Supercharging your Copywriting Skills by Louis R Burns
I was recently reading a book titled "Talent is Overrated What Really Separates World Class Performers from Everybody Else. " In it I learned a few lessons for copywriters.
The point of it was that it's not innate talent or experience that determine greatness. Most people would say it's hard work that makes people good at things but that's not it either.
The author says the big difference is something he calls "deliberate practice. " It's more than regular practice. A good way to explain that is in considering how most adult city league soccer teams practice. A few practice deliberately most either just practice or do nothing.
Most adult soccer teams here don't have a coach. If they practice as a team many don't they simply divide up into 2 teams set up two small goals then play scrimmage until people get tired of it or the time runs out. Do we get better doing that Not really. Is it fun Most of the time. That's why they do it.
A team I once played on was able to recognize we needed to do some skill specific drills. We practiced playing "keep away" where the goal is to maintain possession of the ball. We put goals in the middle that had to be dribbled through. We put a limit on the number of times we could touch the ball before passing. We played offense against defense so we'd recognize game scenarios.
Challenging ourselves with these drills made us better than other teams. We ended up moving up divisions each year that I played with them. I've seen other teams do that as well. It's really not rocket science to be better than most everyone else. Deliberate practice will do the trick.
How about copywriters You've probably heard you ought to copy other good letters so you absorb the language. There were 3 models for deliberate practicing researched the music model the chess model the sports model.
Music Model
In music you know exactly what the final outcome is supposed to be. You rehearse that over over. If you get stuck on a part you break it down rehearse that until it's perfect. In copywriting that's what we're doing when we copy other good letters. We can do that with any element like headlines or offers too.
Chess Model
This is the "what would you do in this situation" model. This is also how Harvard Business School teaches. . . through case studies. You look at specific scenarios try to figure out what you would do. Then you compare that to what happened in real life.
For a copywriter we can re write letters. How would you have handled a particular selling approach differently You can pick a product write a letter for it then see how it compares to the real one. You can critique letters if you don't want to actually write an entirely new one.
You can work on smaller elements too. How would you rewrite a headline bullets or an offer There are plenty of smaller opportunities if you want to test yourself against pay per click or catalog copy. Take something you already own write some catalog copy to compare to the actual.
Sports Model
Sports teams practice specific skills. In copywriting you can build a swipe file analyze each letter. You can take courses to improve. You can read books on marketing or writing style. You can cross train in other fields like sales story telling NLP hypnosis logic debate. Get a mentor or a coach to help.
If you've been wondering how to improve take heart. You now have plenty to keep you busy take your copywriting skills to the to the next level.
Louis Burns is Certified NLP Copywriter louisrburns. com. to get a FREE lesson from his hypnotic writing home study course on mastering NLP hypnotic writing go to hypnoticwriter. org. Don't reprint this exact article. Instead reprint a free unique content version of this same article. Supercharging your Copywriting Skills
