How I Sold $1M Worth Of Whisky That Didn’t Exist

Confession time. 

For a short while, I worked for a business that, unfortunately, ended up hurting some people. 

For my part in that, I’m sorry. 

But the lessons learned early in my copywriting career could be valuable to someone else. 

The first gig I landed out of university was as a Marketing Coordinator for a boutique Aussie whisky distillery. 

Small batch products, upscale bars, premium pricing. 

The main marketing they were doing was a regular email pitching their venues and bottle releases to a tiny list.

But they also had a whisky barrel investment scheme.

I knew this could be a huge profit centre for the business if we promoted it right. 

Investing in barrels isn’t new. 

Whisky-making is capital intensive and distilleries age their product for years before they see a profit.

So small distilleries sometimes give you the chance to ‘invest’ by buying a barrel of whisky.

They store it until it’s mature, then buy it back from you for a little extra.

You’re rewarded for funding their production.

And they profit when bottling the finished product.

Investment in this one was $25K a pop.

The promise was you’d be paid the equivalent of 9.55% per year after four years (so $36K total). 

It was a killer offer for investors and whisky lovers alike. 

The cash rate at the time was 2% and the whisky was an award-winning dram.

They’d advertised a similar offer before. 

But only in a traditional branding style.

Think full-page ads in The Australian Financial Review newspaper and celebrity sponsors. 

It would have cost a small fortune. 

That’s why I guessed they weren’t currently running it. 

I’d been studying direct response copywriting at the time.

The first book I read was John Carlton’s Kick-Ass Copywriting Secrets Of A Marketing Rebel. 

I knew in my gut that a longer-form direct response campaign could crush it for this offer. 

I just needed a chance to prove it.

I pitched the idea to my bosses and got the OK. 

The first thing I did was sit down with our sales rep.

I asked her what objections people had when enquiring about this deal in the past. 

She rattled off half a dozen or so that she heard on every single sales call.

Basic stuff that should have been answered, like: 

– How can I trust you?

– How long will it take? 

– Are there hidden costs? 

– What guarantees do I have?

– What happens at maturation?

Shockingly no one in the marketing department had asked her these questions before.

All I did was turn the sales girl’s answers into copy.

When my boss saw it, he worried people wouldn’t take the time to read something ‘so wordy’ in his words. 

Classic.

It was only two pages of copy about a $25,000 offer. 

I eventually convinced him to give it a try.

The copy wasn’t anything special (in fact, I look at it now and I cringe). 

But the format was solid:

– Benefit driven subject line

– Problem

– Solution

– Proof

– Proof

– Proof

– 2nd benefit

– Proof

– Overcome objections

– Restate offer

– Bonuses

– More bonuses

– Urgency

– Call To Action

The email went out and the phone was ringing off the hook within an hour. 

The only sales rep we had got smashed with calls.

She’d yell “F**K YOU JOSH!” across the office (while laughing) as the phone would ring the moment she hung up, and it kept doing that for hours.

From memory, it went out to about 2,000 people. 

A few hundred buyers, and the rest from a cold prospect list they’d collected but never mailed. 

Converted at around 2.5%. 

Over $1M made in one afternoon from a single email. 

Not bad for a direct response copy rookie.

But there was a dark side to this success.

My boss, now seeing infinite dollar signs, started blowing money left, right, and centre. 

He torched that $1M and then some on a boat.

Just so he could do the Sydney to Hobart Yacht Race once. 

Then stuff really started to unravel. 

Staff began hearing from media, lawyers, and eventually cops. 

– Invoices hadn’t been paid

– Bar staff were walking out

– Contractors were left in limbo

Turns out barrels due for maturation hadn’t even been filled yet.

It was a disaster. 

And it’d been going on a while.

Pretty much all the staff jumped ship after that. 

My old boss ran and hid, the business imploded, and the pieces were picked up by a holding company. 

I followed the story as it played out in public for a while. 

Just recently I read it’s only now being brought before a court, years later.  

Hopefully those investors can be made whole again.

Direct response marketing is a very powerful tool. 

The right copy and offer to the right person at the right time can compel people to spend $25K on a promise.

And if my ex-boss had just done what he said he’d do…

He could have had the biggest whisky brand in Australia. 

You can use these tactics ethically to earn wealth and enrich the lives of others.

Or you can be a fraudster and a con artist who makes a quick buck. 

But in the long term, all that second group of guys get are enemies and a lifetime of looking over their shoulder. 

Thanks for reading.