the world of copywriting can feel very competitive as you begin your journey
you might encounter other copywriters who have been working professionally for
decades the rates they charge might make you feel pretty motivated sometimes it
can be thousands of dollars a day but they might also scare you or maybe make
you feel intimidated so how can you get to the point where you can make a living
doing what you love and have clients willing to pay you the rates and
professional copywriters get well the answer is not always satisfying no one
can develop skills talents or a stunning portfolio overnight but as you continue
to practice learn and gain experience you may find yourself growing and
succeeding in unprecedented ways in order to see where you are and where
you're going you can look at the four stages of competence this principle can
be applied to any skill or any profession but is especially good to
keep in mind in the competitive world of copywriting so let's get on to
unconscious incompetence we will start with the first stage although you've
probably already passed this stage for the most part a person is in the
unconscious incompetence stage when they're not even aware that they are
lacking skills these people do not understand the benefits of learning the
skills and have not given any thought into gaining these skills for the most
part you have already left this stage in your copywriting journey after all
you've already taken the time to learn about copywriting right you already know
the benefits of learning about copywriting you can use it to build a
career understand the content that you consume every day and develop other
skills and marketing selling or even advertising of course there are some
things that you may not know about copywriting yet as a world of marketing
and advertising adapt to the online world new strategies are being built
every day as you continue on this journey subscribe to newsletters from
resources that talk about copywriting content marketing and SEO as you learn
about the new skills and strategies you will slowly move out of the unconscious
and competence stage with the rest of the writers in your industry now let's
move on to conscious incompetence if you've just begun your copywriting
journey you're probably in this stage you recognize you have a deficiency in
the skill and you also know the benefits of learning and developing your
abilities when you take the time to invest your time and in resources and
courses and books and seminars about copywriting you understand the value of
these courses at this stage you want to gather as much information as you can
about the subject you want to read about copywriting you want to take more online
courses you want to reach out to other copywriters who have been working in the
industry maybe even find a mentor in fact I'll tell you about an opportunity
to learn more about what I have to teach about copywriting in a few minutes now
as you begin to apply your knowledge you may not be getting everything right
and error is integral to every skill and it should be welcomed a pitcher will not
throw consistent strikeouts before they've had bad games and salesman will
not make ideal numbers until they've been rejected by many clients failures
just a part of learning it is so important to practice copywriting though
you just needed to start writing show your work to other copywriters just get
their opinions this conscious incompetence stage is all about learning
and trying new things so don't be afraid to make mistakes or write bad copy when
you learn what makes copy bad you can avoid those mistakes in the future and
put out even better work now the third stage is something called
conscious competence once you have taken the time to learn about this skill and
actually you start practicing copywriting and the general guidelines
might start to come naturally to you when you are consciously competent you
can produce something using your skills copywriters may be able to put out
decent work for their first clients but as you write this copy you are
consciously pulling information from what you have learned as you read the
copy you're analyzing it with your new skills and when you're at this stage you
can actually start to find work as a copywriter and actually start to build a
career the copy that you've put out may not fly off your fingertips you can
still complete the work and you feel somewhat confident when you're finished
don't be afraid to seek out clients once you feel that you've produced quality
work now once you have produced some copywriting work do not stop learning or
building your skills it is very important to keep practicing to keep
getting better keep writing and reaching out for feedback ask your clients
personally for feedback periodically the seminars and courses and books you read
might be for more advanced writers but your attendance is still necessary to
reach the highest level of copywriting which is called unconscious competence
this is a final stage of competence and at this stage you'll be able to produce
high-quality amazingly converting copy without thinking too hard about the
process copywriting will come naturally to you and junior writers may look to
you for advice and feedback just like some people drive home without thinking
about their route which turns to take and stuff like that you don't need to
think about the basics of human psychology and you just kind of know
what's gonna work and what's not copywriters might find themselves
striving to reach this stage for their entire career as the digital world and
competition add roadblocks to your journey you may find yourself seeking
knowledge and wanting to practice even more there's always something new to
learn and ways that you can improve your skills do not see mastery as an end goal
that can have achieved next year treat this stage like a reward that is always
dangling just out of reach as you run on the treadmill
if you continue to push further and try to be better than yourself in the past
you will always grow into a copywriter that you once admired use these four
stages of competence as checkpoints on the roadmap ahead of you all of your
hard work and practice will pay off as you find yourself moving through these
different stages when you start to feel discouraged by mistakes or missteps
remember that these are necessary building blocks you will not reach the
top of the pyramid if you do not learn the lessons at the bottom if you feel
stuck and if you want to go from knowing what you don't know to learning all that
there is about copywriting I actually just launched my copywriters kit which
is a collection of videos PDFs mp3s worksheets and basically just a bunch of
training for an aspiring copywriter you can check it out in the link below
before I raise the price and really learn to master the skill and art of
copywriting by understanding the fundamentals for less than a hundred
dollars before I end this video I want to give you two tips to apply your
knowledge number one is to practice just practice more get into the habit of
practicing for a few hours each week when will you sit down and write is
gonna be today tomorrow next week next month set some goals and set aside some
time where you can actually write make mistakes and get feedback the more you
practice the more you will learn and the better you will get and tip number two
to apply your knowledge is to reach out to a mentor or something called an
accountabilibuddy which will help keep you on track I also recommend setting up
a time every week or a month where you can chat exchange copy and just give
each other feedback share new helpful resources with your buddy and ask for
resources in return this relationship will help you widen your perspective and
build your skills further thank you guys so much for watching and I hope you
learned something