Not that anyone but Yours Unruly should care.
But, next month marks the “Email Players” newsletter’s 6th birthday. And one way I want to celebrate in the newsletter next month is with a truly dull unpolished object of a teaching (absolutely nothing secksy about it whatsoever) that makes it ridiculously simple to pump out emails, get ideas for emails, and make lots of sales with your emails. It is one of those non-sexy, non-ninja, non-#crushingit tips most people will hear, nod, then ask, “yeah, yeah, yeah, now what else ya got?” without actually implementing it first.
(A common trait amongst people who sell online.)
Anyway, it’s something I had re-learned (like being yelled at, for foolishly forgetting) recently.
And, specifically, while listening to an interview between Ken McCarthy (the founding father of Internet marketing as we know it) and the great, and esteemed A-list copywriter Gary Bencivenga (widely regarded as the world’s greatest living copywriter). Anyway, the interview starts off talking about how Gary got started. How he was a very mediocre (at best) copywriter the first 10 years of his 40-year career, and downright sucked at it the first couple years — even though he thought he was better than he was due to having really good copy chiefs.
Long story short:
He had a family to support.
And, needed the income he earned as a copywriter.
Problem was, he realized how good he wasn’t after leaving his first job for another that paid better and was closer to where he lived. He said he was always just one boss’s bad day away from being fired. He barely wrote enough winners to keep his job. And, in fact, he had one assignment where the copy chief told him if it worked he could keep his job, otherwise he’d be fired.
Talk about pressure…
And then to add *more* pressure:
He was given an assignment which wasn’t selling books (which are generally easier to sell). Instead, he had to sell a completely different kind of product, and said he was sweating bullets looking at that terrifying blank sheet of paper in the typewriter. He simply didn’t know what to say or how to sell such a thing. With his job on the line, his income in jeopardy, and his career possibly hanging in the balance, he was forced to learn something most people (especially those who sell online…) never learn.
Or, if they learn it, they scoff at it as not being very secksy or cool or whatever.
Anyway, what was this lesson he learned?
Be patient, my Pet.
That lesson, and how I have applied it to *email* ever since, is safely locked away in the July “Email Players” issue.
It goes to the printer in a week.
If you want in on the fun, subscribe here to get it while you still can:
Ben Settle
