It’s Sunday today, and since I live in Spain, that means the world wakes up slowwwwly. But not this morning.
This morning, around 9am, I was in my living room when I heard whistling downstairs. Angry, insistent whistling.
This wasn’t some preteen girls — in my experience, the usual whistlers in my neighborhood. It didn’t sound like them, and it was too early. I went out on the balcony to investigate.
It turns out there was a race to be run. I’m guessing a 10K.
My building is right on the corner of Avinguda Diagonal, the main avenue that cuts across Barcelona. The runners were supposed to run down Diagonal.
The whistling appears to have been a police officer who had spotted a parked car trying to sneak onto the avenue and into the race course.
As I stood on the balcony, a pace car passed by. A few moments later, two cops on motorcycles followed, with their sirens flashing. And then came the front runner.
He zoomed by.
After him, there was a minute or two of absolutely nobody.
Then, finally, a couple more runners in second and third place. I’m guessing the rest of the field was far behind.
This reminded me of last year’s Barcelona marathon, which I also witnessed from my balcony.
At around 10am, a small group of Kenyans and Ethiopians ran by my building. After them, there was nobody.
I lost interest and went back inside. I read for a while. I got dressed. I went for a walk to the beach. I came back. It was around noon by this time.
And as I was coming back to my building, I saw the rest of the field — thousands of people, wearing funny costumes, pushing wheelchairs, getting cheered on — jogging along where the Kenyans and Ethiopians had sprinted by, almost two hours earlier.
All that’s to say, most of us can run. But there’s levels to it.
There’s me, trotting along for about 200 yards before saying, screw this.
There’s recreational joggers.
There’s serious hobbyists who do triathlons.
There’s professional runners.
And then, there’s the small group of Kenyans and Ethiopians, far ahead of the pack, winning the biggest races and setting records.
Mmmm… maybe it’s the same with your chosen profession?
I don’t know what you do. But I can tell you I did direct response copywriting as a profession for a number of years.
I thought I was pretty good at it. In fact, I know I was. Still am. Pretty good. But there’s levels to it.
I’ve never competed at the highest levels, against the best-of-the-best copywriters, for the biggest prizes. And maybe that’s a good thing. Statistically speaking, odds are good I would get my ass handed to me.
Because there’s levels to it.
The good news is, unlike marathon running, writing copy can be a slowwww and deliberate activity.
Yes, there is creativity and talent involved. That’s a part of what sets the A-list copywriters apart from everyone else who might just be pretty good.
But there are also learnable strategies. Tricks. Even hacks, which the A-listers use that you don’t use.
But you could use them. If you only knew them. And you could profit from them.
Because unlike in marathon running, the prizes from sales copy don’t just go to the top three Kenyans or Ethiopians.
If you can take one or two strategies from the very best copywriters, and apply them to what you’re doing, it could be worth hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars to you.
That might sound like hype and exaggeration. But it’s just the nature of direct marketing, where a small advantage, multiplied over a large number of prospects, can produce a lot of wealth quickly.
So would you be interested in owning the strategies, tricks, and hacks of the very best A-list copywriters, the ones who are far ahead of the pack?
If so, take a look here: