Or a Bad one?

Warren Buffet once said: "It is better to be mediocre in a great business, than to be great in a mediocre business."

I know in copywriting a whole lot depends on your business, marketing and networking skills. The more effectively you market yourself, the more successful you are going to be.

However, most copywriters struggle to make ends meet.
Very few people appreciate copywriting services.
Writing is a soft skill, unlike accounting, medicine or engineering.
And there is one "perpetual" advice popping up on this board over and over again: "Create your own product and write your own promotional materials."
This would be a quicker path to riches. What say you, experts?

this question has been answered for you a dozen times.

It's been answered for me too. And I've taken action to resolve the struggle of lukewarm clients.

There is more than one answer to this question. There is more than one option.

One of the big names said recently that even though AWAI and other similar courses are churning out CWs like a sneaker factory in Malaysia, most will fall by the wayside--because they refuse to learn the business beyond the mere writing.

If you need to ask this question at this stage (how many months now?), you should really consider a different profession. This one is probably not your cup of tea.

Seriously, Angie...you are probably better off getting a full time writing position for a non-profit or some other place where they use in-house writers.

Nothing "soft" about copywriting.

Accounting... you can't count money if there is no money made. Somewhere along that food chain there is a copywriter... or 10.

Medicine... Doctors buy equipment... training... drugs... All sold with a form of copywriting.

Engineers build things or at least design things to be built. How are those things then sold? They are marketed. And marketers need copywriters.


So you're right... copywriting isn't the same as any one of those professions. It's important to all of them.

Suzanne,

I like your writing style. I think you do have a way with words.
But I see some fear "shining" through your response.
It must have been caused by some of my discouraging remarks.
And it's understandable.
I also hate it when someone makes negative comments about my aspirations or tries to rain on my parade.

However, my comments do hold some water. No arguments here!
And I am very wary when I hear the likes of Harlan Kilstein brag about their multi-million dollar bank accounts. (Yeah, right)

My point is, there are some great businesses like
finance, real estate or oil where you can make a lot of money and build a fortune. Creative businesses, for the most part, are much less lucrative.
And you cannot disagree with that, no matter how efficient your marketing
strategies are. That said, some of us might eventually experience "financial bonanza". But it's going to be a small minority...

Dear Angie:

I think you are right. Your comments do hold some water. Actually, they could hold the Niagara Falls without a sign of strain.

You are right. You should quit copywriting today and go into finance, real estate (being a mortgage broker could be great....)...becoming the next oil magnate would be absolutely fantastic.

All this is great, but guess what?

Whichever path you choose, there is an amount of hard word, there are emotional setbacks which you'll never be able to avoid.

If you want to go into finance,won't you need a degree that will set you back for at least 100K before you can start to make any real money? And then you need to get hired. Perhaps you'll hate your boss (the ungrateful ones). Or perhaps, you'll be afraid that your job will be outsourced to a Chinese competitor (the cheapos).

Ah real estate. I just came from a meeting with a mortgage broker. Most people are afraid of buying. Banks are closing their whole sale mortgage branches.

Oil? I am clueless. But I am sure that if it were an easy path with no setbacks, with no heartbreaks, then there would be a (www.oilmagnateboard.com). Oh, last time I heard that the oil supply was diminishing. Oh, what about those damned hybrid cars. What if a crazy inventor came up with a car that would run on water or CO2? And what would you make of the heavyweights in the oil industry, the ones with all the right contacts and the right contracts, with the big lawyers. I hope you don't think they would welcome yet another competitor.

The "soft creative business"

Can anyone be the next Gary Halbert, the next John Carlton and command extraordinary fees from clients? Of course,not.

Can anyone be like Albert Lasker and make millions when everybody else around them is fully aware of the Depression? Remember, Albert Lasker ran Lord and Thomas and made millions from his "soft creative business".

Can anyone do like David Ogilvy and start a "soft creative business" in his late 30s, on a shoe string and end up owning a chateau in France? I doubt it. Too many quit before they can see a real change.

Can anyone do like Rosser Reeves and give America another president based on his crazy soft business idea of the USP?

Yes, you are right. Few will "experience financial bonanza" because few will accept to go through the darkest hours when the bills can't be paid and financial castastrophe seemed imminent.

Now the question is: Will you be among the few who will stand all adversities and triumph and reach the Everest?

I don't mean to make bad comments about your aspirations,but in the real word everything worth doing comes with a high price. Whatever it is that you want to do at a world-class level.

Sincerely,
P.S: I didn't write this post for you. I wrote it for myself as a public reminder.

There are just as many broke losers in those businesses as there are copywriting. And copywriting is a lot easier to break into than any of those.

And there's your problem...

You still think copywriting is a creative business. It's NOT. It's about selling.

It's virtually the same percentage of people in every profession that become successful. Copywriting is no different. Some will market themselves and do whatever it takes to make it work, others will continue to post "woe is me" tales on copywriters board

Paul,

I was utterly impressed with your eloquent remarks...until I got to the P.S part where you say that it's not for me.
Wasn't I the one who brought it all out in you?? And got your anger and creative juices flowing?? And what do I get in return?! This was not for me! Talk about major disappointment.

In all seriousness, this was a great response.
I think you were trying to inspire not only me and others, but also yourself.
Here is my verdict. You have definitely earned the Senior Expert title. Keep up the good work!

PS: I have done some thinking. Actually, the more lucrative the business is, the more people it attracts, which leads to increased competition, higher barriers to entry, and crazy investments. And a long list of contacts to be developed, stretching from New York to Abu Dhabi.

Angie,

Having owned more than one type of business, I can speak from some experience here.

In any industry, there is a top tier of ultra-successful people. In real estate, these would be the "top producers" or the realtors who sell 7 figures in real estate per year.

Any self-employed person needs to learn how to sell. Plain and simple. I remember hearing a quote from Zig Ziglar that goes something like, "Bad salesmen have skinny kids."

If you want to be ultra-successful in any industry, you have to be willing to work hard, work quickly, and keep a strong desire to succeed in place.

As a former massage therapy center owner who was based in a very affluent area, I had the privilege of meeting and "rubbing elbows" with a number of very successful people.

Guess what? All of them worked their a$$ off. A forty hour work-week for them meant they were out of town for 3 days that week. Read The Millionaire Mind and you'll see the common denominators of self-made millionaires. Plenty of them are made in "non-lucrative" industries.

Back to your original question.

Is Copywriting a good business?

Absolutely.

For starters, it's far easier to sell to business people than the general public. Ordinary folk will price shop on a gallon of gas. Business people are more concerned with results and then price tag. Again, generally speaking.

It uses a skill that every business needs. It's a skill that if you master it, you then have the ability to "print" money on demand.

That skill is salesmanship in print.

So why all of the advice about creating your own products?

Well, because if you can create a passive income stream with your own products, then your life gets easier. You can start being picky about which copywriting clients (and projects) you want to work with. If you have a slow month in terms of copywriting or you decide to take some time off, you still have income coming in.

Creating your own product still requires copywriting skills... or you pay someone else their asking fee to write for you. But it also requires you to learn plenty of other things like how to market that product, product creation, what software/tools you need to deliver the product, and so on.

As you put it, "the more effectively you market yourself, the more successful you are going to be. However, most copywriters struggle to make ends meet."

Again, if marketing your service is critical to success... then it takes learning how to market your copy business effectively to reach success.

Failure to learn how to market your business = failing to succeed.

Re: Kilstein and his bank account. Knowing Harlan, I'm sure he's being honest. I've mentally calculated a few of his previous seminar offerings and they were easily six figures in sales (before expenses).

What most people don't realize about Harlan is that he mastered how to sell a professional service before he become a copywriter. I'm talking about when he was a NLP/hypnosis therapist (I don't recall his exact title, so Harlan forgive me).

Alot of successful copywriters have owned other types of businesses or worked in sales.

They learned a skill called "Selling by the seat of your pants".

If you know that you need to get people in your office door or you don't have the money to pay your bills (office or personal)... believe me, you learn to sell if you want to stay in business. And I'm sure that Harlan was faced with at least one time in his business life where he needed to ethically sell prospects into becoming paying clients.

I've been self-employed in "creative" fields for over 14 years now and I wouldn't trade it for any job in a "lucrative" field in the world.

The "lucrative" fields are like a gold rush... zillions of people rush in... see how tough it is to make the big bucks and then rush out. I've seen it happen plenty of times.

Angie, you need to decide if you are willing to make the commitment to a specific industry as a self-employed professional. If you aren't, then either find a new industry or keep your day job.

Being self-employed isn't for everyone. If it was, then everybody would do it.

Good luck,

Mike

It's important to position yourself by networking if you want to succeed in copywriting, I believe.

There's one woman copywriter, I won't mention her name, but she incessantly "schmoozes" at every seminar she can find, acts like she's your best friend, but she's a hack. She loves being "seen". It's like "I'm a celebrity, I want to act like I'm a famous actress..." very L.A. style and shallow.

She has modest success because she throws herself all over the marketplace, but she is mostly talentless and self-serving. What she does do though, is network a lot and kiss everyone's ass and act like they're her best friends. She just wants to network her way into success in lieu of talent. She's really a very poor copywriter. But she's a great "hostess" type schmoozer.

A lot of the b-grade people do that. I have no respect for them.
Reminds me of the pop tart female singers who casting-couched their way into a label deal in lieu of talent...

I call them "seminar hos". They go to seminars with the express reason of trying to get something from you, or kiss up and suck up to hope they get tossed a client, a scrap of work. How so devious, and sad. I prefer the ethics of a street hooker, at least she's upfront about throwing herself around. But I digress.

What I would do were I to want to make it in copywriting, is get yourself "positioned" properly (see the two books by Reiss/Trout and Fortin) via being a seminar speaker, doing some free gigs for *very* well known people to get testimonials, and work your way up the food chain via boostrapping.

But clients are still a pain in the ass. Largely not their fault, more, the "communication load/overhead" even with good clients, takes time away from pure productive work. It's not an easy path, but like anything, if you work your ass off for years, you might make it. But probably not.

ok back to watching "Las Vegas" and "Charmed" eps on dvd..

-k

p.s. am I too honest and upfront about things? I like straight shooters.

Na Ken, tell it like it is. I say "circle jerk" a lot when it comes to these things which isn't the most politically correct thing to say in the world, but the truth is the truth.

Tell it like ya see it, someone has to.