Copywriting Secrets of the Masters:
Six Techniques for Jumpstarting Your Creative Engine Don Mahoney
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Six Techniques for Jumpstarting Your Creative Engine from AWAI Board Members John Forde, Bob Bly, Don Mahoney, Michael Masterson, Jen Stevens, and Paul Hollingshead John Forde… on Where to Find Inspiration To make a vase, you need a lump of clay. Something to work with. So when I‟m stuck, I seek out more material to work with – what I call my “Three R‟s and an S”: I READ. This used to mean spending a full day at the library in front of the microfiche machine. But now, with the Internet, you can quickly and easily access articles galore on virtually anything you‟ll ever have to write about. I RAP… with gurus, with customers, with anybody you‟d expect to call if you were putting together a “60 Minutes” interview and not just a promo package. Talk to everyone, follow leads, ask questions. Eventually, you crack open a new idea. I WRITE. The best cure for writer‟s block – just do it! Put pen to paper or fingers to keyboard and start with this: “I can‟t think of what to write. I‟m trying to solve this problem where… ” Before you know it, you‟ll stop complaining and start creating. When all the above fail, I take a SHOWER. No kidding. Lots of writers credit walks, country drives, fishing, baths, and other means of relaxation with opening the doors of the subconscious. For me, it‟s always been the shower. Only drawback – my laptop isn‟t waterproof. Bob Bly… on Multi-Tasking to Beat Burnout I always work on multiple projects in different areas – a book for one of my publishers, a brochure for a high-tech client, a package for a newsletter publisher, a website for a consulting firm. Whenever I feel bored or burned out on a job like a major magalog, I switch to something else that appeals to me at the moment. Then I come back to the magalog later, refreshed and ready to work on it again.
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Don Mahoney… on Just the Right Amount of Pressure In the beginning I didn‟t need any motivators… I was self-started and selfmotivated. All I needed was experience. Nobody had to tell me to work. I worked. If you want to go from $12,000 a year to between $100K and $200K, you‟ve got to WANT IT, BABY. If you don‟t burn with desire, you‟re probably wasting your time. Now that I‟ve got some success under my belt, it‟s a little harder. I tend to let myself get distracted by life‟s little “happenings.” So I find that what I need is just the right amount of pressure. You see, I built a large part of my early reputation on punctuality – notoriously rare in copywriters. (If you can‟t give „em A-team copy yet, at least let them know they can count on it when they need it.) No joke, that helps. So, I‟ve trained myself to meet deadlines. Now I try to set deadlines that don‟t leave me too much wiggle room. I want it done – and done right – so there comes a point where I HAVE to get going if I don‟t want to be up for three days straight before my deadline. And, yes, I can still manage to get the old fire of desire burning. It‟s just on a higher level than it used to be. I have to get in touch with the things I still haven‟t accomplished… meditate on them until they bubble up to the top of my consciousness… and then psych myself up to go after them just like I did when I wanted to BECOME a successful freelance copywriter. Then, of course, there are bags full of little tricks you can use… … like doing lots of research on a subject. I do it until it‟s coming out of my ears… and then when I think about the assignment, the information starts falling into place, ready to be used… … or knowing what time of day your brain works best. For me, it‟s first thing in the morning. So when I have my work laid out and it‟s fresh in my mind, if I go straight to the keyboard when I wake up, I‟m often brimming with www.ProCopyWritingTactics.com
ideas. Sometimes I even wake up with creative solutions working themselves out in my head… ready to jump into the day and the task. Michael Masterson’s… 5-Step Process for Getting Started For me, the very best way to get started… by far… is with research. And that breaks down as follows, from best to okay: 1. Talk, at length and in depth, to a true expert. 2. Read a lot about what experts have to say. 3. Study the product in detail. 4. Study past promotions for the product. 5. Talk to the marketing/product managers to get their ideas. Jen Stevens… on Productive Panic I am, unfortunately, most productive when I‟m in a panic – real or manufactured. That means I don‟t exactly leave things to the last minute… but to the untrained eye, it might appear that I do. I say to anyone who will listen, “I have no idea how I‟m going to finish this thing by Thursday. I need a new idea. How on earth am I going to finish this? I‟m going to be up all night… ” Thus, I create a sense of panic. I start researching well in advance. I gather material. I talk to everyone I need to talk to. I read a lot. I mull over what I‟m going to say. I think about it while I‟m changing diapers and grinding up squash. I find myself reading The NY Times and not really reading because I‟m trying, in the back of my head, to figure out what I should lead with. Then I‟ll finally sit down to write. And I just type. I start with what I know. For instance, if I‟m writing a promotion for a conference where a panel of speakers will give presentations, I‟ll begin by typing in the speakers‟ names and titles and coming up with the titles to their speeches and then bullets for those speeches. So I end up with a fair chunk of the thing done, even if I still don‟t have a headline or a lead. If I know I want to have a handful of sidebars, I‟ll write those next. They are short and each one is focused on one idea, usually, so they tend to be easy www.ProCopyWritingTactics.com
to write. And then I‟ve got another chunk of the thing done. And by doing that much writing, I‟ve usually got some momentum going and can write the rest. Essentially, what I do is divide a project up into manageable parts and just focus on getting each part done, one at a time. Pretty soon, I‟ve got more copy than I know what to do with. Also, I am, somewhat inexplicably, productive at about 5:00 in the morning. This may be a function of the fact that I have a six-month-old baby in the house, and the only time it‟s quiet is at that hour. Nevertheless, it makes me feel very productive to get a couple of hours of writing in before the rest of the house – and the neighborhood – is up. It means that I can get into the shower at 7:00 or 8:00 having made a dent in whatever I‟m working on. I know that when I go back to my computer after breakfast there will be something already on the screen, which always, for me, makes writing easier. Also, when I start at 5:00 I know that the house will be getting up in a couple hours, and that deadline provides just enough of that needed panic. And, finally, Paul Hollingshead… with a solution that works for him (though I wouldn‟t recommend it for everyone!) Sadly, my technique is to maintain a lifestyle I can‟t afford. Let Paul, Don and Michael Masterson himself teach you all you need to know in order to become a six-figure copywriter.
Don Mahoney: Cabinet Maker Turned Six-Figure www.ProCopyWritingTactics.com
Copywriter “Businesses don’t stop advertising just because the economy takes a turn for the worse. If they did, they wouldn’t be in business very long. When money is tight, business owners spend their advertising dollars where they can get the most bang for their buck. And direct-marketing advertising has been proven to be the most cost-effective way to advertise. Another great thing is that the companies that’ll pay you big bucks to write sales letters don’t care if you’re 25 or 75 … thin, fat, male or female. They only care how your work performs. If you have the desire, you can always reinvent yourself. I did … and you can too!” — Don Mahoney
DON MAHONEY is a co-founder of AWAI. As a one-time cabinet maker in upstate New York, Don barely eked out a living, getting sicker and sicker from the lacquer fumes and other chemicals he’d breathe in every day. In 1993, a year after learning Michael Masterson’s copywriting secrets, Don moved to Florida and started writing his own copy. Since then Don has risen to be one of the top copywriters working today, earning over $300,000 writing letters from his Miami Beach home. He has also personally mentored dozens of nowsuccessful copywriters and helped them achieve their dreams of freedom and financial independence. Don’s letters are consistently successful because he has mastered the art of ―overwhelming evidence‖ – a technique of providing indisputable proof that your service or product can deliver its promise. AWAI’s program reveals all of Don’s secrets for building the kind of product credibility that’s proven to turn fence-sitters into buyers. Learn firsthand from Don at the AWAI Fast Track to Success Bootcamp & Jobfair which is taking place on October 26-29, 2011 Delray Beach, Florida www.ProCopyWritingTactics.com
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