Leo’s list of why copywriters suck at business

Nearly 65 years ago, the late brilliant ad man Leo Burnett did a Q&A session with the Chicago Copywriters Club, mostly talking about what every copywriter should know. Anyway one of the questions he got was: “Why are copywriters so often the last in line for top management jobs?” Leo’s answer: 1. They make a career of being non-conformists 2. They dislike details and frequently handle them badly 3. They have trouble seeing the big picture, that an agency is more than just the “creative” 4. They are likely to be introverts, poor at working with others, and like working alone — which is great for a copywriter obviously, but not for a man in top management 5. They are often inarticulate and inept at selling themselves and their points of view 6. They are very likely to be contemptuous of the opinions of others As Leo summarized it: “They’re lone wolves because creative work is lonesome work and requires independent thinking and the ability to stand on your own feet, mentally. So a copywriter who isn’t a lone wolf, in a manner of speaking, isn’t apt to be a terribly good writer. It’s a vicious circle.” Obviously there are exceptions. And he admitted as such later in the talk. But those are the rare ones. Which brings me to the point of all this: One of the reasons when I promote my 10-Minute Workday program AWAI sells — which is about how to be your own client, i.e., a client-less copywriter — I spend a lot of time trying to disqualify people from even getting on the waiting list for it, especially opportunity-seeker types, or those looking for some kind of miracle. Not as some kind of copywriting “technique” to create demand or whatever. But because it really is for the rare writer who can both swab the deck and captain a ship. Most writers really should just do client work. With assignments given, paychecks delivered (assuming not a flake client), and all the nitty-gritty details that are not copywriting-specific already done and handed to them, so they can write an ad, let it all go at the end of the day, and come back the next to do it all over again. Can’t do that with your own business. Everything rests up on you. Merchant account problems? You gotta handle it. Web host or auto-responser or other platform you rely on goes down? Figure it out. Trolls and nasty people trying to sabotage you with bad reviews and cancel culture antics? No sleep for you that night. And on and on and on it goes. Point being this: All those attributes Leo listed are, in my experience, very accurate to the average copywriter. And that’s why most are never able to run their own side or full time business — being their own clients — even though most I know would really like to, since they are lone wolves, do prefer to work alone, and do find the dumb opinions of others they have to appease just to get a piece of copy run annoying. Thus my 10-Minute Workday program. It won’t solve all the problems a client-less copywriter has. But it can take a lot of the “sting” out of it with some solid proven structuring of everything. It’s not for sale at this moment. But you can hop on the waiting list at the link below. And when you do you get: “The One Sentence Business Plan” Whether you get my 10-Minute Workday program or not (that, again, AWAI sells — for some reason every time I pitch this some simp always emails me upon reading about it, thinking they can make a deal with me to get it free or cheaper or something, when it ain’t so) you can use this business plan for your own wicked ways. All right, end of story for today. The link is here: [https∶//www.EmailPlayers.com/awai]( Ben Settle This email was sent by Ben Settle as owner of Settle, LLC. Copyright © 2022 Settle, LLC. All Rights Reserved. No part of this email may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without written permission from Settle, LLC. Click here to [unsubscribe]( Settle, LLC PO Box 1056 Gold Beach Oregon 97444 USA