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It seems that almost every person can credit one particular person more than anyone else for their success in life. If you think back you probably will be able to remember when one person touched you more than any others.
Copywriting is not something that everyone can do and I credit my copywriting skills to a high school English teacher named Mrs. Gilbertson. She seemed like she understood me more than anyone else and knew how to teach and encourage me. Even though I was only one of hundreds, maybe thousands, that she touched, she had a way of making each one of us feel special and we knew that she really cared. She replaced apathy with interest and I have loved writing and been more interested in things since I met her. She is gone now, having been stricken down by cancer. Even though I haven't see or spoken to her since she left my high school at the end of my junior year, I have thought about her often and given her credit when I obtained a job or a promotion as a result of my writing. When I heard from an old high school classmate that she had passed, I wept.
Many copywriters acquire their skills in college, but I can't give any of the college classes I took much credit because, instead of them teaching me how to write, I was successful in those classes because I knew how to write. I've often thought about the irony of this, but the one thing that college classes did give me was experience across many subjects that I may not have obtained otherwise.
There were more things that happened in my life that added to the copywriting skills that Mrs. Gilbertson gave me like the Air Force technical school that I attended that gave me the knowledge to understand and write about technology. Once you know how electronics works, it's all pretty much the same because it just doesn't work another way. We figure out how to use electricity as it is. We don't change the way it works. Once you understand that CPUs are basically things that count real fast and that the information transmitted by fiber optics is much the same as the information that Calvary soldiers flashed with their mirrors towards each other from mountain tops, but just much faster, you can relax and let the words flow. The people who do understand technology are going to understand what you're writing about so, your objective becomes to make sure that the ones who don't understand, do understand after they read what you have written.
As usual, there was a person who gave me my break into copywriting. This man was Otto Galmeister. Otto was the National Service Manager and I was a field service engineer working on computer equipment. One day, I received a note from him in the mail, referencing one of my expense reports, saying that I must have forgotten to attach a receipt or two. Being young and a little hotheaded, I took this as an attack on my honesty and sent him back a blazing letter pointing out all of the things that I didn't claim on my expense report that I could have, and mentioned that I had tried for two hours to get a receipt out of a parking meter, but finally decided, since I made slightly more than what the parking meter was charging, that he, most likely, wouldn't want me to continue my pursuit.
The letter must have been convincing because, a couple of weeks later, Otto called me into his office, mentioned that he had noted my writing skills, and promoted me to the Manager of Training and Documentation. This meant that I taught field service classes and wrote technical, training, and other company documentation. I had never been so fulfilled in any job, as I was when my Field Service Bulletins and manuals went out and I knew that people were holding them in their hands and getting it. Interestingly, I also enjoyed a lot of professional fulfillment from the classes that I taught. I would sit drained in the empty classroom at the end of the day, knowing that people were now better able to do their jobs. Through my copywriting and teaching, I was reaching people like Mrs. Gilbertson had reached me. Otto also died from cancer a few years after he and I both moved on to other opportunities, but I will always remember him and the opportunity he gave me.
That was over 25 years ago and I have since moved on to copywriting in websites, PR, ads, sales collateral, presentations, management support, and all of the other things that MARCOM does. How I got there is another long story, but, basically, I found myself in business on my own in Chicago one day and had to do it. I have since created documentation that has launched a number of computer and telecommunications companies in Silicon Valley.
Now, when I'm through with work at the end of the day, I relax by writing in blogs, on my own websites, and in response to news articles on many subjects from the environment to energy and government.
In order to do effective copywriting, you don't have to know as much about the subject that you're covering as you do about the people you're trying to reach. No copywriter will reach everyone, but I will reach the vast majority. If you like the way I write and are in need of a copywriter, drop me a line at:
websmith at ewebsmith.com
You will find my prices very attractive. |