A Clayton Makepeace Essay I Love. Direct Response Copywriting Email Archive. June 2020.

What Clayton Makepeace Wrote About Copywriting and Being Successful

Clayton Makepeace passed away about 6 weeks ago.

I wrote about him in my blog here and here.

I’m fortunate to own his “Quick Start” copywriting manuals. These are expensive but I’ve learned a great deal from them. Makepeace had his own style and he was the #1 copywriter for a long time, mostly when he was writing for Weiss Research. I still regularly dip into those manuals.

In the first part of the first manual, Makepeace has a long essay about what it really takes to make it as a copywriter.

Here’s an excerpt. It's gold.

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Before you take the copywriting world by storm, there’s something you should know …

Pursuing a copywriting career is NOT a get-rich-quick scheme. It can, however, be the single best idea you ever had.

So whatever you do, do NOT be discouraged.

Resolve to do whatever it takes in the short term to reap the long-term rewards. Stick with it. Redouble your efforts. Refuse to accept anything but success.

Take my word for it …

The first time a client wires six figures into your bank account to pay you for two weeks’ work, you’ll be glad you hung in there.

In that moment, all the hours you worked to perfect your craft … all the rejection you faced in finding your first few clients … and all the sacrifices you made to build your copywriting business will all be worth it.

Yes it’s going to take some effort on your part.

If you think this is easy … if you sleepwalk through your work … if you fail to invest the mental and physical energy required to get the details right … if you resent honest, well-meant criticism … and if you’re going to cut and run the first time the going gets tough, there’s not much I or anyone else can do to help you.

But if, as my high school football coach loved to say, you’re eager to pour 110% of your genius, your creativity, and your energy into this …

If you’re willing to take the time and expend the energy to do it right … and obsess about the minute details that must be right to bring in every last sale …

If you’re willing to expend every ounce of mental and physical energy at your command … take your best shot … accept the consequences … take a hard, honest look at what you did right and what you did wrong … and learn your lessons …

And if, when all else fails, you can muster the will to pick yourself up, dust yourself off and do it better next time …

There’s no stopping you. Whether you’ve made it yet or not, you’re a winner in my book. And someday soon, you’ll find yourself relishing the winner’s rewards.

But what if nobody wants to hire you? Or worse: You create the best campaign you know how to create – and it flops?

Look. Let me tell you something that all the gurus out there won’t.

It’s not until you begin applying this stuff in the real world that you REALLY begin to learn.

You’re going to have to bang the phones for hours every day until you get a client – and those first few clients may not be worth a bucket of warm spit.

Courage … true courage … means being scared to death and then doing what needs to be done anyway.

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It’s extremely rare these days for someone to “bang the phones” like Makepeace used to do many years ago. How many people answer their phone when they don’t know who is calling? Not many. We sadly get so many unsolicited calls that are pure fraud.

Today, a great method of contacting prospects is through LinkedIn or through an email listed on the company’s website. But it’s all the same as “banging those phones.”

I even contact prospects through the mail.

What else can you take from that powerful excerpt? Here are my thoughts:

All those copywriting programs that promise “$10K a month in just 6 weeks” are fraudulent. I hope you don’t believe any of that guff.
You must be totally persistent.
You must be patient and dedicated.
The rewards will come if you put the effort in.
It’s not easy. It’s hard work and it’s never easy getting rejected.

I hope this helps you.

Scott Martin