How rude
Apologies if I was ever your creative director or manager.
I was terrible.
Trouble is, I always thought (knew!) I could do better. Teams would create their work, present it to me. Then I'd stay back late to redo it. Fix it, in my mind.
That must have been frustrating. Sorry.
Turns out that it's a lot to do with my personality style.
Measured on the Herrmann Brain Dominance Instrument (HBDI), I'm a blue. Logical, analytical, fact-based.
I just like to get on with things.
No discussion (that's an HBDI Red).
No planning or organisation (HBDI Green).
Nope, I like to crack on. No time for niceties.
Trouble is, that personality (while being incredibly efficient) bleeds into my writing. At times, my emails can appear rude.
'Sure', I reply - when someone sends me a long chatty email. 'How rude', they must think.
Now, knowing my personality type, I stop after I type an email. And add in the nice stuff.
Before the 'Sure', I add in 'Hi, how are you?'.
Watch how your personal style influences your writing. If you're a bit chatty, that will impact your copy - perhaps make you too verbose. If you like process and to think things through, that can come across as pedantic.
Test your personality with one of these free ones listed on Hubspot.
Without further ado (very Blue), onto the articles that caught my attention this week. Nuff said.
Bowie on TikTok
This is interesting.
David Bowie (who, you may remember, died four years ago) has just joined TikTok.
Huh?!
No, it's not some 'from beyond the grave' thing.
Sony, Warner, and Bowie’s estate joined him up, and have made 50 years' worth of his music available for TikTok peeps to use.
Why?
TikTok pays royalties every time a user uses a licensed song. So it could add up to quite a bit.
Makes you think, though. In 50 years' time, when some new social platform is launched, will someone join me up? Make revenue out of recordings of my workshops, even though I'm long gone?
If we're digital, we're immortal.
Going freelance
There are a couple of common questions after I run my workshops.
One: 'Please send me the briefing templates you mentioned'.
Two: 'Can you come and train the rest of my team?'.
And, three: 'How can I go freelance?'.
I wrote an article a while ago with my response to this. See How to (kick)start your freelance copywriting career.
But I found another resource on ProWritingAid. 'The ultimate guide to going freelance'.
Their tips:
One: decide between full time and part time. I always say 'Don't give up your day job'. Work nights, weekends, to build your business.
Two: find your niche. Absolutely. There's a lot of us out there. What's your expertise?
Three: build your portfolio.
Four: find clients. Yep, pretty bleedin' obvious. But they have some tips. As do I.
Read both (mine and theirs) for some good and practical tips.
Ikea trash
I like this.
A meteor hurtles towards the earth. Only it's not made of rock, but of the things we throw away. It's a trash meteor.
It reduces in size as we're seen using Ikea products - like a clothes rack instead of a clothes dryer, reusable cups instead of disposable ones.
Until there's just one bottle left. Which lands with a 'plop'.
Beautifully produced 60 second TV ad.
Oh: and it tells me how I should pronounce the word 'Ikea', at the end.
Scroll down to see the print ads. They work well.
Webinars
Remote learning: copywriting courses, by remote. Got an internet connection? You can learn. Pick your topic, then contact me Nice idea, Jon ... >
QotW
Quote of the week:
'I cannot give you the formula for success, but I can give you the formula for failure, which is: Try to please everybody.' Herbert Swope
Next workshops
• Maximum Copy: online and in-house
• Copy Ninja: the craft via Zoom, Webex, Teams, GoTo
• Writing for Digital: about the web, over the web
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