Copywriting | Make Money with Your Mouth Shut

Making money copywriting beats the crap out of being a salesman. 

There, I said it. 

I know that sounds drastic, but once you read the rest of this, you will see why I said it. 

You can make a lot more money by keeping your mouth shut than you think.

via GIPHY

In this post, I am going to show you why you need to learn copywriting. I am also going to show you how to learn it. So, if you are an entrepreneur wannabe, pay close attention to what I am about to tell you. 

It will save you from wasting a lot of your time. 

Let’s Face it – Selling Sucks.

I worked in sales for years, and I hated it.  Don’t get me wrong, I made good money when I did it successfully.  Sales are the primary force behind every business, but I never thought of it as fun.  I never looked forward to another day of selling.

Selling face to face is stressful.  If you put in a full day of it, you will know what I mean. I used to sell for a company that sold food subscriptions door to door. It wore me out every day.

Copywriting doesn’t do that to me.  (I do get tired, but it is nothing a nap won’t cure in my old age.)

But getting back to why selling sucks…

After you make a gazillion phone calls, you finally make an appointment. I remember one day I had 2 of them.

On the first one, I double-checked to make sure the party I was supposed to pitch would be there.  I drove for hours out in the wilderness area of Virginia, trying to locate a rural home.  This was back in the days before cellphones, and I didn’t have a GPS, so I was screwed. I finally found the place, and of course, my prospect was not there.

My second appointment was at home, but I had to do a sales presentation in the living room. I pitched the old geezer on the couch, which didn’t bother me too much. However, in front of us on the coffee table were two rather large pistols. One looked like the kind Dirty Harry uses in his movies. I could see the bullets in the chamber too.

But that was not the worst of it.

Four kids were running around in the living room, and they were pretty wild.

I kept thinking, Please God, don’t let a kid pick up one of those guns. Sure enough, one picked up the Dirty Harry gun.

‘Boy, I’m gonna whoop you,’ yelled the dad I was pitching to. ‘You better put that damn thing down, right now!’

The kid with a masticated sandwich in his mouth threw the gun down on the table. Of course, and it landed with a thud, and the barrel was pointing at my crotch.

I don’t ever remember having this kind of stress copywriting.

Why Copywriting is Better Than Selling

It’s going to be easy selling you on why you should be a copywriter. (No pun intended.)

That’s because it is better than hard-core selling.

Don’t get me wrong, selling is vitally important in the world of business. It is the cornerstone of enterprises. If you do not like to sell, then do not go into it because it is the primary force of profits.

Copywriting is the same way. At its core, it is selling ideas, products, and services using nothing but words.

No matter if you are writing a 20-page sales letter, a blog post, email series, etc., you are selling something.

Copywriting is Better Than Selling Because…

You do not have to get face-time.  

With copywriting you do not have to see the people you are selling to. You will be communicating through blog posts, email, sales letters, and any other medium that uses text. Also, you won’t need to set appointments to sell something; you can just click a few buttons after writing, hit the publish button, and you are selling. 

No going door to door or wasting gas money and time trying to get in front of someone. If you are doing a sales letter campaign, you send out your pitch for the price of a stamp.  

For a business, it will be much better than sending out a team of salespeople. 

Use copywriting to sell everywhere, all the time. 

Yep, that’s right, you can sell everywhere all the time. If you are writing online, your words can potentially reach millions of readers across the entire world.

Back in 2001, I sold embroidered musical apparel to people in Japan and Holland. No kidding. I never left Kentucky while I was doing that. I’ve sold stuff to people all over the world. 

And the best part?

The stuff I put online 10 years ago is still online selling.

On the Internet, you can leave pieces you have written online indefinitely. If you have a successful magazine ad, you can still use it over again. You can rewrite some of it or hand it off to another copywriter to make it better or more relevant.  

Copywriting is more versatile than selling.

Most salespeople learn to sell one thing and stick with it. I’ve known salespeople who have been working and selling the same products for years.

Quite honestly, it’s smart if they do that.  If you’re making good money selling something, you can become invaluable to a company. (Job security and all that.)

However, it can get big-B boring.  Making the same calls, using the same scripts, etc., is tedious after a while.

But with copywriting, there is a whole universe of things you can do. Most good copywriters will tell you that you should stick to just a few niches, and they are right.  But within those niches you have…

• Blog posts
• Email campaigns
• Sales letters
• Brochures
• Website copy
• Magazine articles
• Newspaper ads
• Ebooks
• Ghostwriting
• Whiteboard videos

This list can go on considerably, but you get the drift.  You can do a lot of different kinds of writing in one niche.

Copywriting pairs up with other profitable skills. 

I’ve made money in other avenues because of my copywriting skills. For example, I have had to build websites for businesses. I am not a great website designer. However, if you are new at business and want a WordPress site set up, I can easily do it. 

I have also made whiteboard videos, PowerPoint presentations, Infographics, Camtasia explainer videos, and I’ve taken courses in Search Engine Optimization.  

I do not believe you should be a jack of all trades and a master of none. However, I’ve accumulated these skills over the last 20 years. I got a Masters’s degree in Education Technology, which gives me experience setting up courses on and offline. 

As you progress through your copywriting venture, you can learn other valuable skills that you can make money with. This means that you won’t get bored with what you are doing. There is always something to learn and do.  

Use copywriting to make money by yourself. 

You don’t have to be a freelancer or get a job to make money as a copywriter. You can start your own business ventures. I’ve made money selling my own products. One of my products is a course on how to use PaintShop Pro by Corel.

I found a company that can make DVDs cheaply, and I use them to make my own videos on how to use the image editing product. I don’t make a ton of money from them, but it is extra income. 

But the beauty of this is, you don’t have to spend a dime to get started. What you can do is get a free Facebook business page and start writing about a topic you love. Once you get that going, you can start pitching your own products. Or you can get an affiliate account and start selling someone else’s products. 

Here is a list of ideas you can use to get started making money with copywriting:

• Start a blog and pitch your own products and services
• Start an eCommerce website and sell affiliate products
• Self publish a book or eBook
• Create your own DVDs and CDs and sell them
• Start posting on revenue sharing sites like Medium
• Write sponsored content for companies like Acorn
• Submit your writing to online venues to make money like The Penny Horder

Writing for yourself is only limited by your imagination. Remember, we are living in the information age, and everyone needs content. 

Bonus Area: How to Get Started in Copywriting

If you remember the beginning of this post, I told you I would show you how to get started with copywriting. 

I have already written a lot on this subject and posted it on this site. 

Just to show you that I’m not some sort of a jerk, I’m going to give you a free eBook that will show you the exact steps you need to take to get into this business. 

It’s called “Copywriting for Cheapskates“ 

Why is it called that?

Almost all of the resources on learning how to write copy are either free or very cheap. You don’t need an expensive mentor to become a copywriter, just a desire.

Later on, after you learn the ropes and start making the big bucks, you can get yourself a good mentor and learn how to become a highly paid copywriter. 

Ok, I have a question for you. Do you have a desire to get into the copywriting business?  Do you have any questions about it that you would like an answer to?

If so, please leave a comment in the box below.  It will really make my day.