ALL marketing is about the numbers; otherwise, why would anyone bother?

Man I’ve seen this bandied about many times and I personally feel copywriting, like any other talent, has to have some natural abilites to build from or one may become good, but not a master. I believe mastering any art comes from welding the desire inside to the training to nuture a talent you already have. Yes people can graduate from any school they want, be “trained” to be good, use all the “persuasion” words but never breathe one bit of life into a piece of copy.

I think great writers have an innate talent for relating to their audience that can’t be trained. No matter how much you try, you can put together the benefits, the bullets, use your bucket brigade and power words that will end up having not the least bit of magic. These things are great for helping to wed talent with practical ways to say what they feel in a more compelling way and make sure it gets understood. Mentoring can help to a point, but if the talent isn’t there to start, no amount of training will help.

I have been on other forums where folks try and blame the training, the courses, the seminars, and on and on. If you don’t have a spark inside that drives you forward with a passion, there’s no foundation to build from. I think you can train people to not make obvious mistakes, but their copy will never be what a master’s is. If training was all it took, there would not be a shortage of good copywriters, there would be a ton of books vying for #1 on the bestseller lists and artists would have galleries full of people lining up to buy their every piece.

No matter what the hype says, reality says different. If dollars are the measure, training is a part of the answer, not the whole answer. I think the lure of making easy money, either by being a top copywriter or selling the training, has vastly overshadowed recognizing we all have natural abilities and some people just aren’t copywriters no matter how much they try.

Like Ben said, if equal training provided equal results, this would be a no brainer. It in fact doesn’t. Any architect can design a building, a very few are Frank Lloyd Wright. Any one can write copy, a very few are masters.

Thanks,

David

What a great topic this is… I have often thought about this when I see offers for copywriting-in-a-box type of products.

I truly believe writing is an art form, like painting or scultping. I remember growing up in school and being completely baffled by the fact that the kid next to me could simply put his pencil to paper and draw the most stunning likenesses of our classmates..

How? He took art as long as I did…why couldn’t I “learn” how to do it too?

Same pencil, same paper…completely different results.

The flow of words on a page, combinations of phrases and sentence structures combine to create the same unique result as any other work of art.

Just my two cents…

Thanks,
-Ben

Also, the letters all look the same. I agree, the same layout etc. of a salesletter makes it easier to navigate - you skip the bla, bla, bla and go straight to the bonuses - as these are seemigly a must have nowadays in order to be able to sell the original product.

The most annoying thing, however, is the length of the sales letter. It goes on and on and on… written presumably with the underlying intention of hypnotising the reader into buying the product.

So - does one need talent to write a good sales letter? Definitely.

Ingrid

I think you gotta have it in your blood, or be willing
to work your tail off very hard.

I got lucky cuz I starting selling stuff at about
9 years of age.

It would be an interesting study to compare the copy of a skilled, highly trained and motivated writer with that of a naturally gifted writer who has done nothing to develop that gift, wouldn’t it? I suspect the outcome of such a contest would be entirely different if the gifted writer had spent the same amount of time and energy developing that gift.

I’m sure we can all agree on one thing - there is some pretty awful copy out there written by folks who believed the “anybody can do it if they’ll just buy my ebook/software” sales pitch.

Although I believe many can write a good salesletter once… maybe twice,
but without a “firey”, buring passion, it won’t last and there’s a good chance the copy will not have what it takes to be a winner.

To me it’s all about “PASSION” and “DESIRE”.

…Sure, it’s true that many can write, but only a few who write well.

Stay Blessed Ray!

For at least 6 months, and more like a year, I’ve been trying to figure out how I do what I do. Some things I can explain; other things I can’t.

Perhaps those things I can’t explain cannot be given.

Yesterday, I spent an entire day with a friend/client up north. He took me through an abbreviated version of Dan Sullivan’s Strategic Coach process, during which you discover your UA–Unique Ability.

He says your UA is something your born with. That it shows up even as an infant… and that it stays with you all your life.

Perhaps all people of reasonable education can learn to write and become freelance copywriters. But perhaps there is this innate ability that separates those that are great from those that are merely good.

By the way, I hope my post is not interpreted as boastful or condescending. All my life, I’ve wanted to be a great guitarist or pianist. Yet I recognized early on that music just wasn’t “my thing.”

The musician friends of mine who were great clearly had something I did not.

I believe this is an interesting topic, and I might just
be mirroring what some other people have posted.

I relate it to martial arts…

I’m was always naturally adept at Martial Arts, maybe
just a natural athlete… so I was good, PLUS I practiced
all the time - so I was real good and won a lot of
competitions.

Now my passion is marketing/copywriting so I’m not as
interested in Taekwondo anymore… I’ll go and help teach
and workout twice a week, but just enough to maintain
my skills basically.

It’s funny there’s a blue belt there (I’ve been a black belt
for 6 years now just for reference) and he’s getting better
and better. I can still school him when we sparr, but when
we grapple he’s more dominate - grappling is something
I’ve neglected for 3 + years… while he’s been doing it
3-4 days a week, for a couple years.

And this guy isn’t really a natural athlete either (in fact,
he lost 30 pounds since he began training), but he
has the passion I once had… reads a ton about training …
goes to class 5 days a week and grapples with another
school’s class on sundays. Puts WORK and
DETERMINATION into it.

Now, will he ever be better at sparring (taekwondo sparring)
than me?

Maybe, if he puts a lot of work into it, and I totally neglect
my training…

If I was still training like him though, I’d be FAR ahead no
doubt.. but I’m just saying there’s a lot to be said for
hard work and determination!

So I think you can become really good no matter who you
are if you have a BURNING DESIRE and determination
to get where you want to be… but… those people are far and
few, as humans we tend to like what we’re good at.

And not all of us have that knack.

So yes and no
Caleb Osborne