I’m in the mood to spout some wisdom…
Here’s 8 things that I know now about copy, marketing and business that I wish I knew sooner.
1. The quickest way to get good at copy is to have a mentor or a coach teaching you. With a coach, you can make the same progress in one year that it takes most writers 4-5 years to figure out on their own. The ROI on this is massive.
2. Copy is all about emotions, so if you’re not in touch with your own emotions, your copy will feel flat. You need to understand what it’s like to feel pain, shame, anger etc… The people who are most in touch with their own emotions are able to write the most emotional copy.
3. Being good at copy can make you good money…but being good at copy, creating offers, upsells, and backend marketing will make you rich. My income shot up significantly once I got good at all the other stuff.
4. If you’re writing copy or running a biz on a topic you’re not interested in, it’s only a matter of time before you’ll want to do something else. If you find finance boring, then writing financial promos for five years probably isn’t a great fit. There’s plenty of niches out there, so find one that you truly enjoy writing about day in and day out.
5. Stick with one thing until you’re good at it. When I started out I made the mistake of jumping on whatever the hot new “thing” was. So I tried blogging, PPC, I created SEO mini sites. Some of this stuff worked and made me money. Others didn’t. But knowing what I know now, I would have just stuck with one thing and went all-in on it. That’s what the most successful people do.
6. Making money is just one part of getting rich. The IM industry is littered with people who made 7-figures with a hot offer, but who now have nothing to show for it. This is because they knew how to make money but they didn’t understand anything about spending and investing. You have to understand making money, spending money and investing if you want to be wealthy.
7. Working 12 hours a day, 7 days a week will work for a short period of time, but eventually you’ll burn out. I got away with being a work-a-holic in my 20’s, but as I got older I just couldn’t do it anymore. You start to hit a wall. You lose all your passion. You’re better off being on a more sustainable path from the beginning (i.e. taking vacations and at least one day off on the weekend).
8. Nothing will give you a bigger advantage in your business than understanding your customer on a deeper level than your competitors. Cause the more you understand them, the better your ads, emails and sales pages will be. And the more sales you’ll make. Most people THINK they understand their customer well, but in reality they only know surface level stuff about them. Commit to really understanding your customer on a deep level, and you’ll make a whole lot more dough because of it.
So there ya go…
That’s 8 things I know now that I wish I knew back when I started.
If you have something you know now that you wish you knew back when you started, feel free to reply to this and share it with me.
Would love to hear it.
Enjoy your Monday,
– Justin
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