For most of my life I had no idea that my writing skills had any commercial value whatsoever.  That’s one reason why I studied engineering in school instead of, say, English.

Today, the story of how I discovered how to make 10X more money as a writer than I ever made as an engineer.

In college I liked the writing classes better than the engineering classes, and I got better grades. When you write something, you feel as though you’ve put a part of “you” into it. If you do a math assignment you probably just feel like you’ve pushed a bunch of numbers around. So I always enjoyed writing more.

One time one of my friends got my Christmas letter in the mail and said, “You’re in the wrong profession.” But I didn’t take her seriously.

Like I said, I thought writers were just starving artists.

Then:

Then I discovered direct marketing.

I found out that there was this thing they call “copywriting” where once you mastered the art of persuading with the written word, a single WORD document or web page or direct mail piece could become an asset that generated sales and sales leads for YEARS.

I also discovered that when you can prove your ability to write copy, clients will hire you for thousands of dollars, just to string words together.

My first out-of-Dilbert-Cube consulting assignment was placing articles in trade journals for my client. My ROI argument was:

“I’ll write you a 2 page article and place it in a magazine where advertising costs $6,000 per page – that’s twelve grand worth of publicity – but I’ll only charge you three grand.”

It’s alchemy.

Writing persuasive words = printing money.

What an amazing and liberating discovery that was.

OK, so here I was, I had this magical ability to write ads and generate PR for clients. I was free from my j-o-b and I had a nice consulting business now.

But…. what I *really* wanted to do was sell info products. I wanted an automated online 24/7 sales machine. I wanted to sell my intellectual property.

At this point I am finding that the stakes are much higher. Info products are much more competitive and it takes more persuasion to get the customer to pull out his wallet.

Actually, selling any kind of idea is trickier than selling some known physical object that somebody already wants.

But selling the intangible is ultimately more rewarding in my opinion. It’s the only way you can change the world.

The pen is mightier than the sword.

Or… maybe I should say “A mighty pen is mightier than the sword.”

(And an ordinary pen is just a pen.)

I had to up the ante on my writing chops. I needed to find myself a mentor.

The mentor I chose was John Carlton.

I would send John my stuff and he’d rip it to shreds. Then he’d give me a pat on the back and tell me to start over. I’d dutifully comply… then slaughter the previous control.

Me = Karate Kid. John = Mr. Miyagi. Yes Mr. Miyagi, I will paint the fence.

The mentoring I got from John was crucial to my own success. And now John is introducing his Simple Writing System this week and I must say it truly is elegant. A 17 step, systematic formula for ensuring that your copy has max persuasion. I used his 17 step formula to plan my Jet Propulsion launch, for example.

He’s doing this as a limited-span coaching program in which he enlists the help of other professional copywriters to help each student.

I will be teaching part of this class, my role being to turbo-charge the Google Ad part of the marketing formula. I’m looking forward to working with some of John’s students in this group setting. Hopefully you’ll be involved as we do that.

Here’s where you can sign up for a whole series of tutorials from John and some of his bad-ass marketing buddies.

Here’s to maximizing the profitability of every word that flows from your fingertips, and your power as a marketing alchemist.

Perry Marshall

About the Author

Perry Marshall has launched two revolutions in sales and marketing. In Pay-Per-Click advertising, he pioneered best practices and wrote the world's best selling book on Google advertising. And he's driven the 80/20 Principle deeper than any other author, creating a new movement in business.

He is referenced across the Internet and by Harvard Business Review, The New York Times, INC and Forbes Magazine.