Stumbling Into Success

I was never a goal setter. There was no grand plan for copywriting. I stumbled into it. 

You see, one day my boss at the word stove company wanted me to do direct mail and gave me a Kiplinger letter promo. The assignment was to "knock off" a copy for us. I did. I spent two weeks writing it. And, I might add, it was on a typewriter.

After two weeks he looked at it and said, "That's not strong enough." So I spent another two weeks on it. When I finished I took it to the printers. On their reception table they had a copy of a magazine called, "Direct Marketing." In it there were ads from people called "copywriters" and "sales letter writers." There were also groups to join.

The Direct Marketing Association and a local San Francisco group called, the Direct Marketing Creative Guild. I joined the San Francisco group, attended meetings, and got the members list. Like any salesman at heart, I started working that list--making cold calls and sending samples.

One woman at The First Savings Deposit Bank, accepted my samples but never returned my follow-up calls. I kept calling. Once I reached her she said, "Let's meet for lunch." We did then she showed me a two-page Visa card upgrade letter and asked me, "How much do I charge per hour." Having never written a direct mail letter for that kind of client I did not know what to charge.

But looking around their office and seeing how professional it was I sheepishly said, "F a.. fa .. forty dollars an hour. I could not look her in the eyes when I said it. Then she said, How many hours?" I was stuck inside I had no idea how long it would take me. I then sheepishly said, "10 hours." To which she replied, putting her hand on my shoulder, "How about $50 dollars an hour?" To which I said, "OK."

I left her office on Sansome Street. It was one of those sunny/cloudy days. I looked up at the clouds, dropped my arms to the ground as the clouds parted and the sun shined in my eyes, "$500 bucks to write a two-page letter? I'm getting in the letter writing business."

Also on that list was Target Publishing, publisher of The Ruff Times, one of the largest investment newsletters in the world. I pitched the marketing director and he hired me. He saw I could write two and four-page letters but they then needed someone to write 8, 16, and 24-page letters and gave me a shot.

And what a shot it was! I was writing subscription promotions for many investment newsletter products. Not the main pieces, but the advertising inserts that accompanied the paid newsletter products. I never did get a shot at writing the major promotion because "I didn't have a track record." What he was trying to say was they spent hundreds of thousands of dollars launching newsletters and they needed a seasoned guy to write them.

While I didn't get a shot there, I did when I sent my samples to Phillips Publishing. The shot I got there, working with Richard Stanton Jones, led to the creation of The Great Retirement Betrayal, one of the most famous subscription promotions of the decade.

This brings me to you and the Moral of My Story:

You don’t need a big plan to make it. 

Keep your eyes open, sniff out opportunities, and get your butt moving. There was no grand design—I just turned small breaks into big wins. Keep pushing forward and don’t let the nos stop you.

DD