5 Copywriting And Marketing Lessons From My First Business

By Author: Paul Patterson
Total Articles: 31
Comment this article

It's funny some the ideas you get from time spent in reflection.
I was recently reflecting about my time in my first business, a now defunct roof restoration company. I figure there are five pretty important lessons I learned back then that have helped shape me as a copywriter.
Lesson 1: If you don't sell you don't eat.
Probably the most important lesson you can learn in life. If you don't sell something nobody has any work to do so they can get paid. It has shaped my copywriting because I know every time I sit down at the keyboard to write I had better be selling
Lesson 2: You can make selling a numbers game.
If you have a winning formula, selling becomes a numbers game. I knew how many doors I had to knock on in order to get an appointment. I new how many appointments I needed to get a sale (they weren't good numbers at the time but I made them work.) And I knew how many sales I needed to keep the wolves from the door. Direct Marketing using powerful direct response copywriting works the same way as door knocking. You turn it into a numbers game without the painful grind.
Lesson 3: It ...
... is better to turn the game on its head than play 'according to their rules.'
Although I became proficient at the numbers game, I stumbled across a better one. I figured out how to use direct mail to generate leads and as a consequence increase my efficiency and my close rate. It is far easier to put $100 worth of letters in the mail and get a sale than to knock on a couple hundred doors (when you factor in the 'nobody home' houses) to get a sale.
Lesson 4: Copy is king.
I learned that having a good lead generating sales letter was the answer to my woes. A simple letter that is effective and can be deployed at will, can make you a lot of money.
Lesson 5: If I only had a marketing system to go with that brilliant copy.
What I learned later was that copy is a big piece of marketing but it is not the only piece. I did a lot of things right with that mailer. I did a lot of things wrong with it too. If I had of developed a marketing system then I could have made significantly more money than if I had of just used the letter

essay customer support