Ben Settle

QUESTION: Ben, do you have any tips on preventing burnout? I tend to work a whole bunch of projects at once and am getting burned out fast.

BEN: At any given time I am working on several dozen ezine articles for my stuff and other people, a seemingly endless number of sales letters, reports and ads, and a host of other little projects and business copywriting related tasks.

And yet, I haven’t suffered “burnout” in years.

In fact, I am always on fire to get to work and rarin’ to go.

What’s my secret?

Well, what I do is I have a stack of 3X5 note cards and every week I jot down the next week’s schedule.

And what I do is purposely alternate each week with a heavy workload and a light workload.

For example, on week one of any given month, I may pack in the work every day. Then, on week two, I do maybe 2 or 3 things (urgent stuff with a deadline) each day and get done before noon. Sometimes even earlier.

And by doing this hard/easy alternation each week, I totally avoid burnout.

Reason why is because during an easy week I get things done early and have a bunch of time on my hands. By Sunday I’m chomping at the bit to get back to work. Usually I can’t wait to get back to work.

On the other hand, during a heavy week I get very tired by Friday. But tired in a good way. Because while I know there will still be work the next week, I know it is going to be a virtual vacation compared to what I just did. So I look forward to it. I look forward to the stress-free week ahead.

Anyway, I know this sounds simple. But it works like crazy.

Try it and see for yourself.

Break out a couple 3X5 cards and make one a heavy week schedule, the other a light week schedule.

I think you’ll find yourself getting a lot more work done while totally eliminating burnout forever.

QUESTION: I took your advise and subscribe to the NEWSPAPERARCHIVES site. But when I tried to search ads by Dan Kennedy, only his SUCCESS speaking ads came up. Is there a better way to search these copywriting gurus ads other than type in their names?

BEN: Yes, there is a way. It takes a bit of research, but here’s what I do. Besides looking for a specific copywriter or marketer’s name or ad headline, you can also look for the names of the companies they wrote for.

For example, when looking for Eugene Schwartz ads, I found most of them by typing in the names of two companies he wrote ads for: “Executive Research Institute” and “Information Incorporated.”

When searching for Gary Halbert ads, I found some from searching “Good News Publishing” Company (although I am not sure if they are all Halbert ads — be careful).

If you want to find a certain copywriter’s newspaper ads, find out who their clients were and then search those names. Chances are you will have a lot more luck getting an exact match. If you are looking for Dan Kennedy, look at his ads and the names of the people who give him testimonials. Start with those business names and see what happens.

And don’t forget to use the newspaperarchive.com help desk. Sometimes they can be a lot of help when searching for something specific.

QUESTION: Ben I am aspiring copywriter. Are there any ways for me to get freelance copywriting jobs and making money? I don’t mind hard work I just don’t know where to begin.

BEN: As much as I’d love to take credit for the following idea, I can’t. I actually heard this from Michael Senoff on his site and it’s so good I may even do this myself if I find some time in the near future.

What he says is to go to ebay and look for completed auctions for stuff that sells for ten, fifteen, twenty even a hundred thousand dollars or more.

Let’s say you find someone selling a yacht, for example. And let’s say he has great pictures, but he has no copy, no benefits, no descriptions. You can simply say, “Did you ever sell the yacht?”

Chances are he’ll say something like, “Nah, I never sold it. It’s still sitting here.”
You could negotiate and say, “Let me help you sell it. I’ll write an ad to sell the boat, and if we sell the boat, you pay me X percent.”

Now obviously, you are taking a chance. But what does it really “cost” you? A few bucks for an ebay ad (and any other advertising you want to do) and your time. So if you lose, you lose small. But if you win…you win BIG.

Anyway, just something to think about. Like I said, I may even do something like this myself in the near future.

That’s it for today. Send me your questions about copywriting, advertising, marketing or business by clicking here.

If you have an ad with several pages of bullet points, and want to make those bullets easier to follow and less mundane to look at — as well as get people who’d normally skim over them to perk up and pay attention — then try this.

Let’s say you are selling an ebook on copywriting and have three, four even five pages (or more) of extremely compelling bullet points.

And you’re looking for ways to bring in some much needed “eye-relief” — as well as make the pages easier and more “inviting” to read.

And let’s pretend one of your bullets says:

• How to let copywriters who get paid hundreds of thousands of dollars per year do all the dirty work for you.

All you do is strategically space this bullet (and any others with especially dramatic promises) about 10 or 15 bullets apart and do one of the following three things.

1.) Turn the last six or seven words of it into a dramatic sub-headline. Like this:

• How to let copywriters who get paid hundreds of thousands of dollars per year…

Do All The Dirty Work For You.

The idea here being to take an already dramatic sentence — that may otherwise have just been lost in a sea of bullets to anyone not reading it all the way through — and drag it into the spotlight.

2.) Expand on the idea in the bullet underneath it, before going to the next one. Like this:

• How to let copywriters who get paid hundreds of thousands of dollars per year do all the dirty work for you.

This may sound almost unbelievable but it’s absolutely true. Believe it or not, there is a way to get a monthly “report” of all the best, most cutting edge copywriting techniques working right now…sent right to your home on a regular basis…and for under $100.

And guess what? This ebook is the ONLY place in the entire world where you can read about it.

3.) Do both — turn the end of the bullet into a dramatic subheadline AND expand on it. Like this:

• How to let copywriters who get paid hundreds of thousands of dollars per year…

Do All The Dirty Work For You.

This may sound almost unbelievable but it’s absolutely true. Believe it or not, there is a way to get a monthly “report” of all the best, most cutting edge copywriting techniques working right now…sent right to your home on a regular basis…and for under $100.

And guess what? This ebook is the ONLY place in the entire world where you can read about it.

Anyway, I have found this to be a really useful copywriting device.

Not only does it break up the “sameness” that several pages of bullets can bring to the look of an ad, but you are also more likely to force the skimmers and skippers to notice your hottest selling points, instead of blowing by them.

I’m a big fan of studying other kinds of writers besides just “copy” writers – especially political writers.

Which is why I’m always urging people to read political authors, books and blogs.

The farther right or left the better, the more radical the better.

Case in point…

Right now you almost can’t turn on the radio or TV without hearing about Ann Coulter and her book “Godless: The Church Of Liberalism.”

And love her or hate her (very few “luke warm” reactions to Ann Coulter), she recently dropped an incredible “copywriting” tactic in a radio interview you can start using immediately if you want.

She said when she sits down to write a newspaper column or book chapter — especially if it involves a complex topic — she simply pretends she’s writing an email to one of her friends.

She says this forces her to keep even the most entangling legal and policy details simple and easy to digest.

I don’t know about you, but I find this extremely useful copywriting advice.

Especially since the ability to make the complex simple is one of THE most important selling skills you can have.

Anyway, I’ve already started using this email tactic with my own stuff and I can honestly say it’s made writing copy ten times easier for me.

And you know what?

If you ever find yourself stuck trying to make something complex simple in your ads, I can practically guarantee it will make things a lot easier on you, too.

If you’d like a 100% “fool proof” way to boost the credibility and believability of your ad copy, then here’s how Socrates did it centuries ago — and why you can easily do the same thing today.

Let me ask you, do you know who Socrates was?

Amongst other things…he was known as the greatest master of persuasion who ever lived. He was especially famous for converting people who passionately disagreed with him to his side of an argument.

What was his secret?

This: Socrates would simply get the person he debated to keep saying the word “yes” over and over during the conversation by asking questions people would have to agree with.

And he would keep doing this again and again and again…until he racked up a pile of “yeses.”

The result?

Nine out of ten times is opponents would eventually find themselves agreeing with him…even though they were 100% dead-set against him at the start of the debate!

Dale Carnegie, in his book “How To Win Friends And Influence People” called this “The Socrates Method” and it’s extremely powerful.

If you don’t believe me then find someone who disagrees with you on something and play around with this tactic yourself.

Seriously.

You’ll quickly realize this isn’t just a bunch of dorky philosophical mumbo-jumbo.

I’ve used this method to argue everything from politics to sports and it really does work.

Who else does this?

You’d be surprised how many hard-core sales people (especially the “door-to-door” types) do this.

In fact, if you call Encyclopedia Britannica and tell them you’re interested in possibly buying a set of their encyclopedias, the sales rep they send will immediately begin to use this method on you.

World-class sales trainer Brian Tracy once said that every time you get your customers to say “yes”…you raise the chances of them buying from you another “degree” or two.

The more they say “yes” the better the chances of them saying “yes” when you ask for the sale.

So how can apply this to your ads and sales letters?

Easy: Simply sprinkle little “yes” questions throughout your ad. Questions the reader has to agree with like:

“If money were no object, would you own Encyclopedia Britannica?”

“Would you like to see $1.00 grow to $60.00 – $8.00 grow to $500.00 – by next April?” (NOTE: this was written back in the 1930’s when $500.00 was a lot of cash)

“Simple enough? You bet it is. And that’s just one of over 200 recipes found in this practical and money-saving book.”

“Does that excite you? It should because…”

“Isn’t that what you want?”

“Have you ever….?”

“Would you be interested in this widget if you could get your hands on it today — absolutely free of charge? With no strings, commitments or obligation whatsoever?”

“Would you like to be one of the privileged few to own one of the only 12 of these guitars in existence today?

“If I told you about a brand new way to quit smoking in JUST 3 HOURS — that has a documented 90% success rate and came with an unconditional 100% money-back guarantee, would you be interested?”

And so on and so forth etc etc etc.

This is especially effective around the close (i.e. “do you want to snuff out those burning, painful hemorrhoids as early as tonight? If so just pick up the phone and call…”).

Okay, that’s one way of doing it.

Another way — a more “subtle” way — is to constantly say things your readers will “nod” in approval with.

They don’t have to be questions necessarily. They can be simple words and sentences that describe their problems or symptoms.

For example, if you’re writing an ad selling a book on speed reading, you can get the reader nodding in agreement by saying something like:

Anyway, this simple little technique works like gangbusters.

Because it lets you create a subconcious “chain of acceptances” (as the late, brilliant copywriter Eugene Schwartz called it) in your reader, building your credibility and making even your most outrageous claims more believable.

Try it in your own ads and see what happens.