CSG Survival School F.A.Q.

I’m a novice. Is Survival School still relevant to me?
It’s especially relevant to you! Survival School was designed to give you everything you need to go from complete beginner with no experience, to your first paying client within two weeks. And then from that first paying gig to a respectable business in a few short months.

I’ve been a copywriter for a while now. Will I get anything out of it?
Yes. Even the initial few weeks will probably contain useful information to building your business and getting more work. But the course also shows how you can take an establish business and build it into something really lucrative. Like how to successfully take on more work than you can handle, how to create passive income and how to create a successful business that gives you more time to do the things you really enjoy.

I’ve read a lot of books on copywriting and I’m still struggling. How will this be any different?
Well, one way this differs is that this is actually a plan. Most writers, if they have a business plan and/or a business model, it’s “keep getting more clients.” Of course, this isn’t really  much of a plan at all. And even if it is…it doesn’t scale. You’re one person, and there are a finite number of hours in the day.

With survival school, you get a new, short, informative lesson each week with potent exercises to complete. These exercises build on each other toward a goal not of simply letting you make a living, but of creating a successful business that is bigger than one person and will allow you to ultimately take only the jobs you want to take.

How Long Will It Take Me to be Successful?
That’s a tough one. I don’t know you. I don’t know how well you write. I don’t know how much time and effort you’ll be willing or able to put into it. But the course is designed to give you everything you need to get your first paying client by day ten, make respectable money by day 30, and be at or near self-sufficiency within three months or so. And by the end of month 12, you should be doing very well, with more work than you could handle alone and several growing passive income streams.

But there are lots of factors that play into this. I do my best to address them all, including the proper mindset, bad clients, organization and motivation…but since I can’t actually control any of those factors, I can’t make any guarantees.


You’ve been doing this for three years. How likely is it that someone like me can really be so successful in a year?
Well, I went from zero training or experience to full-time job with an ad agency in two weeks the first time I went freelance. The second time I went from zero to complete self-sufficiency in a month and a half. And that’s with a wife and three kids. And in less than a year I was making more than I had been at the top of my agency career (where I’d doubled my salary in a year and a half).

And it’s all because I had prior experience running a business, knowledge as a trainer that I called on to teach myself along the way, and an ambitious growth-oriented plan that I followed step-by-step.

And these are the things I share with you in Survival School.

How does this compare to AWAI?
Well, it’s cheaper ;) . Seriously, though, AWAI’s primary focus seems to be on Direct Response copywriting…and I don’t have much experience in that at all. I’ve never done a $10,000 sales letter, and while I admire the guys who do, I really don’t have much desire to. I’ve worked in Online media, print, broadcast, and just about every other media you can think of, but with the exception of a few fundraising self-mailer brochures and the pages I’ve written for my own products, it’s just not my cuppa.

But even if that IS you’re cup of tea, Survival School can help, because I focus mainly on the business side of copywriting: how to build your business day-by-day, week-by-week, into something stunning. And I do delve into how to find the kind of copywriting you truly enjoy, and how to create a program that lets you teach yourself the ropes and master those formats.