The things you own, end up owning you – Tyler Durden

My biggest weakness is money.

When I have it, I spend it. When I don’t have it, I borrow it. And now, I’m in a really shitty place.

I’m 23 years old. A quick breakdown of my finances: I have no savings, a £2000 bank overdraft, around £3500 -4000 in credit card debt, and around £25,000 in student loan debt. Plus I owe around £800 to friends and family. So my net worth is around £-32,000.

Things came to a head a couple of days ago when my girlfriend discovered I had taken out a payday loan to pay my car insurance. It’s an understatement to say she was pissed off – especially as we’re supposed to be moving in together in 10 days.

How did I get in this situation? It’s simple: I suffer from a severe case of FOMO – a Fear Of Missing Out.

I can’t say no when a friend asks me to go for drinks. I enjoy eating out. I like to travel, and see friends. I don’t want to miss anything. Also, I buy a shit ton of books (a problem made worse by getting a Kindle).

This is a problem that needs to be tackled NOW.

This debt feels like a noose around my neck. It feels like it is choking me and stopping me from doing the things I want to do. If I wanted to quit my job and travel, I can’t, because I have to work to make credit card payments. I have no money to start a business, because it all goes on credit card payments.

I HATE feeling like this. So this is my priority for the next 12 months. If this guy can pay off $90k in 7 months, then I can pay off £4k in 12, no problem.

I am declaring war on debt. Enough is enough. I need to sort this out NOW.

The plan is simple.

1. REDUCE SPENDING – the two areas where I spend the most are drinking, and eating out. I can easily cut these two expenses in half if I’m a little creative. This will save around £150 per month which can go towards paying off debt. In August, I will cancel my gym membership, saving me £67 per month. Just reducing these two expenses will go a significant way to paying off my debt, as shown below:

Swish, already halfway there. Which brings me nicely on to the next part:

2. INCREASE INCOME. I will be getting a pay increase in September, which will be an extra £60 per month or so. I also intend to make money on the side of my day job. I work in finance and so I use Excel literally all day, every day. I think I can make money by doing simple freelance excel work for small businesses and other freelancers. I have also been studying copywriting, and I think I can make money with my writing as well.

The extra salary from my day job will get me an extra £300 in the next year or so – this means I am around £1500 short of my £4000 goal. This is how much extra I need to make on the side if I want to eliminate my credit card debt in the next 12 months. This is £125 a monnth, so it sounds achievable, but I have a feeling this will be more difficult than it seems. Still, I relish a challenge.

Summary:

It’s simple, but it’s not easy.

I will be tracking every penny I earn and spend over the next 12 months, and I will post detailed updates on this blog every week or so. I will be held accountable for my actions, and I WILL pay off my credit card debt in 12 months.

Marketing is about knowing what you want to tell and who you want to tell it to–and doing it only in the most captivating and honest way possible.

That’s from an interview with Ryan Holiday, Director of Marketing at American Apparel. He’s one of the smartest, most hard-working guys around, and when he talks, we should all listen.

Read the whole interview here.

Part 2: It’s not about you

Without taking our reader into consideration, we’re heading for trouble. All we can do is talk about ourselves – and we know what happens to people like that at parties. – Andy Maslen

The hardest thing about copywriting (particularly online) is that your reader literally has millions of other options. Every website in the world is a click away. So why are they going to stop and read what you have to say to them?

You get and keep the reader’s attention by giving them a message aimed squarely at them – their interests, their concerns, their lives. A message delivered in such effortlessly good English that they don’t notice the writing, just the content. – Andy Maslen

When you’re writing copy, remember, your readers will always be thinking “What’s in it for me?” So if you’re trying to sell your new fitness program, you don’t spend ages telling everyone how you came up with the idea, how you researched the market first, where your suppliers are based, etc – you focus on telling them how your product or service will make them lose weight, gain muscle, look more attractive, become healthier, and so on. Your readers are always asking, “What’s in it for me?”, and you need to constantly be answering this question.

How to sell to Jared

A good place to start is by putting together a basic profile of your reader. This is the same sort of process that Proctor and Gamble go through when they’re producing and marketing new products. How old is your customer? Are they male or female? What job are they in? What do they want from their life right now? What are they struggling with, what do they need help with? What are their values? How do they see themselves?

Example: you’re writing copy for a new fitness product aimed at reducing body fat and giving people six-pack abs. What does your customer profile look like? He’s probably someone like me, actually. Let’s call him Jared.

Jared is a single 25-year-old male, a college graduate who went to work in financial services. He lives in a large city with his room-mate, and likes going to bars after work. He used to work out a bit in college, but he’s working a lot now, and it’s hard for him to find the time. He’s not hugely overweight, and goes to the gym once or twice a week, but he would love to get back to the body he had when he played football in high school. He would feel much more confident if he had lean, six-pack abs. He’d feel more attractive to the opposite sex, and he would probably get laid more (or at least he thinks he would). He has a good amount of disposable income, but can’t quite afford a personal trainer. He’s worried that if he doesn’t do something about his physique now, then the problem will get worse over the next few years, and he’ll suddenly wake up, middle-aged and overweight. He wants a solution that won’t take over his life, but will give him the results he needs, and he’s happy to spend money to do it.

Write about your product or service from your reader’s perspective. Don’t tell them what it is: tell them what it does for them. Tell them how your product will make their life easier, better or more rewarding. - Andy Maslen

Now that we have a good idea of who our customer is, we can think about what effective copy would look like. But it is IMPOSSIBLE to write good copy without this first step. We need to know about the customer so we can write copy that appeals directly to them and will capture their attention. If Jared hears me talking about removing fat in order to tone up his bum and fit into that old pair of jeans, then he’s going to get bored. That’s not what he wants to hear. But if you start talking to him about how good he’ll look on the beach, how good he’ll feel, and how much attention he’ll get with his new body, then Jared starts to get interested real quick.

Knowing your customer will make you rich

Of course, the best way to get to know your reader or customer is simple: talk to them. Do some research and find out what your customers really want, or what they’re worried about. What keeps them awake at 3am?

Ramit Sethi is a perfect example of this. On the subject, he says:

When you can truly deeply understand people, in fact better than they understand themselves, then your sales skyrocket – Ramit Sethi

Ramit spoke to hundreds of his readers on his book tour, and found that they really wanted to learn more about freelancing as a way to earn more money and give them an escape route from their day jobs. So Ramit went away, created a fantastic course to help them do just that, and then wrote amazing copy to convince people to buy it. Then he released that product, called Earn 1k, and promptly took over $100k in the first hour.

That’s the power of getting inside people’s heads.

(Quick note: on Ramit’s email signup page for Earn 1k, he has a quote from the Wall Street Journal. That’s another important marketing concept called social proof – I’ll be posting about that soon as well.)

Benefits vs. Features

ALWAYS talk benefits. Your customer wants to know what’s in it for them, so you should spell it out for them. Here’s the difference. Say you’re writing copy for a new sports car.

Benefits are what make the sale. You’re not buying a car, you’re buying the feeling you get when you’re cruising at 75 with the top down on a gorgeous summer’s day. You’re buying the feeling you get when you drive through town and a hot blonde girl checks out your sweet ride.

Summary

• Write for your reader – you need a direct, relevant message to capture and keep their attention
• Your reader is a normal person with hopes, fears, desires and vices.
• Do the research and find out what your reader is like. Put together a reader profile – what are they like?
• Appeal to your reader by talking about benefits, and how it will help them

That’s it for part 2 of my intro to copywriting series – look out for part 3 soon.

4 things you should always remember about copywriting:

1. Copywriting is about selling

It’s a world apart from academic writing, business memos, or fiction. Copywriting simply means writing in a persuasive way to convince someone to do something that they wouldn’t have done otherwise. That’s it.

2. Focus on the reader

Don’t get carried away with telling everyone when your company was founded, your career background, what you think about the economy at the moment – it’s not about you. You have to focus on the reader – what do they want to hear? What are their fears or needs, their hopes and dreams? What will motivate them to pay attention to your sales message and then act upon it?

3. Beautiful things come in small packages

Focus on using simple, easy-to-understand language. You don’t win points for using multi-clausal sentences and trying to sound like James Joyce. Keep it simple. Bigger is not always better.

4. Most people suck at copywriting

Most writers don’t have any sales experience; and most salesmen aren’t good writers. To write really good copy, you have to combine these two skillsets effectively. You need to look at your writing as a sales process. The good news is that if you can do this, you will be better than 95% of people out there.

If you can remember these 4 simple rules, you’re on your way to writing good copy.

Why? Is this not the worst recession since the Great Depression? Could this not be The End of the Eurozone?

Yeah, maybe. But ask yourself this:

Can you do anything to change it?

You can’t set fiscal and monetary policy. You can’t force Greece or Portugal (or the US) to cut spending. You can’t force companies to invest more.

So stop worrying about it. It’s out of your control.

What should you worry about? I’m glad you asked.

People: get your finances in order. Stop overspending. Look at earning more money through a second job or freelancing if you need to. Start eating healthily and exercising regularly. Take time every day to be grateful for the good things in your life. Think how you can do your job better: make a list of ideas and pick the best two, and start doing that.

Businesses: stay focused on your customer. Always think what they would want you to do. Even in this economy there are opportunities – Groupon is the fastest-growing company in history by revenues, and was formed in November 2008. There is money to be made, and people will fall over themselves to give you their money, if you can give them what they want or need.

In other words, focus on things you can control. Forget about things you can’t.

This isn’t a slight on the company I work for now. I like the company, I get on well with the people that I work with, and the job has some interesting aspects. Nonetheless, I often think, is this what I worked all these years for? Is this my dream job? Is this how I want to spend the rest of my life?

Of course, the answers are, respectively “Yes”, “No” and “Obviously not, dumbass.” No, this isn’t my dream job. And obviously I don’t want to spend the rest of my life in an entry level job. But yes, this is what I worked for 18 years for: a chance to start at the bottom. To be given an opportunity that not everyone gets. I think I first heard it from Tucker Max: the only thing that success gives you is the opportunity to prove yourself again. “Oh, you have a degree? Great, so do all of these other people. Do this other task well and maybe we won’t fire you.”

Or maybe this is just what has been drilled into me by everyone else: that everyone starts at the bottom, that you have to pay your dues, grind it out at the lower levels, and slowly move up. That’s The Way Things Are. But is that still the case? And will the pay-offs still be there when I finally arrive? I don’t think so.

Solution: I need to think very deeply about my priorities, what I want to do, where I want to go in the future. Then I need to make some solid goals, and move towards those. I need to make sure I’m doing things that I want to be doing, rather than that which other people want me to do. This won’t be easy.

Time is like a river that will take you forward into encounters with reality that will require you to make decisions. You can’t stop the movement down this river, and you can’t avoid the encounters. You can only approach these encounters in the best way possible.

- Ray Dalio, Principles (pdf)

I wrote about this a little recently, but the fact that I’ve finally finished university and will soon be starting a job has really impacted me mentally. I’m suddenly viscerally aware of the fact that, one day, I will die. My time on earth is limited, and no-one can stop that. There is nothing I can do to prevent it – I can only try to make the most of my time here.

I’ve always been a fan of video games. I’m a bit of a perfectionist. When I was about 9 years old, I wanted to catch 150 pokémon on my Gameboy, which I did. When I was 14 or 15, I wanted to complete GTA 3 100%, doing all the side missions and all the hidden packages. I did it. When I was 17 I played The Godfather on PS2, and I played it probably 3 or 4 times through to make sure I did all the missions in the “right” order, the way they were intended to be done so I could get the most XP and money and make the game as easy as possible. I did it. Each time, I was left thinking, OK, now what? Then I’d play the game through again, doing things differently, each time trying something slightly different.

Unfortunately, life isn’t like that. Time is like a river. My four years at university were the best of my life (so far), but now they’re done. There’s no second playthrough. No saving at a certain point and resetting if things don’t go your way.

But the problem isn’t necessarily the fact that I will die one day. The worry is that I’ll die, and my children and grandchildren will die, and a hundred years later, no-one will give a shit. Neil Strauss touched on this in his new book. He was interviewing Chris Rock, who said this:

The weirdest thing about being successful is that you are kind of ready to die. Especially now that I’ve got kids. I mean, I want to live. Don’t get me wrong. But I’m not in fear of dying. I’ve made my mark. Death is the enemy of my family – of my wife and my daughters.

Maybe that’s the aim. To make your mark. Or at least to strive for it, lest you be one of those timid souls who knows neither victory nor defeat.

I wanted you to think about yourself, and I mean REALLY think.. What are you good at? What do you suck at? And then I wanted you to put it down on paper, and not so I could see it, and not so anybody else could see it, but so that YOU could see it. Because ultimately you don’t have to answer to me, and you don’t have to answer to Kelso, you don’t even have to answer to your patients for God’s sake! You only have to answer to one guy Newbie, and that’s you!

On top of the whole “what the fuck am I doing in life”, there are a million other different worries. What if I suck at my job? What if there’s an asshole in my office who, for whatever reason, just doesn’t like me? What if I get ousted in some sort of office coup, despite my love of Robert Greene? I can easily rationalise these as the standard going-into-a-new-place worries, the same worries that every fresher or new kid at school has, that almost always prove to be either unfounded or irrelevant.

But that large, looming worry, the fact that I am slowly transitioning from being a child to an adult, is unavoidable. All my life I’ve thought of myself as a smart kid, someone with “potential”. Now comes the time when I have to actually do something. And I’m scared.

One of the simplest lessons you can take from it is this: complaining about anything is ultimately pointless. Any problem will fall into one of two categories. There’s either something you can do about it, or nothing you can do about it.

If there’s something you can do about it, stop complaining and go and do it.

If there’s nothing you can do about it, then complaining about it is a waste of energy. In typical stoic fashion, use this to your advantage. Use this problem as an opportunity to practice humility or patience.

Once you start framing problems in this way, they become much simpler to deal with. Note: simple does not always mean easy.