After read­ing and re-​​reading the lat­est FTC guide­lines, I’ve come to some impor­tant con­clu­sions that I want to share with you. Par­tic­u­larly as they relate to testimonials.

Last night, my good friend and top copy­writer John Carl­ton called me up, and we had an inter­est­ing dis­cus­sion on this whole FTC thing and the hys­te­ria it has created.

I expressed to John my opin­ions about them, along with a very sim­ple solu­tion. And John agreed with me.

It’s a huge ben­e­fit to those who under­stand copy­writ­ing, because they can actu­ally turn around and use the FTC rul­ings to their advan­tage. Even make more sales as a result.

Part of the solu­tion is actu­ally sim­pler than you think. And it doesn’t involve tear­ing down all your tes­ti­mo­ni­als, plas­ter­ing a bazil­lion dis­claimers around them, or con­duct­ing painful, men­tal con­tor­tions to decide what is typ­i­cal or not.

You can start by doing this one sim­ple thing…

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A stu­dent, who is an upcom­ing copy­writer, recently asked where he could find clients will­ing to pay higher rates for his skills.

Hav­ing built a client base through net­work­ing on Inter­net forums geared towards start-​​up busi­ness own­ers, he now wanted to find oppor­tu­ni­ties that would allow for upward mobil­ity within his craft.

This is a com­mon sce­nario, because local and espe­cially start-​​up busi­nesses are easy to find, and pro­vide plenty of oppor­tu­ni­ties to prac­tice your emerg­ing copy­writ­ing skills.

In a pre­vi­ous arti­cle, I talked about three tips for aspir­ing copy­writ­ers. I rec­om­mend any new copy­writer to fol­low these three tips to start build­ing a track record and get to a level that makes them appeal­ing to higher-​​paying clients.

But after your copy­writ­ing skills are devel­oped, how­ever, it becomes desir­able if not nec­es­sary to seek out clients — bet­ter, more lucra­tive clients — who are estab­lished enough to pay a fair wage for your skills and, above all, your results.

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I deeply value my read­ers and sub­scribers, as much as they value me, my exper­tise, and my rec­om­men­da­tions. For this rea­son, I try to be as open and forth­right as possible.

I’m a big fan of dis­clo­sure. I believe in it. While I will make every attempt to dis­close each time I make a rec­om­men­da­tion on this blog, some­times I can’t or I sim­ply for­get. So I’ve included an abbre­vi­ated form on the sidebar.

How­ever, in an effort to be as clear and can­did as pos­si­ble, I’d like to post a more com­plete ver­sion, which high­lights some of my rela­tion­ships, the ways I am com­pen­sated, as well as the results I some­times show­case on this blog.

Here they are…

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The other day I was asked the fol­low­ing ques­tion: “Should I use active or pas­sive voice in sales copy?” My answer may sur­prise you.

The premise behind this ques­tion is sim­ple. Tra­di­tional rules of good writ­ing state that we should use active voice. When it comes to copy­writ­ing, it makes per­fect sense.

For instance, active voice engages the reader and makes it easy for them to quickly under­stand the copy. They don’t have to sort through a sen­tence to under­stand it.

For those rea­sons, writ­ers are told again and again to focus on using active voice. But I’m telling you that, in some cases, you shouldn’t. And here’s why…

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Need help with your sales copy or mar­ket­ing strat­egy? About to launch a prod­uct or pro­mo­tion, but unsure if it will work? Or sim­ply wish you could pick my brains for an hour?

(And want to pitch in for a great cause at the same time?)

Well, for a lim­ited time, you can.

As a free­lance copy­writer and con­sul­tant for the bet­ter part of 20 years, I’ve had the won­der­ful oppor­tu­nity to cri­tique, review, con­sult, and coach thou­sands of peo­ple and projects.

At first, I did it because it was my liveli­hood. But today, my wife and I own sev­eral, prof­itable busi­nesses, and so I out­source much of it to our per­son­ally trained staff.

For this rea­son, I don’t do hourly con­sults any­more. When I do coach­ing or con­sult­ing, I give pri­or­ity to my mem­bers and rarely take on new clients. If I hap­pen to work with a new client, I do it mostly for fun. (But I also charge a min­i­mum of $3,000 for it, too.)

Well, if you ever wanted to “rent my brains” for an hour, and for a frac­tion of that price on top of that, then here’s your chance. Plus, you’ll be help­ing an impor­tant cause.

One that’s par­tic­u­larly mean­ing­ful to me and my fam­ily.

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Dan Kennedy often says clunky copy out­sells clean copy. I some­what agree with him, but not all the time. In fact, clunk­i­ness can work against you. And a recent uni­ver­sity study proves this.

Peo­ple have a ten­dency to forge not only a last­ing opin­ion based on first impres­sions but also a blan­ket opin­ion that per­vades all other areas as well.

The adage, “a first impres­sion is a last­ing one,” is not only tem­po­ral (i.e., the ini­tial opin­ion remains con­sis­tent and nearly imper­me­able for a long time) but also spa­tial. That is, a first impres­sion is also a uni­ver­sal one. It per­me­ates other areas, even unre­lated ones, as well.

Illog­i­cal? Yes. But it’s human nature.

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I cov­ered head­lines many times already. You can find posts about head­lines here. But here are some addi­tional tips.

There are two huge mis­takes peo­ple make when they write head­lines. Either they are too bland and don’t say enough (such as when they attempt to sim­ply sum­ma­rize), or they say too much to cover all the bases.

In both cases, you will lose readers.

1. The True Purpose of The Headline

The head­line is more than a mere sum­mary of the sales copy. Unlike the title of a book, for instance, it’s not meant to sum­ma­rize, encap­su­late, or intro­duce the story. And most head­lines I’ve seen seem to list all the of the great­est ben­e­fits from the copy.

No. A head­line is meant to gen­er­ate read­er­ship and pull peo­ple into the copy.

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