it and move on.
  • $300 spend and "no sales" is not testing. Exhaust angles first, then judge.

Keep delivery, rotate the front door

  • Delivery stays identical (his: digital products, low ticket). Only the front-end offer changes — a different offer attracts a different buyer.
  • Cycle offers monthly. Same back end, many doors.

The $27 DFY model (why it works now)

  • Done-for-you AI output + 180-day guarantee + low price = essentially zero buyer risk.
  • In a record-skepticism, AI-accelerated market: sell the outcome, not information. DFY is a bolt-on over the education, not a replacement.

The "AI install" high-ticket lever

🎨 Creative & Concepts

Core belief Concepts > formats

  • A creative format is just a communication tool for a message + concept. Meta rewards the message/concept (it learns who to show it to), not format variety.
  • 40+ formats exist to say the same concept to different attention spans.

Volume is the strategy

  • 3+ unique, well-researched concepts per day. More entries = more chances Meta finds the freak athlete (100 runners vs 10 for Olympic qualifying).
  • Normal: 1 winner from 12 concepts. One concept can take you from zero to wherever.

Concept mining: organic → ads

  • Scroll IG/TikTok, save viral posts, ask why it worked (usually: it visualizes a pain instead of describing it — the biggest skill in advertising).
  • Recreate the exact concept for your offer: character swap + change the setting + on-screen text hook. Make 6 variations by only changing the headline.

AI does 90%. You do the 10%.

  • The SOP / input is the only difference when everyone has the same models. Benchmark first: collect 100+ winning examples, build the process to hit them, QA-gate outputs at 9/10 or regenerate.
  • Read your own copy. Every point where your attention drops — highlight it, have AI rewrite just those. That pass is the edge.
Never turn ads off (only when hitting account limits, ~750 ad sets). An ad with zero spend can suddenly take spend weeks later. Budget lives at the campaign level, never per ad — and never cut the "expensive" broad ads feeding the cheap conversions.

📰 Advertorials & Native Ads

First 125 characters = the whole game

  • Only the image + first 125 chars get seen before "See more." Short sentences. Specific numbers/times ("1am," "3rd time today"). 3+ open loops people must scroll to close.
  • Everything below the fold of that click is what makes the sale.

Body copy mechanics

  • Max 2–3 lines per paragraph. Keep them reading like a soap opera — every section earns the next scroll.
  • Curiosity image (red circle / blur trick) + broad, story-native style. They're supposed to look like organic content / a news outlet.

Why broad ads should eat the budget

  • Native + advertorials target unaware / problem-aware = the biggest funnel slice. High spend share is healthy.
  • Full-spectrum rule: broad ads feed data to direct-response ads (solution/product-aware). Kill the "expensive" broad ads and the cheap DR conversions die too — a mistake that cost Greg 6 months.

Pairings that work

  • Statics → advertorials (not video) for cold avatar traffic. Simple ads, no cleverness.
  • Carousels = 4 swipes ≈ 10s video signal. Video + 15-page native description also works.
  • High CTR but no conversions? Test an advertorial / education page behind the native image — your traffic is clicking but not reading.

Advertorial page structure

📄 Funnels & Landing Pages

1 · Ad
→
2 · VSL (< 6 min)
→
3 · Book a call
Proof it works: this exact three-step funnel did $210K in two weeks at 36× ROI on very little ad spend. Low ticket or high ticket — same page anatomy.

Above-the-fold checklist (VSL page)

  • Social proof with tangible stats ("800+ business owners raised $50–500K at 0% interest")
  • Clear statement of the offer
  • Objection handling
  • Risk reversal
  • Avatar callout — specific ("accountants with 3+ employees")

Headline formula

  • Outcome + timeframe + social proof + hard numbers.
  • "Funding solutions simplified" → "We've helped 800+ business owners raise $50–500K at 0% interest — no equity, funded in 3–7 days."

Replace filler with a wall of proof

  • Delete generic sections. Case studies (one per client: video + written), funding/results screenshots, review walls.
  • No testimonials yet? Use public data honestly labeled (industry earnings stats, press features) — never claim they're clients. Or lead with messaging so accurate the copy itself is the proof (logic + emotion).

One landing page per avatar

  • When an ad works, tailor the page to it. Duplicate the winner 30×, change only the avatar callout + headline. AI makes the duplication cheap.

VSL production

  • Talking head: Google Omni avatar + motion graphics (Mallory.sg). Or Slides deck + voiceover (voice changer optional).
  • Under 5 minutes. If you can't say it in 5, it's too complicated.

🤝 High-Ticket Sales

Three-part call structure

  1. Dig for gold: why → why → why until you hit the real reason they're on the call. Don't move on until you have it.
  2. Show the live solution to their problem — screen share, demo it. No word-for-word scripts.
  3. Price + mechanics, stated up front.

Qualify on the form

  • Add "If we were valuable to you, would you be able to invest $X?" to the application.
  • Calls dropped 10/day → 3/day — but all showed up and closed way more. Quality over calendar volume.
It's not a sales call — it's one human having a conversation with another. Skip the high-ticket sales-training theater; it reads as cringe and buyers are done with "strategy calls."

📈 Scaling & Mindset

Reading the data

  • 48-hour rule: don't judge a campaign before 48h. Low ticket: zero sales in the first ~$250 spend → change offer, creative, or messaging.
  • CPA rising with spend is normal — but only at $3,000+/day, not at £75/day. At small budgets a day-4 cliff is a creative/concept problem, not a scaling law.

When one ad eats 90% of budget

  • It's a winner signal, not a problem. Diagnose what's hitting, spawn spin-offs around it.
  • Check you have enough direct-response ads to capture the attention it's creating.
  • Tactic: run it as a creator/whitelist partnership ad (~$200/mo to rent a relevant creator's page) → lower CPMs. Took a stalled account to $2K/day net.

When results stall: go aggressive

  • Sit down for hours and pump concepts — a boxing match with the problem until one clicks. Don't "optimize," out-work it.
  • Never reduce output after a win. "How can I get better?" beats "it's performing."

Leverage & speed

  • Train a $1,500/mo hire on your creative SOP + AI tools; mentor 1-on-1. That's how output becomes "all day, every day" in your voice.
  • Money loves speed. If the laptop is open, only do things with a line to revenue. Machine-gun multiple AI channels at once — clarity of goal makes it work.

📅 Session · Teardowns & Scaling September 22, 2026

Live teardowns of a native ad and a VSL funnel, plus scaling tactics. Source: Workshop #15

Brian's native ad teardown creative

  • Red circle + blurred street image = instant curiosity. That's why it got 30% CTR and most of the spend.
  • Rewrote the first 125 chars as an open-loop story: "My neighbour tapped on my car window at 1am. I was sitting in my drive, not going in." — three loops in three sentences.
  • High landing-page views but <1% to checkout = people click but don't read. Image gets the click; the copy has to make the sale.
  • Never turn it back off. An advertorial behind the image is the next test.

Sam's funnel rebuilt in 13 minutes funnel

  • AI cloned Greg's proven VSL page onto Sam's 0% business-funding offer — new headline with hard numbers ("800+ business owners, $50–500K at 0% interest, 3–7 days"), risk reversal, objection handling.
  • Deleted the generic copy under the video: wall of social proof instead (case studies, funding screenshots).
  • New VSL script generated from a winning template + Sam's testimonials. "No face needed — run that."

Second offer? "Absolutely not." offer

  • Minimum bar before offer #2: $1,000/day profit on #1. Spare time goes to more concepts and training a hire on the creative system — not a new shiny object.

Scaling toolkit mindset

  • Whitelist/creator partnership demo: rent a niche IG page (~$200/mo), run partnership ads from it → lower CPMs. Same ad went from stalling to $2K/day net for Nathan.
  • 10-runner vs 100-runner Olympic analogy for why 3 concepts/day beats "managing" a winning account.
  • Typeform question "could you invest $X?" + 3-part call structure = fewer calls, way more closes.
Diamond of the night: read your own ad copy end to end; mark every spot your attention drops; have AI rewrite just those. "AI does 90% — the final 10% makes the biggest difference."

📅 Session · Live Creative Process September 15, 2026

Greg built ads live off organic content and showed the full creative process end to end.

Organic → ad, live creative

  • Viral IG post (74K likes: business owner sprawled on stairs) → deconstructed the concept (visualized overwhelm) → rebuilt it for a stocks/digital-products offer via character swap + on-screen hook + screenshot graphic. 6 variations = only the headline changes.
  • "If you can show the visual pain without saying anything, that's the biggest skill."

Social proof without testimonials funnel

  • Zero reviews? Show public data, honestly labeled: VidIQ channel earnings, ClickBank top earners, Forbes/Entrepreneur features — "here's what's possible in this industry," never "these are my clients."
  • $27 DFY + 180-day guarantee removes the need for heavy proof: you're selling an outcome at no risk.

The full-spectrum lesson mindset

  • Advertorials/native (broad) + direct response (hot) run together. He killed the "expensive" advertorials once and DR results collapsed — broad ads were feeding the cheap conversions for 6 months before he figured it out.

VSL production stack funnel

  • Talking head: Google Omni avatar (via API) + Mallory.sg for motion-graphics overlays. Slides route: AI-built deck + voiceover.
  • Top VSLs are always under 5 minutes. Same script structure for both styles.
Diamond of the night: it's not a big technical scary thing — it's "having fun communicating to other human beings in a very silly way." Save scroll-stopping content daily, extract the concept, run it.

Living document — updated after every weekly session. Playbook grows and sharpens; sessions are never rewritten.