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Copy Challenge

The Danger of “More” Goals

If you’ve read many other posts, you’ll pretty quickly realize I like to read.

But sometimes reading, for me, is nothing but procrastination.

When I get uncomfortable with the next step I need to take, I’ll grab a book and read.

On the surface, this might seem like a pretty sweet coping mechanism. I mean I’m not binging ice cream…

But the reality is, it’s just an escape to me. In many ways, it’s not much different than booting up the computer and playing video games all day if I don’t get anything else out of it.

So recently, I’ve tried to tweak my schedule a bit more. Oddly enough the copywriting challenge I’m putting myself through – it’s still going… but it’s morphed a bit – has been freeing more than limiting on my time.

Let me explain…

Before I created a plan with deadlines each week… I would try to allocate “more time” to learning how to write copy.

The problem with “more” anything regarding goals is that it’s super easy to hit… but never satisfying.

I could read about one extra tip. Not even apply it and I would still know “more” than I did a minute ago.

Did I feel like I was better? Or getting closer to skilled?

Not even close. So then I would try harder… and get no closer.

Enter this challenge.

I have a definite output. Definite targets to hit each week. Something I can check a box on.

The craziest part about this.

Last night, I spent an hour after work putting some more time into the challenge and I was able to hang out with my wife the rest of the evening.

Before this, I might be putzing around all evening trying to do “more”.

Today, for example. I’ve set aside 5 hours to dedicate to writing. I’ll be reading and hand copying promos.

And I will have spent 20 hours towards specific checklist items.

So this afternoon I’ll be able to hang out with my wife.

And tomorrow. A day off.

It’s going to be nice to take the time off without the guilt of feeling like I should have done “more”.

By Tim Brady | Filed Under: Copy Challenge

Know your Market. Know Yourself.

I talked a couple of days ago about getting to know the market of the people you’re wanting to copywrite for. It stays top of mind for me and I woke up again today thinking about it.

Ideally, you should be a part of the market which you want to sell. If not, you need strong connections with that market. These are pretty obvious statements.

But what I want talk about today is knowing yourself along with knowing your market. This also has a pretty big impact on my copywriting challenge as well.

Some things come easier to me in the whole process of copywriting. When I take the Strengthsfinder assessment, I always have Learner show up in my top 5. I’ve taken it three times. Approximately every three years to see how things might have changed at different times in my life.

For me, my strengths make the research and reverse engineering portion of copywriting pretty exciting and effortless. But my strengths also make those portions easy to spend too much focus on.

I can find myself going down a rabbit hole of research and end up spending entirely too much time on the process.

I’m trying to apply a concept I read about in Ultralearning to this process myself. The concept is diminishing marginal returns. It shows up often in learning finance as well.

The point is the more work you do on one area… the less additional (marginal) value… learning… etc. that extra work brings. This would apply to every bit of work you do.

So eventually, you’ll spend an hour in research and essentially learn nothing new. You often see this show up as analysis paralysis.

Here’s the kicker that I’ve noticed so far for myself.

It feels like there’s only so much you can really absorb with your current foundation of knowledge. More research when the marginal returns are very low lead you to waste a lot of that effort.

When I shift gears to apply the knowledge and utilize the learning that I’m doing, I feel like I lock in some of that knowledge to a solid foundation. What I’ve learned isn’t hypothetical anymore. It’s applied.

If I do that before going back to the research phase, I have a stronger base to build from and I can see new, often better connections that I would never have seen before.

I’m sure there’s science out there somewhere to explain in detail what’s going on with all this.

But let’s not let science get in the way of progress (hah).

The big takeaway here is you need to pay attention to yourself in this learning process as well.

Don’t let this whole process turn mindless or you’ll end up wasting a lot of time.

Today was a bit of a ramble. But hey… it’s Saturday and I’m loving life. I’ve got a long list of copywork I’m excited to work on today and this post is just priming me to write.

Have a great day.

If you want some more information on the Copywriting Challenge I’m putting myself through right now, the email list is the place to be.

Sign up in the sidebar and I’ll send you more detailed information on what and how I’m figuring out this whole copywriting thing.

By Tim Brady | Filed Under: Copy Challenge

A Solid Foundation for Doing Great Things

Two years ago I tried my hand at growing tomatoes from seed.

I picked some different types from the store and made some soil cubes. Grow lights, custom trays, special soil. The whole shebang.

Then every morning, I got up at the same time. Turned on the light and watered them.

Each cube had several sprouts coming out of it before long so I would constantly monitor the health and progress of each little sprout. Several cubes didn’t have anything come up, so I would try to transplant some others in.

Eventually I had to snip off the less thriving seedlings so the the best could grow to full strength.

This situation comes up in so many areas of your life.

You need to prune your friends to make sure the ones you keep are the best to help you thrive.

I noticed this to be very important as I’m working to build solid habits and a working on consciously developing new skills.

Your support network can often make or break you.

If you’re anything like me, you’re doing this while working a day job. You’ve got a family to feed and support and having the space to work and a nudge when things get hard is a Godsend.

Yesterday was my wife’s birthday. She’s been my biggest supporter and cheerleader for quite a while now.

But she’s not the only one. I’m currently building relationships with others doing what I want to do.

People that have walked the path successfully and can provide a more robust example (and potentially advice) about how to get myself from where I am to where I want to be.

Having or creating a support group that does more than just stay out of your way to let you do your thing is powerful.

It’s something you have to be intentional about.

By Tim Brady | Filed Under: Copy Challenge

Copywriting Challenge – Mark your Market

One of the first, and most important, lessons I’ve picked up about copywriting is “You have to understand your market.”

It all starts with that. If you need to know how to do anything, the answer is in the market.

Many many high profile copywriters preach this mantra.

And it applies to this challenge too.

My first copy challenge task for the day is working on coming up with a big idea. In many ways that’s a fancy way of saying “research”.

But it’s specific research for a specific market.

In this challenge, I decided to focus on financial. Not because it pays best… but because it’s one of the most challenging to write for. It’s highly research based. The customers tend to be educated and sophisticated.

And it’s competitive.

I believe if you want to get good at something, you have to go up against the best. Doing that will push you further (whether you succeed or not) than going up against an average Joe.

So it comes back to the market.

How can you learn your market inside and out, better than anyone else? One of the easiest ways is to be in your market. But I’m not a 60 year old conservative white male (yet).

The next best step is going to be to talk to people in that market.

You should literally make a list of people you know and seek to increase it every day. And then talk to them. Get to know them. Make sure you like them.

This is after all what you’re signing up for as a copywriter. You’re supposed to want to help these people be better off in some way.

The products you’re going to be selling in any market are supposed to make them healthier, wealthier, or wiser.

If you don’t like this group and are just in it for the money, you’re going to have a hard time being successful in the long run.

That’s all pretty much just common sense though.

Here’s another tip I’ve come across even as I’m just getting my feet wet in this project. Specialize more than you think you need to.

I suspect this is the same with any field you want to get into. But in financial, there are so many different ways to make money that as a new copywriter, if you dip your toe in all of them you might get good exposure, but you won’t get good.

To get good, you need to go deeper. So do you want to write about stock investing (or even specific types of stocks)? Or do you want to talk about options and option strategies? Maybe you want to talk FinTech, Real Estate, or Forex?

My point here is that the market itself is going to be slightly different for each of these areas. Risk tolerances and perspectives are going to differ.

If you try to go research your market but you’re too broad, you may miss the mark in a lot of ways. You also may not be able to dive as deep as you want to because as you to something like risk, the market starts to splinter based on what they want to do.

Alright, I’m pretty long winded today and my time is up for writing this morning. Time to get to work.

If you want more information on the challenge and some resources I’m using to get to know my market of choice, subscribe to my email list.

Until tomorrow.

P.S. I’m going to drop the “Copywriting Challenge” from these post headers starting tomorrow because it’s starting to feel really redundant.

I’ll still categorize the posts that talk specifically about my activity with this challenge.

As I mentioned in yesterday’s post, this isn’t as much about some 30 day challenge to me as building the proper habits to become a good great copywriter.

By Tim Brady | Filed Under: Copy Challenge Tagged With: copy challenge

Copywriting Challenge – The Habit Habit

It’s Wednesday September 2nd. Do you know where your children are?

What do you even call that? A pop culture reference? Anyway…

I had a realization yesterday about the Copywriting Challenge that I’m doing for myself.

If you’re an experienced copywriter and you probably see it from a mile away. The whole idea that you can ‘learn to be a copywriter’ as a challenge doesn’t really make sense.

I think this challenge is suited for more specific hurdles you come across within copywriting. What I’ve set up seems more like something I need to continue… forever. Copywriter habits, if you will.

So this daily routine of reading, writing, reverse engineering, copywork. These things aren’t something I want to mentally tell myself that I’m done after 30 days.. or three months.

So I am reframing the challenge not to become a good copywriter, but to develop a good copywriters daily habits. The scope of that project doesn’t take as long, but it builds the foundation I need to be really good at this.

So this challenge is going to be learning how to incorporate 5 key activities into my day reliably.

The five things are:

  1. Research (aka developing a big idea)
  2. Reverse engineer a successful promo
  3. Read / study a copywriting book from a respected copywriter
  4. Write at least a page of copy (or spend at least an hour writing copy)
  5. Copywork

So my goal for today is to try and get those done. The goal is to build the habits needed to become good at copywriting.

Did I leave anything off the list? Leave a comment below and let me know.

If you’d like more details on the five key aspects of the challenge, make sure to join the mailing list.

Until tomorrow.

By Tim Brady | Filed Under: Copy Challenge Tagged With: copy challenge

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