Dear Business Builder,

I’m up to my eyeballs in copycats, and I love them to death.

Each one of them blessed is a bright, talented, fresh-faced kid with a big dream in his heart and an obsession with copywriting. And frankly, I am convinced that each of them will go further and have much more success than mine.

For one thing, they’re smarter than I am… better educated than I am… and they already know a lot more about copywriting than I do.

They’ve devoured every writing course, book, seminar, and ezine they could find.

They have gobbled up drafting rules, maxims, proverbs, templates, and formulas like an army of hungry sumo wrestlers eating at an all-you-can-eat buffet.

They’ve pored over every new hit and new insight as passionately as a licensed sailor chasing skirts.

They can quote chapters and verses from Hopkins, Caples, Reeves, Ogilvy, and Schwartz. They can recite everything Bencivenga, Halbert, Carlton, Masterson and Makepeace have written.

They remind me of racehorses at the starting gate… biting down on the bit… pawing the ground… every creative muscle in their bodies tensed, flexed and was ready to spring into action at the slightest flick of the finger of the starter’s trigger. .

…And the same damn thing happens every time I give one of them their first task:

KABLOOEY! His heads explode.

I can see the train wreck sure to follow even as we discuss your first assignment:

The frantic note-taking…

The tortured expressions on their young faces as they mentally juggle dozens of complex and seemingly contradictory rules they’ve learned by heart…

The numbness in their eyes as they consider the huge emotional and financial rewards they imagine will follow if they get it right, and the consequences (too horrible to contemplate) if they screw up.

And I know what to expect: I can bet the farm the first draft will be…

Days late…

Four, five, even six times more than it should be…

Tracking down with recognizable formulas pulled from copywriting gurus and swipe archives…

Filled with snooty lectures about how my prospect feels now and how they should feel after enjoying the benefits of the product…

Full of non sequiturs, mixed metaphors and tortured similes…

Filled with overused “power words” and exaggerated claims and of course exclamation points…

Devoid of a convincing clue (since it has been neatly buried somewhere around page eight or nine)…

Flabby: Jabbering through paragraphs on minor points when a single sentence or series of fascinations would get the message across much more quickly and effectively…

Unfocused: The product will feel vague, ethereal, ill-defined… the offer copy will seem like little more than an afterthought… and the call to action will be virtually non-existent.

It’s okay though, it’s not their fault: it’s just…

COPYWRITING IS MUCH MORE DIFFICULT THESE DAYS

Back when I was just starting out, writing sales copy was easy. We had the teachers to guide us…

Kennedy reminding us that since sales copy is nothing more than print sales art, ad copy should simply say the things a live salesperson would say to their prospect…

Hopkins saying “Amen, brother!” then add: “Your copy should also raise your product’s head and shoulders above the competition,” and…

Caples saying “I hear you! And, of course, you also need to capture the attention of your potential client, keep it at all times and compel them to act”.

Pretty simple, common sense stuff: When I was writing a sales copy, my job was simply to grab and hold my prospect’s attention…present the reasons why they should buy, just like any good salesperson would… show how my product is. better than the alternatives… and inevitably ask for the sale.

In short, create AIDA: Attention, Interest, Desire, Action.

THE CURSE OF A GREAT EDUCATION

Today, most young writers I know tend to think more about all the writing skills they’ve learned than what their prospects are thinking and feeling or how to motivate them to make a purchase.

Now don’t get me wrong, it’s great that you have these tools: Used correctly, the tips, tricks and techniques you’re learning here at The Total Package and from other writing coaches will improve your response and turn it into a package.

But not if by focusing on them, you lose sight of your prospect. Either forget to fully dimension the benefits of your product… or trivialize your price… or reduce your prospect’s risk… or create a powerful, logic-driven call to action.

And certainly not if when using the copywriting techniques we teach, you don’t consider how your prospect is feeling as you go through your copy.

See, when you’re writing sales copy, you just think you’re alone and you just think it’s a one-way conversation. In truth, you are talking to a real, live, flesh and blood human being, your prospect, and he has an unspoken response to everything you say.
Now, let’s say you’re shopping for something. I don’t know… let’s say a new Porsche 911 Turbo. The salesman shakes your hand and then launches into an obviously canned sales pitch.

It can be said that he has practiced it endlessly in front of a mirror. He has his spiel verbatim. Every word, every sentence, every inflection, even his body language is flawless.

But it’s almost like you’re not even there…

You ask questions; he doesn’t listen to you You raise objections; ignores them. You question their facts; he doesn’t address her skepticism. you get bored; he does not notice it. You get impatient; couldn’t care less.

You feel trapped. You would gladly rip your own arm off just to get away from him.

He doesn’t let that bother him, not even for a moment. He will obey all the rules, exercise all the formulas and develop all the templates that he was taught in Sales School against all odds.

He’s going to deliver his sales pitch, his entire sales pitch, even if he kills you.

This is how your copy reads when you focus on rules and formulas instead of your prospect!

And since you’re selling in print, through the mail, or online, your prospect doesn’t have to bite their arm to shut you up—all they have to do is turn the page, close their browser, or send an email. window or throw your piece of mail in the nearest trash can.

FREE AT LAST!

My advice: with the possible exception of the article you’re reading right now…

… If, when writing a first draft, you’re thinking about something I said (or any other copy coach said), you’re messing it up.

Great time.

First drafts are for getting under your prospect’s skin, not mine or anyone else’s.

That requires a laser-like focus on your prospect and what they’re thinking and feeling as they read your sales message.

And that takes a lot more than just regurgitating a slightly altered copy of a slipped file… or making sure you’ve checked every item on someone else’s checklist… or stuffing round-pin sales pitches into square-pin formulas. .

It takes intense, exhausting, rational, logical, sequential, ORIGINAL thinking.

In other words …

The act of creating a persuasive sales message is an exercise in the creative application of logic to engage and move a human into action.

You should be informed, but NEVER completely driven, by writing techniques that others have used.

So when you write sales copy, forget about the rules. Focus on your prospect.

Just ask yourself, “What do I need to say to get their attention?”

“What do I need to say, and prove, to keep you reading?”

“What do I need to say to neutralize the objections that I probably have to buy now?”

“What do I need to say to make ‘don’t order’ seem like the dumbest decision I could make?”

Then when you write the sales copy, use The force – FEEL your way through your copy, asking yourself in every paragraph or two, “If I were the prospect, how would I feel now? Would I feel bored? Skeptical? Like you were taking too long to get to the point? OR Would I feel energized… persuaded… and eager to buy?”

When you shift your focus away from the copywriting techniques you’ve learned, you free yourself to focus exclusively on your prospect.

More than that: You free yourself to innovate, to discover new ways to engage your prospect and drive them to action. You free yourself to become a legend to be emulated by a future generation of imitators.

And you know what else? You’ll be surprised how many of the lessons you learned as a copywriting student come to mind just when you need them to solve a problem you’ve spotted in your copy.

But let those things be your servants; never your master

I hope this helps…