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The case of not knowing

I want to sell.

But I don't know what to sell. And this has been haunting me for quite sometime. I don't know where to start.

But now I suspect, all I need to do is start. Because not knowing is fine. Most of us are figuring it out along the way.

Not doing, now that, that is tragic.

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The thing about details

It helps you understand faster.

And when you've understood, you act quicker. Then everything after that becomes smoother.

It's easier to plan at high levels when you know the specifics. Coupled with experience, you can churn out plans pretty quickly.

And have contingencies too.

In any case, whether it'd be advertising or social media content. Having the specifics will help you plan easily.

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You can tell

Read enough books. Write enough copy. Gain enough experience.

You can tell if someone is good or not good. If a brand hired the right people or the wrong ones.

You can tell.

Here are a few ways I can tell, that the brand I'm working with, hired the wrong people:

The brief

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The boring

Ever noticed that successful people often have very boring lives?

Their obsession with ideas, takes up most of their time and focus. Leaving very little room to be creative with their day-to-day activities.

Often, they'd rather have quiet moments. Because living life trying to achieve results, is exciting and hectic enough.

So have a boring life, so you can be consistent with something. And you'll see that consistency will reward you...

Immensely.

Talk to one person

Who are you selling to?

This question, when answered, makes your job as an adman, a thousand times easier. Here's why.

Nobody likes to be forced into something. And most people buy from who they know. Familiarity breeds trust. Trust makes sales go up.

So how do you attempt to know someone? Start by creating a persona. Look at the bulk of the audience and figure out the average.

Here are some points they'll share in common: 1. Comprehension level 2. The problem they have 3. Their motivation in solving the problem 4. The amount they spend on average

Once you have your persona. Solid ideas on how to speak to them, will flow into your mind. You'll even begin to hear them speak to you.

Use that voice and begin to write.

But be warned! No matter our effort in knowing our audience, rarely do we get it 100% accurate. So test, test, and test your copy.

This will help you be so accurate with your copy, that you leave your competitors far behind.

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It's the same process

Every endeavour follows a similar process. Find out the

Why

What

How

These 3 points can also be found in the Golden Circle. Which is often used by organisations to find their purpose of being.

And when you understand your purpose of being, amazing work begins to form. Consistently.

And in the end, no matter how long or short the time it took, amazing results are produced.

Writing the ad is not the challenge

The challenge is picking the right product. The right audience. The right market gap.

The challenge is the business side. The branding side.

Everything around the ad is much more challenging than writing the ad itself.

But make no mistake, writing was once a challenge. This is what happens when you get good at something. You start seeking other challenges.

You seek other things to be good at, as long as they are relevant. And this is a good thing.

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What can you sell

If you can sell 1 thing.

That's a good question, I struggle to answer.

Every day, and it now seems like forever.

Why do you pay them to repeat your mistakes?

As a business owner, a good reason to hire an agency for your marketing, is when you realise, you're shit at it.

You realise you have no way of getting the results you want, and you don't have a clue of how to produce good ads or content. So you decide to fork out, your hard-earned cash, to get results.

So here's what you should not do. Whenever work from the agency comes in, and this agency is worth their salt, you decide to comment for the sake of commenting.

You nitpick and criticise. Fooling yourself into thinking you know better. You don't.

So stop.

Stop forcing the agency to repeat your mistakes. Because you had your chance to make it work, it failed. And you are now hiring pros to do it.

Approve the work you paid them to do, and hold them accountable for results. Test it out. Make them explain.

Get your money's worth.

Because I can guarantee you, they will love you for it and prefer to work with you more.

This depends on the fact the agency you hired is a damn pro. Because a pro will do their due diligence, a pro would have invested time and money honing their skills, and a pro would know the media inside and out.

Let the pro handle it and don't force them to repeat your mistakes.

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The best thing you can do

As a copywriter? Keep writing.

Copywriting, just like math, requires a lot of practice. It's a skill that requires constant love and care.

When they say the pen is mightier than the sword, it is literally. And just as a blade can begin to rust, so can your writing ability.

Whenever you think you don't need practice, is when the rust begins to form. And I've seen many veterans in the industry who lack practice. Yet they believe their writing to be gold.

Practice and study consistently, and you can tell what is shit and what is gold.

Most shit comes from the clients, as copywriters, let's not add to it.

So the best thing you can do is practice, study, and keep writing.

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Getting the sale

It's what happens when you give value.

And this is how business in general works. For example, in a work setting. I give you monthly pay because you're giving me your time, expertise, and the result I need.

The employee is giving the employer the ability to give to his/her customers.

And the customers, in return, give to the employer, which allows the employer to give back to the employee.

The fundamental is this, you give and you get.

Here's the next layer, not everyone wants what you're giving. And not everyone gives what the other, wants.

You hear it all the time, "I gave him good pay, insurance, benefits. I gave him free training. And he leaves me!"

For others that may be what they want from you, but not everyone is like that.

So then comes marketing, then advertising, and at the core of advertising is the copywriting.

In this context, marketing is figuring out who wants what, advertising is making sure they are aware, what they want, exists.

Direct response copywriting is persuading them they want it now.

How to be helpful

Before you can help anyone, start with yourself. As the saying goes, change yourself, you change the world.

And the first step is self-awareness. It won't mean much to help others, if you don't understand yourself deeply.

The next step is to study from the legends. The admen who have pulled in billions for their happy clients. These admen understood what moves the human.

And as you spend more time writing. You'll come to realise that, as copywriters, we suck at writing things out of thin air.

In fact, clients don't pay us to do that. Clients pay us to occupy the consumers' mind, as a trusted family member or best friend, giving a recommendation to buy a specific service or product.

And in my opinion, that requires a scientific approach, executed through a big idea.

Of course, the execution can be creative, as long as it is based on something sound.

That something sound is strategy. Crafted from understanding the consumer, deeply. This is what clients want us to do.

This is also how we become effective. By being helpful.

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The effects of Focus

Or in other words, specialise.

I've launched an agency. Leadmen Advertising. For a few months, I had positioned it as a specialist agency.

Just 5 specialists building brand and advertising for clients. Almost full service. But something happened.

Not going into what happened, but it made me realise that I need a much better focus.

Leadmen Advertising is not specialised enough. I needed to find a lane that fits within my strengths while being unique enough to not have a competition in the market.

Then I discovered it.

After careful reflection, I decided to do only 3 things. And it was very focused to advertising only.

Specifically, anything to do with writing ad copy.

So 3 things: 1. Crafting an ad strategy 2. Executing the ad strategy 3. Consulting and building in-house expertise

The 3rd one presented itself after realising that clients wanted me to train their in-house team.

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Organise

It is time to organise.

As plans turn into action, the unexpected can make the mind irregular.

What helps is a strong system that organizes everything. Your information, your focus, your strength, and manageable weaknesses.

This helps when things go unplanned.

You limit the options you can take. And your thoughts are organized for only a few decisions.

It is time.

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Time

Now that things are starting to move, I realise the value of time.

It is the only thing that you can never gain but you always lose.

Even then, you have a lot of it.

And how you spend it, determines your future.

10 things 2021 thought me

1. Creative power comes from routine

Relying on motivation, inspiration, or mood alone is disastrous. Like an athlete, my ability to write good copy, needs to be practised daily. It is the secret to grow from being mediocre.

2. The disease in the industry

Non-practitioners make horrible leaders. They make a good boss in the capitalist extreme. But can't pave the way forward to secure future profits. And they turn highly skilled workers into slaves that do 3rd-grade work. Is there a way for them to improve? Yup. Make sure to hire highly skilled knowledge workers. Give them the responsibility to do what is best. Make them accountable. And let them do the work and dictate the direction. Worry about leading them to have good teamwork, are not burnt out, and are happy. And worry about the business side. That is it.

3. You become what you consume

I have no need to know everything. I only need to know what concerns me. And even in what concerns me, I need to know only from the best. Why? Because I want to be the best. Filtering knowledge is key. If I only consume knowledge from the legends, I wonder how it will affect me.

4. It is criminal to not show up

Imagine a silent Steve Jobs. Imagine David Ogilvy quietly creating multi-million dollar ads. Imagine Joe Rogan having amazing discussions with many interesting people, privately. Instead of a podcast. It is criminal, as a practitioner, who invests in upskilling, to not put yourself out there. Why? You allow frauds to take the stage. And the innocent crowd with the passion to better themselves is now a cult member of the frauds.

I call this the Azizan Osman effect. Technology has made it easier for all of us to share. So, show up.

5. Wait, before getting upset

Can you imagine what was going through Elon Musk's mind when Tesla was headed for an "inevitable" bankruptcy? Only for it to turn around and now they're selling more cars than all their competition. Electric and fuel.

When you put in your best effort, and you're led to a worrying place. Wait. Just wait and watch.

Because, almost always, the end is a good outcome.

And the good comes from places you will not expect.

6. Where specific knowledge breathes

Studying and practising on your own, you'll reach a limit. A limit where that's how good you'll ever be. To get better?

Do for others. Create, present, and take risks. This is where you gain specific knowledge.

7. The businessman

Capitalism is seen as evil. It's a tool. The evil comes from the individual. The greedy businessman.

The non-practitioner entering an industry because it's "lucrative." Charging parents with an autistic child, thousands... but paying the therapist, peanuts.

The only thing the businessman have is business knowledge. When the practitioner learns business knowledge, the businessman becomes irrelevant.

Many successful innovators are practitioners who are bothered enough to study business. (Chris Do, Elon Musk, Seth Godin, etc)

And business knowledge isn't too hard to figure out. The world is sick of greedy, the world hungers for helpful. And that is what innovators live for.

8. In a noisy world

I'm determined to have a conversation with only one person. Not to lecture them, not to brag, and not to pressure them.

Pakya from Pakya Trading, does this very well. And I'm convinced that he's a much better adman than I am.

9. Network and networth

I'm a private person. Ask anyone who's worked with me.

And I'm very picky with the kinds of people I interact with. I think this has influenced the way I do business too.

I don't know if it's a good strategy, but it has resulted in me being friends with people that I can build with.

One particular person, decided to become a monk in his uni years. Building with this person has made impossible dreams, achievable.

We're opposites in terms of personality, but we share very strongly, common values in life. And our skillset complements each other.

2022 is going to be an interesting year.

10. The two archetypes of successful people 1. The bored innovator 2. The faithful follower

The bored innovator seeks better ways of doing things. This person often is obsessed with synthesizing knowledge. And they take risks to open new paths. They are a mix of careful analysis and wild action.

The faithful follower seeks to serve a good endeavour in order to better themselves. This person is passionate about upskilling for others. They are a mix of trusting openness and precise action.

What do they have in common?

Both seek trust and credibility with the ones they build with. If this is absent, you won't find them there.

A final note for 2021

Appreciate you reading this. You take care now, and have a happy holiday.

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Man in the mirror

I've been playing around with this new lifestyle for months.

Just a few more days and it can be a habit. It's more persuasive to make the shift now.

Because of the network I've been able to connect with. All thanks to this new lifestyle.

2022 is a few days away. Now, is the best time to make a full commitment to this new lifestyle.

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