How to become a great copywriter as fast as humanly possible

A few years ago, I asked Bond Halbert, son and student of Copywriting legend Gary Halbert how to become a great copywriter as fast as humanly possible.

Here's the exact guide he provided me with, summarized for you to read in a few minutes.

Read this if you want to become a super powerful copywriter fast and start charing hefty rates.

Let's go:

Start by reading these 3 books in this order:

1) The Boron Letters by Gary Halbert

2) Scientific Advertising by Claude Hopkins

3) The Halbert Copywriting Method Part III

These three books will hand you powerful tips and you should definitely read each of them multiple times.

I'd recommend reading them at least once per year. You'll gain new insights each time you revisit them, especially when you gain experience applying what you've learned.

You will add more books to this list later on. For now, these suffice.

Next, take one or more of these entry level courses on copywriting:

1) The Gary Halbert Copywriting Seminar

2) The Simple Writing System by John Carlton

3) Scott Haines Copywriting Course

4) High-Speed Copy by David Garfinkel & Brian McLeod

5) Clayton Makepeace Course

At some point, you should take all of these courses as they are all jam packed with tips. For now, just take one.

After finishing one of the courses:?

Write, write, write.?

Write for your own business. Try to land jobs –?even if unpaid, to get your hands dirty. Offer to rewrite copy for small businesses for free.

Get practice.

During these phase, make it a habit to copy winning copy pieces by hand.

You'll start getting the flow, rhythm and an understanding for the structure when doing so.

In this phase, you will be creating your swipe file. But you won't use it like most people do it.?

I will write a separate post about this later. But basically, it's not about copying or even modeling these swipe files but...

...about learning from them and then creating a new piece that matches the context of your promotion and would work today.?

Now you're ready to level up.

Buy the Gary Halbert Memorial Seminar, which is an amazing advanced copywriting training.

After finishing this course, join a paid copywriting community like Copy Chief by Kevin Rogers or the Gary Halbert Copy Club / Halbertizing.

When you join a paid group, you'll have higher caliber members who share higher caliber materials with you and you can expect high quality answers and feedback.?

Next step:

Get a mentor. Someone who will help write effective copy, review your work, get your copy tested and even help you find work.

If you're looking for a mentor, like this post and comment below. I'll DM you the same two recommendations Bond Halbert gave me.

Now, you've gotten a mentor. You have become a very strong copywriter who doesn't just rely on copy and pasting swipe files.

Here's what you do until you have more customers than you can handle at a time:

1) Attend copywriting conferences. Obviously for networking reasons and to get jobs but also because you'll meet other great copywriters that can help you get to the next level

2) Attend general marketing events. You'll meet tons of ad agencies, other copywriters and business owners in need of copywriting services. You'll have a great chance of finding tons of work if regularly visiting these sort of events.

3) Attend non-marketing related events in your specific niche / industry. You'll meet lots of people looking for copywriting / marketing talent there, and it won't be full of your competitors as the event is not marketing related.?

You have more than enough clients now. You have tested copy, case studies of successful promotions and are charging a hefty rate.

Time to join and also speak at masterminds, to get in front of potential whale clients.

There you have it. A quick summary of what Bond Halbert taught me about becoming a great copywriter as fast as humanly possible.

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