How one of my worst jobs made me a better copywriter

Aug 2, 2021

Issue #135—July 31, 2021

It’s been quite the week…it’s felt like the first time in over a month that I’ve been getting back into my regular work rhythm.

And I hope you’ve enjoyed the stories and lessons I’ve shared over the past week from my latest adventures in Hawaii and New York City.

(In case you missed them, you can find them on my blog: My dinner with GaryJustin and mefete(-ing) with Dan…and coffee with Parris.)

In today’s issue, I’m going to share with you a story I told Gary Bencivenga when we were at dinner a week ago Monday night. There’s also a common thread between my experience in that “worst job ever” and that of some of the most successful copywriters and marketers I know.

But first, I want to do a special shout-out to one of your fellow Copy Insiders: Kalani Walther. Kalani and I had been corresponding via email for a while before my recent trip to Hawaii.

Kalani had even sent me some photos from their home island of Kauai…including one of two happy, native Hawaiian women hugging each other while riding on a scooter through a rainforest.

After I shared that I’d be traveling to Kauai as part of our Hawaiian vacation, Kalani generously offered to show my husband and I around the Hanalei Bay area…and to join their wife and family for a delicious dinner of mahi-mahi.

Well, all this time that we were emailing back and forth, I thought Kalani was a woman. And I thought that photo of the two happy Hawaiian women was that of Kalani and “her” wife. Yes, I felt certain that Kalani was a woman–and that she and her wife were the two Hawaiian women in the photo I was sent.

So imagine my surprise when we pulled up to Kalani’s house and there was a 6-foot-tall white guy with a beautiful blonde wife greeting me!

I looked around and asked, “Where’s Kalani?” I thought I was at the wrong house.

Once we cleared things up and I explained my confusion, we had a good laugh. And Kalani was an incredibly gracious host…taking us to beautiful, hard-to-get-to beaches, and even to lunch at Tiki Nui, the restaurant featured in the movie The Descendants.

We even stopped at an outdoor market–part of the true Hawaiian experience. It truly was a great day! Here we are at beautiful Hanalei Bay…

Hopefully I’ll be able to connect with more Copy Insiders as the world opens up.

But back to that story I told Gary about how a summer job as a telemarketer actually taught me a lot about copywriting.

I was back at home in Dayton, Ohio, where my family lived while I was in college. That summer was a terrible recession, and it was really hard to find a temporary summer job. I needed to work, since I was covering most of my own college costs with loans and whatever I could earn working various jobs.

I finally found a job as a telemarketer for a waterproofing company. This was back before automatic dialing systems and pre-recorded sales pitches. On my first day, I was led into a dark, stuffy room with rows of people sitting at conference tables next to push-button telephones and stacks of lists of names and phone numbers.

I was handed a typed-up script and told not to veer off of it. The script was offering a free basement inspection. The goal was to get people to say “yes” and then hand them off to get scheduled.

I was told my goal was to get at least 3 of these leads each day. Once I got a lead, there would be bonus potential if they ended up getting a sale out of the free inspection…on top of my minimum wage hourly rate.

Well, the first day I stuck to the script and called as many numbers as I could.

NO leads.

The second day I did the same thing, perhaps a bit more frantically.

NO leads.

(Meanwhile, during those first few days, I saw various co-workers suddenly called into the manager’s office, only to be fired and ushered out the front door.)

The third day as soon as I walked in the door that morning, the manager called me into her office. I figured that was it…I was going to be told I’m fired.

But instead I got a warning. She told me if I didn’t get at least 3 leads that day, I was gone.

Did I mention how I really needed this job? And it was slim pickings out there as far as finding anything else.

I hurried out of the manager’s office and sat down at one of the tables. And I decided I needed to take a different approach.

So I began taking a few liberties with the telemarketing script I’d been using.

Once I got someone on a call, I started trying out some different angles…being more conversational…and adapting the pitch based on what I could sense about the person on the other end of the line.

Did they seem brusque and wanting to “get-to-the-point”? I’d zero in immediately on the financial risks of an unnoticed leak and offer my free inspection.

Were they friendly and chatty? I’d go into a conversational mode and then from there get into what I was offering and how there was no risk or obligation.

That day, I got my 3 leads, and I got to keep my telemarketing job. And every day the rest of the summer–until I quit so I could go back to college, I got at least 3 leads.

I was by far the longest-lasting “survivor” on the team, including two other college students who ended up getting fired a few weeks behind I quit.

Oh, but did I get any bonuses? Nada. Every once in a while, one of the sales managers would come over to me and say how they were about to close one of my leads, but somehow the deals never came to fruition (yeah, right!)

In any case, I didn’t even know what copywriting was until at least a decade later…but this crappy telemarketing job ended up being excellent training for writing sales copy later.

And I would say getting ANY kind of sales experience…whether it’s telesales, retail sales, door-to-door sales, or any sales position where you are dealing with customers (or working in customer service), is excellent–if not mandatory–training for helping you succeed in copywriting or marketing.

It helps you truly understand what makes people buy…and can teach you far more than any copywriting course ever could, no matter how good.

Some of the most successful copywriters and marketers I know, people like Parris Lampropoulus and Carline Anglade-Cole, spent time in the trenches doing sales before going into copywriting (Carline wrote about some of her earliest lessons when she’d help her grandmother find clients for custom-made dresses in her fabulous book, My Life As a 50-Year-Old White Male.)

So keep that in mind whether you’re climbing the “copywriting ladder” or looking to recruit copywriters for your business. Past sales experience can be a big differentiating factor.

That’s it for today. I’ll be back at you next week. In the meantime, stay healthy and make sure you’re taking steps to protect yourself and your family.

I just saw a colleague’s post on Facebook–who’s way outside any “high-risk” group (young, healthy, works out 6 days a week, takes supplements, avoids processed foods, etc.), and has been fighting for his life on a ventilator. This Delta variant is no joke…

Yours for smarter marketing,

Kim

P.S. Daniel Throssell–a top copywriter from Australia–was experiencing some FOMO after seeing all my photos this past week of various meet-ups . So he sent this picture of him and I over…it’ll have to do for now!

P.P.S. If you want to be among the first to hear about my new copy mentoring options for 2022, you can reply to this email or shoot one over to Kim@kimschwalm.com and I’ll add you to my wait list.