Why Did You Start Copywriting?

Elisabeth,

What was it about AWAI that you didn't like?
I just purchased Cashvertising and another book.

I learned the skill of copywriting indirectly initially. In 1999, I took my extremely successful solo therapeutic massage business and converted it into a massage therapy center. Suddenly, I had big overhead and a staff to get clients regularly for.

So I started studying the marketing greats... all of them.

I started writing marketing every day. In the early years, there were plenty of "Gun To The Head" moments (Gary Halbert's phrase, not mine) where I needed to write a marketing piece or ad that converted well or else I might have to lay off staff or miss payroll. Fortunately, the marketing and ads I wrote always converted well enough to keep the cash flowing in.

In 2004, I hired a well-known marketing firm to take over the marketing for my center. I was working 110+ hours per week and needed to lighten my workload.

For 8 months, they tried to beat any of my controls... and they couldn't. Not a single one.

That's when I knew I was pretty good at writing marketing. And that's when I fired the marketing firm and started doing my own marketing again.

While they were on monthly retainer, we had numerous meetings. During one meeting, one of my marketing consultants said in frustration that I should check the message board for their firm to see if anyone else had experience with massage centers and if I did, then my consultants would contact them to bring them in as yet another consultant for my business.

During that research I found the firm's recommended reading list and the one book on the list that I hadn't read was John Caples Tested Advertising Methods. Neither one of my consultants had ever read it (a huge mistake IMHO).

I quickly bought Caples' book and read it cover to cover. To this day, it's my favorite copywriting book (sub $20 that is). My marketing got even stronger as a result.

I got into copywriting the profession by accident in 2006. This post is long enough and I give the longer version of the story on my copywriting website.

The short version is one of my best friends owns an industrial farm. He's also the same guy who introduced me to my wife so he guilted me into writing a new home page for his business when it had hit a rough spot.

The new home page converted like gangbusters and immediately turned his business around. My friend decided to refer 4 other business owners to me for help and then asked me what exactly my "job title" was.

I didn't know that what I did was called copywriting or that was an actual profession then. I had to tell my friend initially that I didn't know and would have to do some research to tell him exactly.

A few months later, I decided to treat my "copywriting hobby" seriously like a business... did some tactical and strategic planning... put a number of business generation tactics into play and within 2 months I had enough client work to go full-time as a copywriter.

Anyways, that's my story. I've enjoyed reading everyone else's and I hope more of my copywriting collegues share theirs.

Take care,

Mike