Hornall Ghostwriting

Ghostwriter specialising in high-performing text content for Post Exit Entrepreneurs.

Owner

The Scottish Sun

Journalist

Press Association

The Sunday Times

Digital Sub-Editor

SWNS

Freelance Journalist

The Tab

Editorial Staff

Strathclyde Telegraph

Wrote for student paper the Strathclyde Telegraph. In 2013/13 I was voted into role of sports editor.

Sports Editor

Ghostwriter for Exited Entrepreneurs. Glaswegian-Norwegian 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿🇳🇴

Say you spend 10 maybe 15 years building a successful company.

Along the way, you develop frameworks for hiring and scaling winning teams.

You create playbooks for winning contracts, romancing clients, and overdelivering.

And accrue hard-earned pattern recognition about what actually drives real results.

You solve hundreds of complex problems, make thousands of critical decisions, and learn exactly what "success" demands.

But most of that knowledge goes into cold storage the day you exit.

Yes, you might share some insights over coffee with other founders. You might tell a business partner the odd nugget. 

Maybe you mentor a few startups or advise some portfolio companies here and there.

But let's be honest, that's a tiny fraction of your experience reaching a tiny fraction of people who could benefit from it.

Meanwhile, your network cools, your deal flow dries up, and less qualified peers land the advisory roles, first-call status on promising startups, and board seats you deserve.

All because your expertise stays locked in your head instead of working for you at scale.

It doesn't have to be this way.

The founders who stay relevant after an exit aren't necessarily the ones who had the biggest deals.

They're the ones who found ways to turn their operational experience into digital assets that compound over time.

Posts. Videos. Emails. Podcast appearances. Speaking gigs. 

Your expertise has immense value.

But only if you get it out of your head and into the world.

The next step after building a company is building a legacy-defining library of evergreen digital knowledge.

DM me to start creating yours 

Thomas Hornall

Motif

Founder

beehiiv

Ambassador

Perspective

Rapyd

Demand Generation Specialist

For-Sight

Campaign Marketing Executive

Reforge

Marketing Strategy Cohort Member

Cooper Cottages

Marketing Strategist & Creative Assistant

Marketing And Business Development Intern

Siabann 

Digital Marketing Intern

I write newsletters for a living • I also share my thoughts on self-improvement, creativity & philosophy • 5+ years in marketing

Your companies newsletter goes out to 1000s of people every month, yet nobody owns it and nobody knows if it's doing its job. 

Marketing sends it out - company updates, product announcements, the occasional thought piece that took six rounds of approval.

Sales doesn't use it. 

Leadership keeps asking "what's the ROI on this?" 

Nobody has an answer.

Meanwhile, you've got thousands of contacts in your database and no systematic way to keep them engaged between "showed interest" and "ready to buy."

Your marketing team is busy with campaigns, events, and content that needs to go out this week. 

The newsletter is nobody's priority because nobody knows what it's supposed to do.

So it sits there. Generic. Inconsistent. Ignored.

But it could be keeping thousands of prospects warm during 6-12 month sales cycles. 

Positioning your company as the obvious choice. 

Generating inbound conversations that make your sales team's job a hell of a lot easier.

If you partner with Motif, I take ownership of your newsletter and turn it into an asset that works for both marketing and sales.

My focus is making sure your companies email newsletter keeps your prospects engaged between "interested" and "ready to buy" - so your sales team spends more time closing warm conversations and less time chasing cold ones (and appreciates your marketing team just a little more).

__

About me: 

I’m Harrison.  

I've spent the last 7+ years in marketing, with a focus on demand generation for both early and late-stage startups, including work at a $15B fintech unicorn. 

I now run Motif, a solo venture that manages newsletters for creators with over 60 million followers, Sunday Times bestselling authors, Solopreneurs with a combined LinkedIn audience of over 500K and 7-8 figure B2B companies. 

My approach is straightforward - understand your audience, write emails that sound like you, and let the results speak for themselves.

If you want to learn how I recently helped a B2B service company generate 7-figures in potential pipeline revenue, DM me the word "INFO".

Harrison McIntyre-Miller

Most people hear "free work" and think you're getting taken advantage of. 

They're wrong.

Free work isn't charity. It's not exploitation. It's not "working for exposure."

It's the fastest way to compress years of trial and error into a few months of results.

-

When you do free work for the right person, you're not working for £0.

You're getting paid in:

- credibility you can't buy 
- experience that only comes from real projects
- confidence that no course can teach 
- access to advantageous networks 
- relationships that may turn into referrals

All of which convert to actual cold hard cash much faster than you think.

When you’re just getting started as a freelancer or business owner, people don't trust you with money until you've proven you can deliver.

That's just reality.

It’s called being sensible with where you send your hard earned money. 

Until someone sees you actually solve their problem, you're just another stranger asking for cash.

Free work can remove that barrier completely.

It flips the entire dynamic from "Will this person be worth the money?" to "Holy s**t, this person just delivered insane value for nothing."

And when you create that kind of goodwill, people can't help but tell others about you.

Let's say you do brilliant free work for someone with a decent network.

They love what you did. Maybe they tell their newsletter. They tag you in posts. They send you referrals.

Suddenly you've got inbound interest from people who already trust you because someone they trust vouched for you.

That's how one free project turns into £5K, then £10K, then maybe - a fully booked calendar.

-

Now, caveat: not all free work is equal.

The right way: 

Targets people with networks you want access to, solves a specific problem that showcases your best skills, has a clear end point (not open-ended "help me with everything") and positions you as an expert giving value, not a desperate beginner. 

Desperate free work: 

Will do it for anyone who asks, vague "I'll do whatever you need", no boundaries or scope, positions you as cheap labour.

The difference matters.

Oh, and you also have to be somewhat good at what you do or this doesn't work (for obvious reasons). 

-

I got to where I am through being smart with free projects and I stand by them to this day. 

It gets a bad stigma, but no one is above it in my opinion. 

For the right lead/network, I still do it to this day - and I expect to continue doing it. 

P.S. 

Would love to hear your thoughts if you disagree/have had a different experience.

Newsletter Ghostwriting & Management Partner for Creator-led Brands | Founder @ Motif

My biggest struggle as an email copywriter used to be getting clients to provide the right data. That was until I worked with someone who had every single one of their sales calls recorded…

Story time: 

I brought on a client who runs a successful paid community last month. 

They needed help writing automated sequences that drive new revenue and collect lost sales. 

I usually work on retainer writing weekly newsletters, but to be honest? I love these fast-paced one-time engagements where you've got one clear goal and pure focus. 

What the client provided:

- recordings of all sales calls (lost and won)
- recordings of workshops
- an onboarding form and strategy call
- recordings of all client 1:1 coaching calls

I sourced their LinkedIn, YouTube, offer pages, and other past content myself.

This client was a particular pleasure to work with for the simple reason that they had past sales calls recorded and organised. 

That's one of the most valuable data points a copywriter can have. 

Hearing clients who both closed and didn't close speak about their pains, fears, desires, objections, etc is just invaluable.

You can't fake that kind of insight. It's the difference between writing copy that sounds good and copy that actually converts because it mirrors the exact language your prospects use when they're deciding whether to buy.

With that data in hand, I spent the past couple weeks writing 7 automated flows. 

Let me break them all down for you: 

-

(1) Revamped welcome flow 

Fresh eyes on how new subscribers get introduced and moved toward an offer.

(2) Upsell flow for low-ticket buyers/call bookings 

Someone buys the <$200 thing, this flow pushes them to book a call.

(3) Upsell flow for current customers on new offer 

Existing customers get a targeted push on something new that makes sense for them.

(4) Re-engagement for keyword responders who ghost 

They reply to a CTA with a keyword, we follow up 1:1, then... nothing. This flow brings them back.

(5) Classic abandoned cart flow 

Low-ticket browsers or people who started booking a call but didn't finish.

(6) Watched 80%+ of VSL but didn't book follow-up 

They were interested enough to watch most of the video. This nudges them over the line.

(7) Filled out majority of form but didn't book 

Got halfway through booking a call, then bailed. This closes that gap.

-

Now a lot of this requires some pretty complex tracking on the backend. 

But when you get it working properly, each one of these flows has the potential to drive new sales without any manual input (outside of actually taking the calls of course).

We just approved and launched these so I'll come back with an update on how they've performed across the next 2-3 months! 

-

P.S. Got sales call recordings? Client onboarding calls? Workshop content? That's all I need to build you a system like this. Shoot me a message if you want to chat about it.

You absolutely love to see it...

In less than 1 month of setting up a: 

1. simple lead magnet
2. opt-in page 
3. entry offer 

We've already doubled this client's total email subscribers. 

If we consistently rotate new simple lead magnets and double down on high performers - I estimate in 3 months he'll easily have a list of over 3K.

With each subscriber being a new opportunity to ascend through his offer suite. 

Will update here with the results in 3 months time 🫡

I believe founder-driven newsletters are the most underused growth channel in service, SaaS & ecom right now.

And Poppy AI is the perfect example of a company that could benefit from this. 

Quick context: 

Poppy is one of the only AI products that feels like it was designed for creators in mind. 

Instead of a linear chat, it’s built as a canvas / whiteboard where you can drag in: YouTube videos/podcasts, TikToks, Reels, Shorts, PDFs, Voice notes & Images. 

And they’re killing it across their UGC and social content. 

I’ve personally been a user for a number of months now. 

But…

I’ve never received any nurturing emails from them. 

HUGE missed opportunity. 

Founder-led newsletters collapse the distance between the person building the thing and the people using it.

With a product like Poppy, people might be asking:

Who’s steering this thing?

Do they understand the game I’m playing?

Will this product still make sense in 12–24 months?

A founder showing up in your inbox every week narrating trade-offs, owning mistakes & showing receipts (what’s working, what’s not) builds far more trust than “here’s our latest feature” from a logo.

The email becomes: “Come build with me”, not “We’d like to update our privacy policy.”

Plus, if the founder is the ideal power user (which they often are with tools like Poppy), then emails from them can do the heavy lifting on:

Activation 
– showing “this is how I use the tool”

Retention 
– keeping people engaged with constant small “aha” moments + workflows.

Expansion 
– naturally showcasing advanced use-cases that make upgrades feel obvious.

All of this continuously renews the customer’s excitement, understanding, and belief in the product - which (you guessed it) enormously reduces churn. 

Which for any subscription model, should be priority no.1

Anyway, I believe in a show, don’t tell model. 

So, I wrote an example newsletter in their co-founder (Rafeh Qazi) style and sent it to them.

Not paid, not commissioned, just me exploring their voice and how I’d evolve the newsletter if I were running it.

In my humble opinion, I think I nailed his:

- storytelling patterns
- energy
- metaphor stacking

But with retention, logic, and deeper reader psychology baked in of course. 

Plus, I annotated the whole thing to show my own thought process behind the copy. 

Because in my opinion, email for creator-led brands has to do 3 things to perform well over a long period of time: 

1/
Make the founder the content

2/
Make the story the delivery system

3/
Make the newsletter a weekly dopamine hit people look forward to 

If you hit those 3 points, you might just be onto a winner. 

As I said, I sent it to them team already but if you want to read what I put together...

...to maybe get some inspiration for your own founder-led newsletter strategy then comment “POPPY” and I’ll send it to you.

taplio

The Battle

Thomas Hornall

Harrison McIntyre-Miller

Followers

Posts

Engagements

Likes

Performance ScoreHarrison McIntyre-Miller's LinkedIn Performance

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taplio

The Battle

Thomas Hornall

Harrison McIntyre-Miller

Followers

Posts

Engagements

Likes

Performance Score.css-goub6s{font-size:var(--chakra-fontSizes-md);font-weight:500;color:var(--chakra-colors-gray-600);display:block;margin-top:var(--chakra-space-1);}Harrison McIntyre-Miller's LinkedIn Performance

Ready to grow your LinkedIn presence?

Performance ScoreHarrison McIntyre-Miller's LinkedIn Performance