Hey Copywriters,
I'm putting all of the TTP articles specifically on building your copywriting business here in one place on this thread so they're easily accessible.
-John
Yes, You CAN Build a Super-Profitable Copywriting Business!
By Clayton Makepeace - How big an opportunity is copywriting really?
- What you must read – frequently – to become a world-class copywriter or copy chief …
- The toughest job any copywriter has – and how to do it spectacularly …
- Why smart marketers are beating the bushes for great writers …
- How to convince a reluctant marketer to give you your first assignment …
- How to get paid – handsomely -- to make a name for yourself in this business …
- And much, MUCH MORE!
Hiya, Business-Builders!
Hopefully, you’re well rested and ready to spend the next five days taking your business to the next level!
I’m up to my eyeballs in deadlines for my Response Ink™ clients and things are changing mighty fast here at The Profit Center™, so I know it’s going to be another 100-hour marathon for me – and I can’t wait to get started!
This issue is the first of a three-part series dedicated to bringing young copywriters along and helping direct marketing pros find the great new copywriting help they need.
I’ve got super powers.
About a year ago, when we had, maybe one-tenth as many readers as we do today, the great
Robert W. Bly interviewed me to get my thoughts on building a profitable copywriting business. And for this issue, I’m turning back the clock and returning to that interview.
… Kinda.
This is where the “altering the past” thing comes in: I’ve taken this opportunity to both update and add significantly to my comments in the interview – so there’s a lot new here.
Whether you’re a copywriter or a marketing pro looking to attract hot new writers and top talent, you’ll want to read every word …
Bob Bly: My name is
Bob Bly and I’m interviewing Clayton Makepeace, who is one of just a handful of freelance copywriters in the world who make more than a million dollars a year -- and some years, $2 or $3 million -- strictly as a freelance copywriter.
Clayton is, I believe, the highest-paid
freelance copywriter in the world and one of only a handful, maybe half a dozen, that are in seven figures. There’s a bunch of us below Clayton who are earning six figures -- anywhere from $100,000 to $700,000, $800,000 a year -- but he’s in the million dollar category.
So let’s get right into it. When I started copywriting 25 years ago, it was an unheard of profession. There were a few people doing it, but no one knew what it was. But now, it’s sort of a hot thing and everybody’s saying, oh, this is the greatest job going. Is that true? Is it really that good?
Clayton Makepeace: Well, I think it is. I started back in the early 70s, after having worked in television and film for a while. But in ’74, the recession shut down most production, so I found a copywriting job with an ad agency for $15,000 a year.
That doesn’t sound like much, but I had no training or experience and I was a high-school dropout. And after all, $15,000 a year in ’74 is the same as $62,000 in 2005 dollars. So it wasn’t a bad way to start.
Within six years, I was doing close to a quarter million dollars a year in today’s money. Within eight years, I was over $700,000 in today’s money. In the early ’90s, I hit a million dollars a year and never looked back.
Bob Bly: So did you have a mentor or a coach who got you into that? How did you discover how to do this?
Clayton Makepeace: No, that’s the beauty of it. When I got started, all I had were a few books by the great advertising masters to guide me: Reality in Advertising by Rosser Reeves, Scientific Advertising by Claude Hopkins, Tested Advertising Methods by John Caples, Ogilvy on Advertising and Confessions of an Advertising Man by David Ogilvy. And then to get the nuts and bolts of the business, I read Successful Direct Marketing Methods by Bob Stone.
Those books – and studying what people were mailing were my foundation in copywriting.
Beyond that, I had to pretty much learn as I went along. There weren’t coaches. There were no e-zines telling you how to do it. And nobody had ever heard of a top writer mentoring copy cubs.
I’ve done that six or seven times now, and each one of those writers is a mid to high six figure writer or a million-dollar writer.
Bob Bly: Can you name a couple of them, or is it confidential?
Clayton Makepeace: Not at all, no.
Carline Anglade-Cole came to me in the mid-1990s. She was making six figures a year as a marketing pro at Phillips Publishing, but she was not a trained copywriter by any stretch of the imagination.
Carline asked me if, as a friend, I would help her break into this business. I agreed and her very first year, she made more as a copywriter than she had been making with her six-figure salary at Phillips.
When
Kent Komae came to me, he was a five-figure writer just getting started and I hired him to help me with some work I had at Weiss Research. Kent is now a solid six-figure writer. The same is true with Bob Hutchinson.
Parris Lampropoulos took off like a house afire and is making seven figures now as a copywriter and has his own copy cubs.
And there are a couple of others. Brien Lundin made enough money as a copywriter that he bought Jefferson Financial from his boss and now runs the New Orleans Investment Conference and publishes several newsletters and trading services. I hired Brien from a radio station, where he was writing spots for local customers/clients.
So of the six or seven people that I’ve worked with over the last five or six years, every one of them has done very, very well for themselves. It’s great.
Bob Bly: So you’re not an anomaly. It can be done.
Clayton Makepeace: Not only can it be done, but these young guys are doing it faster than I did.
It took me a considerable amount of time to hit the million-dollar mark and Parris did it in a matter of just a few years.
Bob Bly: Now, speaking of people who start out younger or are starting out maybe after another career, the guys you all mentioned work for major clients, but for many people listening to this call, the idea of going out and contacting and selling yourself to a major client is very intimidating.
When you started, how did you overcome this?
Clayton Makepeace: Self-promotion was a tough one for me and it still is. Of course, after more than three decades in this business, I no longer have to promote my copywriting or my agency, Response Ink™. We don’t pursue clients; they pursue us.
But when I founded The Profit Center™ and
The Total Package™, I knew it meant I’d have to put myself out there: Promote myself, my background, my experience just to get subscribers – and it’s just not in my nature to do that.
The same was true when I was getting started with copywriting. I was extremely shy and had a severe case of stage fright. Fortunately for me, I was unemployed when I went freelance. I had a wife and two kids and an overhead I had to meet every month.
That meant I awakened on the first day of each month with bills to pay and no money coming in. I had no choice but to bang the phone and to contact clients and say, “Here I am!”
Let me tell you: It was intimidating! I’d spent months admiring, studying and learning from promotions a company was mailing -- and suddenly, here I was on the phone with the legendary copy chief who had directed the production of that piece. It was pretty daunting.
But I quickly discovered that major marketers are just as interested in finding new copywriters as we are in finding new clients.
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