Lesson 2 of 9 · 4 min
Decide the offer before you write a word
Every comment in this method ends with an ask. The ask has to be decided before you look at a single post, because it shapes which posts you look for and what you say under them.
The ask is free. That is the rule, and the reason is trust.
Someone reading a stranger’s comment has given you about four seconds and no goodwill. A comment that ends in “book a call” or “here is my pricing” asks for money from a person who has not yet decided you know anything. A comment that ends in “I keep a sheet of the twelve subject lines that beat 60 percent open rates, want it?” asks for nothing except permission to be useful. The second one gets replies. The first one gets scrolled past.
The two halves
- The front end, free. A small, specific thing you can hand over within a day of someone saying yes. A comparison sheet, a checklist, a teardown, a template, a private group where people compare notes on one narrow topic. It has to be genuinely useful on its own, or the person who asked for it learns you waste their time.
- The back end, paid. What you actually sell. The front end should sit naturally in front of it: the person who wanted the subject-line sheet is a person who might pay for someone to run their email. You never mention the back end in a comment. It comes up later, in conversation, when they ask.
The one exception
If a post is literally asking for a vendor (“anyone know a good Klaviyo freelancer?”), answer the question. Pitching the paid thing is what was asked for. Everywhere else, the free ask.
Checked The free-first rule is the strongest part of the source, and it is right.
The video says “CTA should be ideally a free offer” and “if you are adding anything paid it is going to be very difficult for you to get them to trust you,” and makes the same exception for posts that are already asking for a tool or an agency. We kept all of it. This matches how any cold channel works: the first exchange has to cost the other person nothing.
Write it down
One page, kept open while you comment. Who you sell to, in one sentence. What they are struggling with, in five bullets. The free front end, in one sentence, with the link or the group ready. The paid back end, in one sentence, so you remember what all this is for. You will paste this page into an AI later, in lesson five, so write it as if explaining to a new hire.