A friend requested I give a talk to his group of copywriters and business owners. One of the copywriters in the group asked me: what does it take for a copywriter to go from “good” to great? And what I do work on with people when I coach them.
Six things I’ve found… We’ll talk about the first three in today’s show.
Warning
Copy is powerful. You’re responsible for how you use what you hear on this podcast. Most of the time, common sense is all you need. But if you make extreme claims… and/or if you’re writing copy for offers in highly regulated industries like health, finance, and business opportunity… you may want to get a legal review after you write and before you start using your copy. My larger clients do this all the time.
The Big Three
When I start working with a copywriter, 3 questions
1 What do you want?
2 How are you gonna get it?
3 What’s standing in the way?
Coaching is based on the answers to these three questions.
First two – different for every copywriter.
Third one – nearly always, there are six things standing in the way.
Today we’ll talk about the first three.
#1 thing standing in the way: Not enough confidence.
- what most people think about confidence
- what I’ve found real confidence is based on
- how I help people develop this real confidence
#2 thing standing in the way: Can’t identify your target customer and get into his/her head
- most people have only a vague idea
- some people focus only on demographics
- most people have a hard time getting into their customers’ heads because they don’t know how to find out
- I give people specific methods, and their copy goes through almost magical changes
#3 thing standing in the way: Can’t come up with good enough ideas and hooks
- we spend a lot of time working on this
- anyone can come up with a headline; far fewer can come up with one that works
- but coming up with a Big Idea is entirely another matter. And so much of this is built on the first two – having confidence (and courage to risk), and really knowing the customer.
- ideation and understanding customer psychology and deep and subtle levels is very important.
- so is not stopping with one idea. This, surprisingly, is controlled a lot by confidence, in a funny kind of way.
Recap:
1. Confidence
2. ID target customers, get into their heads
3. Come up with enough good ideas and hooks
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Episode 067 - The Big Three – Part 1

Copywriters Podcast