I finally received a long overdue tax refund this past week. It was nice to have a big chunk of cash hit my bank account (but still doesn’t match the thrill of seeing money hit my PayPal account; I never get tired of that!).
So what did I do with it?
Well, Wife went shopping…!
And so did Husband.
As you may know, I recently decided that Copywriting is going to be the focus of my business activities. And since this money eluded me until I made that decision, I came to the conclusion that God held it back for me until I decided what I actually wanted to do with my business. That way, I’d have funds to invest in my education and training.
And Investing is exactly what I’ve been doing. Here’s what I did so far:
- Purchased access to Michel Fortin’s Copy Doctor website. Michel, an experienced copywriter, actually tears apart, analyzes, and rewrites copy for clients, recording it with screen capture software as he goes. He then makes these videos available to Copy Doctor members. There’s a lot more to the site, but that alone was worth the price of admission!
- Yanik Silver’s Ultimate Copywriting Course. I’ve known Yanik for some time and always thought of him as “just another Internet marketer” (who just happens to be quite successful, unlike lots of other Just Another Internet Marketer). I recently learned that he got his start in direct response marketing and is considered to be one of the best copywriters around today. I truly do like Yanik and decided that he deserved a chunk of my refund. His course weighs about 40 pounds and it hasn’t arrived yet, but I’m confident that it’s going to be top-notch.
- John Carlton’s Simple Writing System. This is a live workshop (currently sold out) that started today. I suspect that it’s going to be packaged and sold after the live virtual workshop concludes; if it does, I’ll make another post about it. I expect nothing but the best from this workshop (and I’m “staying frosty”, John — whatever that means…).
- The Copywriter’s Toolkit by John Ritskowitz. This is a neat collection of tools and other copywriting “stuff”. I purchased it for two reasons. First, he knows where to get controls for free or nearly free (controls are the sales letters that get the best response; the objective of a copywriter is to beat a control). Second, his toolkit includes a bunch of tools that can help keep the reader engaged on the sales page and I will eventually do some tests with them. And after I paid, I discovered that John is also pretty good at back-end marketing. He’s sent me a few email offers that I’m truly interested in purchasing and probably will someday. This one is worth getting if you sell anything online.
I have at least one other course that I’m going to order, but I’ve promised myself that I’m only going to order it AFTER I earn the money by my copywriting activities. That means I either have to earn the money from it by writing sales letters (or other copy) for others or from selling my own products using a sales copy that I wrote. In this case, I need $5,000 — because that’s the cost of Gary Bencivenga’s “7 Master Secrets of Wealth Creation for Marketers and Copywriters”. It’s Gary’s retirement project, so to speak, and from what I’ve seen of Gary and heard from him, I’m really looking forward to receiving this course.
I first heard of Gary via an interview that Ken McCarthy did with him (it’s available only to Ken’s System Club members). Awesome interview, powerful stuff — and quite encouraging. I listen to it frequently and do hope to have the chance to meet Gary in person some day. In spite of being one of the best copywriters in the world, he really does seem to be quite humble about it (as does almost every other top copywriter I know about).
So why are copywriters so humble? Because, as Gary taught me (along with lots of others) — the copywriter isn’t the star of the show; the Product is the Star. The poor old copywriter’s job is to make sales and cash royalty checks.
I can live with that… 
Even better, the way to go nowadays is to have products created for you, then write the copy to sell them. Driving traffic isn’t all that difficult (at least if you’re willing to pay for it or put a lot of time into it).
Product. Traffic. Copywriting. Add them up and you have a successful business. But it’s the copy that sells, so I think it’s the most important part of the equation and has the most potential for financial reward.
So what are you going to do with your next tax refund? Buy a new television so you can sit in front of it and rot your brain? Why not buy a few good copywriting courses (or a few good “whatever” courses that pertain to your specialty or business)? Can’t afford the ones I purchased? Then go to Amazon and look for book from people like John Caples, Claude Hopkins, Eugene Schwartz, Ted Nichols, Joe Sugarman, Gary Halbert, Gary Bencivenga, John Carlton, Clayton Makepeace, Michel Fortin, and other mega-successful copywriters (my apologies to anybody I forgot… like Ryan Healy… I love you, Ryan!).
Start reading. Take notes. Look at sales letters from successful product launches, analyze them, and figure out what made them work. Compare them to “duds”, as well as to other successful letters. Start a swipe file. Lurk at copywriting forums (just be careful; I’m discovering that there is a lot of self-limiting behavior being exhibited by some copywriters, and as always, a Forum is a Forum).
Then start writing sales copy. Get some resale rights or private label products, write a new sales letter for it, drive some traffic to it, and see what happens. Test things. Figure out what works and what doesn’t. Adjust. Adapt. And profit while you help others.
Or use the tax refund to buy that television. Or whatever. The choice is yours.
But wouldn’t it be better to buy that television from business profits AFTER you invest your tax refund in yourself? If you even have time for it (you probably won’t because you’ll be too busy living).
Something to think about…
–Tom
so that they can laugh at me and nag me if I don’t achieve them (yes, I’ve given them permission to do that).
; I love the individual ink tanks and the ability to print “everyday” pictures. And that Amazon price is super; I paid $300 for mine!). I can simply slap in an ordinary 4×6 inch card and it prints it out nicely on both sides. I’m using my own templates for now but I know that others exist.