Rock and roll copywriter Pete Michaels joins Rob and Kira in The Copywriter Club Podcast studio to talk about his personal journey into direct response writing. He shares his thoughts about:

• how to conduct “deep dive” surveys and asking the MSIQ

• how he learned from mentors early in his writing career (and who his mentors are)

• adding consulting to his copywriting business (and how he packages it)

• the “Snap Shot” he stole from Stephen King

Plus Pete mentions the book that convinced him that he didn’t have time for Facebook. But you’ll have to listen to learn what it is. There’s a ton of good advice packed into this episode. So click the play button below, check out the transcript, or download it to your mobile device and get it in your ear buds now.

 

The people and stuff we mentioned on the show:

Vin Montello

Joanna Wiebe

Kevin Rogers

John Carlton

Jason Leister

Ben Settle

Ryan Leveque

Ask Method Book

Dan Kennedy

Copy Chief

Stephen King’s It

Stephen King’s On Writing

Essentialism

Rock and Roll Copy

One Good Idea (Rob’s newsletter)

Kira’s website

Rob’s website

The Copywriter Club Facebook Group

Intro: Content (for now)

Outro: Gravity

Full Transcript:

Rob: What if you could hang out with seriously talented copywriters and other experts, ask them about their successes and failures, their work processes, and their habits, then steal an idea or two to inspire your own work? That’s what Kira and I do every week at The Copywriter Club Podcast.

Kira: You’re invited to join the club for episode 29 as we chat with direct response copywriter Pete Michaels about his journey to becoming a copywriter, conducting deep dive surveys, adding consulting to a writer’s tool kit and what he calls snapshot copy.

Rob: Hey Kira and Pete.

Kira: Hey Rob. Hey Pete. How’s it going?

Pete: Hey, great. Great to be here. Thanks for having me.

Kira: Yeah, well thanks. Thanks for joining us and I think Pete a good place to start is your road into copywriting because I feel like you’re kind of behind the scenes. You’re not on Facebook so we don’t get to see you in the club, but you’re doing these really cool things that we’re going to dive into today. So let’s start with how you got into copywriting.

Pete: Yeah, it’s a weird road. I wouldn’t even call it a road. If it was on Google Maps, if you could trace it, it’ll look like your drunkest uncle weaving around all over the place. It was a strange road into copywriting and I didn’t really get into it until I guess reasonably late. In my 30’s. Before, like immediately prior to that I was working in marketing for arts organizations and non-profits here in London where I’ve lived for a while.

I’ve always written. I’ve never had a problem writing. I’ve always loved writing since I was a kid, but I think for a while I was always looking for a way to make that a craft, you know. Find a craft that could involve writing and actually, you know, giving something. Doing something of value that you could actually do rather than, you know, when you’re a kid everybody dreams of being a writer of some kind, and you’re not quite sure what that’s going to involve. I kind of almost stumbled into copywriting through a friend of mine who’s a very good direct response copywriter who was doing it a few years before me and I was kind of looking for a new change in career. Another one.

I used to do photography. I used to do a lot of music photography, and events photography, and a little bit of kind of like local news and stuff like that. I was kind of combining that with a part time job working in marketing with this kind of arts organization. Yeah, I was looking for a new way to involve writing in my day-to-day and to work with people.

Obviously I kind of started to learn a little about how that might work with involving copywriting through, you know, working in a marketing environment. Then kind of got talking to this, you know,