Most of the copy peo­ple ask me to rewrite seem to offer great prod­ucts and ser­vices. In fact, some offers are so good, prospects would be crazy to turn them down.

But they do.

And these sales pieces end up falling on my lap because they’re des­per­ately unpro­duc­tive. When clients ask me to cri­tique or rewrite copy, one of the biggest prob­lems I see is the fact that the copy is stale, limp, and anemic.

Copy so down­right dull, the only response it gets are yawns.

You’ve heard the adage, “copy­writ­ing is sales­man­ship in print.” This is noth­ing new. It comes from the age­less teach­ings of the mas­ters, like Hop­kins, Bar­ton, Col­lier, and oth­ers, which still ring true today. Includ­ing the Internet.

But peo­ple tend to for­get this axiom. Here’s why…

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Since we’re get­ting ready to fly to Vegas to speak this week­end, I didn’t want to leave with­out mak­ing a quick post. But with no time to write an arti­cle myself, I decided to spread some link love.

Any­way, here are five of them…

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Free­lance copy­writ­ers are an inter­est­ing bunch. They prac­tice the art of sales­man­ship in print, yet have dif­fi­culty sell­ing them­selves. They strug­gle when it comes to self-​​promotion.

So instead of being well-​​fed and con­tent, they often go hun­gry. Why is this?

I believe it comes down to three fun­da­men­tal defi­cien­cies. I observed these in myself when I was get­ting started a few years ago. I have con­tin­ued to observe them in other copy­writ­ers who are launch­ing new free­lance careers.

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When I say that you do not have to drive sharp bar­gains, I do not mean that you do not have to drive any bar­gains at all or that you are above the neces­sity for hav­ing any deal­ings with your fel­low men. I Mean that you will not need to deal with them unfairly. You do not have to get some­thing for noth­ing, but can give to every per­son more than you take from him.

You can­not give every­one more in cash mar­ket value than you take from him, but you can give him more in use value than the cash value of the thing you take from him. The paper, ink, and other mate­r­ial in this book may not be worth the money you pay for it, but if the ideas sug­gested by it bring you thou­sands of dol­lars, you have not been wronged by those who sold it to you. They have given you a great use value for a small cash value.

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Plat­i­tudes and gen­er­al­i­ties roll off the human under­stand­ing like water from a duck. They leave no impres­sion what­ever. To say, “Best in the world,” “Low­est price in exis­tence,” etc. are at best sim­ply claim­ing the expected. But superla­tives of that sort are usu­ally dam­ag­ing. They sug­gest loose­ness of expres­sion, a ten­dency to exag­ger­ate, a care­less truth. They lead read­ers to dis­count all the state­ments that you make.

Peo­ple rec­og­nize a cer­tain license in sell­ing talk as they do poetry. A man may say, “Supreme in qual­ity” with­out seem­ing a liar, though one may know that the other brands are equally as good. One expects a sales­man to put his best foot for­ward and excuses some exag­ger­a­tion born of enthu­si­asm. But just for that rea­son gen­eral state­ments count for lit­tle. And a man inclined to superla­tives must expect that his every state­ment will be taken with some caution.

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The dif­fer­ence between adver­tis­ing and per­sonal sales­man­ship lies largely in per­sonal con­tact. The sales­man is there to demand atten­tion. He can­not be ignored. The adver­tise­ment can be ignored. But the sales­man wastes much of his time on prospects whom he can never hope to inter­est. He can­not pick them out. The adver­tise­ment is read only by inter­ested peo­ple who, by their own voli­tion, study what we have to say.

The pur­pose of a head­line is to pick out peo­ple you can inter­est. You wish to talk to some­one in a crowd. So the first thing you say is, “Hey there, Bill Jones” to get the right per­sons atten­tion. So it is in an adver­tise­ment. What you have will inter­est cer­tain peo­ple only, and for cer­tain rea­sons. You care only for those peo­ple. Then cre­ate a head­line which will hail those peo­ple only.

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The sever­est test of an adver­tis­ing man is in sell­ing goods by mail. But that is a school from which he must grad­u­ate before he can hope for suc­cess. There cost and result are imme­di­ately appar­ent. False the­o­ries melt away like snowflakes in the sun. The adver­tis­ing is prof­itable or it is not, clearly on the face of returns. Fig­ures which do not lie tell one at once the mer­its of an ad.

This puts men on their met­tle. All guess­work is elim­i­nated. Every mis­take is con­spic­u­ous. One quickly loses his con­ceit by learn­ing how often his judg­ment errs — often nine times in ten.

There one learns that adver­tis­ing must be done on a sci­en­tific basis to have any fair chance of suc­cess. And he learns that every wasted dol­lar adds to the cost of results. Here is a tough effi­ciency and econ­omy under a mas­ter who can’t be fooled. Then, and only then, is he apt to apply the same prin­ci­ples and keys to all advertising.

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