How the Covid-19 Pandemic is Changing Me: The Rapid Ascent of My Copywriting Business

Sometimes it takes a crisis to spring the motor into action.

I decided to focus on copywriting in January 2019. So I've been at the game (it's FUN) for a while now. I didn't know what copywriting was five years ago. Over my lifetime I simply noticed that one thing that bound my experiences together and that I've always had talent for is writing. People tell me this, it comes naturally to me, it's obviously a useful skill. Combining that with my marketing experience gained over the second half of the last decade has helped create my unique copywriting spin. It's working a treat. Mentally, it's so engaging that it's keeping my demanding brain in check.

The problem until around spring this year was all the hustling and hustling and hustling. I got slow results. I'd barely any clientele. I should've been bustling. Honestly, this is a recurring theme in my life. When doing A-levels, for instance, I worked my socks off in the first year to find out my results were more than disappointing. Ooops. The second year I chilled out more and approached my work with more focus and less hustle. It helped. I turned my grades around enough that my university of choice gave me an offer. At the time attending a tertiary education institution was my goal. But, I may have outsmarted the -still-conventional wisdom about that (might discuss this in a future blog).

Since the onset of the crisis, I've had a huge influx of business. All sorts of work actually. So what changed? I can't say. It's hard to assess and diagnose things when it's of you're own making. However, based on my own learned lessons of the past it's simplicity. I'm quick. My brain is very often lightning fast. Consequently, it's also extremely distractible and hectic, and dare I mention the tangents and rabbit holes it takes me through. Productivity can be zero. By going back to basics I've helped to steer the rudder of my ship into a more agreeable direction.

Awake. Alert. Alive. Best comply when outside.

As a matter of fact it's safe to say, I haven't felt so good and confident about my abilities in a long time. In this piece I intend to breakdown what happened to lead to this relative success.

I'm more awake. I'm fatigued from time to time having to concentrate on crafting entire blogs and discerning minor yet vital changes to webpage copy. Both of these skills are taxing for any professional- well as far as I've been told and until you're a veteran. But it's brought me to life. I love the sensation of a completed piece. It's anywhere from justified to accomplished amusement to semi-euphoric. Perhaps this is a response to a feeling of failure for a lifetime of projects started and not finished. Or so I'm often told by friends and family, which has a grain of truth in it.

With wider activated, awake eyes I've become more thoroughly alert. One of personality strengths is making strides in understanding, yes the magnitude varies, but I find even a small amount of clustered strides in my day-to-day life and understanding of activities can have profound effects. My productivity can soar. The experiments work. It's like a chemist that has found a breakthrough or at least that what it feels like. My innocence! People have started believing fairytales these days, whereas I'm trying to stay grounded yet ambitious. I feel that I'll be happier that way. Hence I can become extremely proud of small things and why not when times are hard?

Alive. I truly am, as I read online somewhere, staying in is the new going out. Corona has flipped many facts of life we take for granted around. The work excites me and I'm rather intellectual in nature anyway with a brain that feeds on information that's usually useless. I' m more than content to stay in. I've not been coronililated by the virus yet. I'm definitely alive in that sense. Nor have I succumbed to corona-psychosis like parts of the masses. That's good. Awake. Alert. Alive. Times could be far worse. I'm still alive.

Clients and partnerships.

Another factor spurring my enterprise on is people. Where would we be without them?

I've been handling some very interesting clients. Across many industries. From many places. I'm learning lessons all the time, let's hope this never ends. I've built wonderful and genuine relationships with great people doing remarkable work that they love. Almost virally, it's been rubbing off on me.

My clients are more than that. They are partners in something greater. Cliché but true. The sum is greater than the parts alone. By trying to increase my understanding of how they operate, their objectives and expectations, I've been able to create work that has led to more work and so the carousel keeps on taking me to higher ground.

I've landed work that I knew I could, but never thought I would. I gone wrong a few times, but why cry over spilt milk? Life is trial and error. You can't go through it without failing, you should fail to know what winning is truly like. Plainly, this doesn't apply to mistakes of ruinous proportions. However, I've yet to have a major setback this year. Let's hope I haven't spoken too soon.

Now I have the faith that in the coming months I'll truly be walking on a dream.

An interesting perspective on success.

The money bit.

They say that more millionaires are made during economic crashes. Advantages exist at any time. People sometimes fall into the trap of defining their potential by the context of events in wider society. It's not worth it. It makes one paranoid.

Yes, covid-19 is keeping everybody on their toes, but I've been able to navigate my money woes. I'll keep trying different things at the same time until the pandemic goes. It what we all need to do.

In line with the increase in custom I'm experiencing my revenue is shooting up- as you'd expect. I feel honoured that this is the case. In the creative sector, any economic crisis is usually devastating, it can also be negative in the marketing industry. So when, a relative newcomer to the world of copywriting - a creative and marketing career- arrives and within months a crisis of EPIC girth comes your way, yet business blossoms, you'd surely feel honoured and possibly thankful too!

A couple of years ago a friend of mine wondered why on Earth I would want to work self-employed in the writing industry. I decided to build and create my enterprise with various factors in mind to make it robust in any wider climate. Unfortunately because they just as transitioned to a new role earlier this year, they were first in line for axing. Luckily she has found a new role but after a good three months completely shocked by the changing circumstances, she has since acknowledged the reasons- that I never even thought of at the time - as to why my choice has some perks that aren't simply available in the world of the employed. I wanted to help her out myself but because I didn't know the in-house and even agency sectors operate too well, I'm yelling I can't help ya.

Outsmarting again.

Neurological advantage.

I'm different. Cliché again, but true. I think in a vastly different way to the whole of society. It's hard to admit that without appearing somewhat arrogant. But, for someone with business morals as high as myself and a fanaticism for truth, being frank has to prevail. I generally excel at objectivity, meaning I can often enjoy subjects that seem dry and dense to others. So yes, I'm nerdy, but at least I admit it.

For me, my strength is the grey matter. Hidden within the folding that's holding it. I'm an artist and an autist. Excelling at changing systems, but bored by the mere maintenance of them. I think that's why I couldn't work within organisations without feeling like I was in jail. With each experience it was as if I had passed go once, never to go anywhere interesting again. Yes I landed on a few squares in the only lap, but it's all over before you've really discovered anything. Perhaps, that's because there is nothing more to discover in some organisations, or anything that would be deemed worthy of investigation by my grey matter. So that's how I got to this game, the game and profession of copywriting. Nobody said it was easy.

A chequered past. Or a courageous past?

2016. I was forced out of university, temporarily. I didn't want to go back afterwards for a host of reasons. So I didn't. I made huge strides in the six months of attendance. however. After a family bereavement, that profoundly changed me and my world outlook I (full of over-perfectionism) decided that life needs to be spent on exactly what I desire. Even though I had accomplished much and was a conventionally successful eighteen-year-old it wasn't what I truly wanted. I was more popular than ever, scoring well in classes and had moved out for the first time and handled everything better than I thought I would. But I was deeply troubled. I didn't get people. I didn't understand why my world suddenly crashed down around me. I started believing in weird conspiracies. My world view was marred. I went into a long and dark depressive tunnel for a few months. I wasn't even allowed to get a job, the government stopped me.

In the following two years. I tried everything. I did courses in software testing, business analysis, scrum mastery, worked at a startup for a couple of weeks. I learned to drive. I always had my love of foreign-exchange trading. I passed all my exams, first time, except the driving theory test which I missed by ONE MARK! Second time round I passed by ONE MARK.

Every time, these opportunities started off well and then went nowhere. Putting this information together with all the other facts: my business acumen, love of autonomy, gifts for communication, relative success with entrepreneurial activities dating back to secondary school. I decided entrepreneurship is my future. I've yet to look back.

Transparency International.

Here I am. I've been frank about who I am, my past, my future and my goals. There's so much bravado on social media channels. It's senseless to me. Objectivity is out of the window. I think my honesty in financial and business dealings with others has allowed quick trust to develop than otherwise might be the case. I think being an autist reduces the ego tremendously. For instance, I don't understand the feeling of jealousy. The only person I envy is myself, at previous times in life, when I have had success is something and wish for that in the current.

There are so many copywriters. With so many styles, and ways of working, some work better than others. I can't preach from a high horse on this yet, all that I know from the last few months is that I've learnt a big lesson: it's not what you do, it's the way that you do it. And by being frank, it seems to make business processes more smooth and enjoyable. Not to mention, efficient.

Future ideas.

So I've said that I've been honest about my future. That's the only exaggeration here. Nobody knows for sure what lies ahead. However, enterprises and e-commerce are on my wider horizon, a couple of years ahead. I'm going to specialise in the meantime on some form of copywriting when I have tried everything. My approach is 'if today was your last day'. I've looked into the option of going down the line of the advertising sector and even ad schools. That's a possibility. And books. I've want to write a proper book. Not the small one's I've done before. If I find I have a penchant, I may end up following it and attaining heights.

This is going to be the decade the changes everything. Even if there's no fourth industrial revolution in the wider context, I'm going to make this decade count for me.

Where the wild things are.

Another change that I made since spring is to be more daring and deliberate. I was not even trying if I'm honest.

I've since taken chances, taken risks and done everything society tells you not to do and it's working. I have to go where the wild things are. The unknown things. For me specifically this quote should be nailed to my door:

“If you're the smartest person in the room, you're in the wrong room.”

Existential problems.

And then there's purpose. Purpose is important to everybody in a job, subconsciously or consciously. Depression was rough. Thankfully, it was episodic and isolated rather than cyclical in my case, though always a risk due to being an outcast, among other factors.

Purpose when working is probably more important for somebody like me. I need to believe in what I'm doing and it needs to be stimulating. I know many people who can cope with a marginal or negligible interest in their work. I can't. I can certainly tolerate tasks that I'm less into such as dealing with my finances, logistic and some of the more onerous outreach, but if it became too much of my time this ship will sink. Long periods lacking challenge are a plague to my mind. My grey matter, matters. Simply being preoccupied with the changes in my business and my life at the moment has engaged more of my brain faculties. Parts that previously weren't used nearly enough. This in itself is an underlying reason for my recent success. I am more engaged. This work is a place for my head to get working the way I think it was meant to. It's heaven compared to the misery in depression.

Keep on rollin'.

With all these lessons I'm discovering, now that my business is working how I anticipated it and want it to work, I'm going to stick with it for the time being. Immerse myself within the role of a freelance copywriter. Covid-19 rages on but it's merely a feature of the surrounding environment, nothing personal though the effects could be. Unless, it bothers me, I'm not going to bother it.

In the most unexpected way 2020 is turning out to be the best year I've had in over half a decade. I was in the process of isolating myself, anyway from people other than those closest and dearest to me. Before I had my depressive meltdown I had a massive network and more popularity than at any other time during my life. It didn't make me any happier. I think the happiness that I'm deriving from doing great work in a fantastic setup as a freelancer trumps anything in my life over the last few years. I intend for it to stay that way.

All the small things that are coming together, are making my business work. It's a great time on my life. The outside environment is separate to what I'm working on. The way I think about how life is, will define how it turns out just as much as the physical events taking place themselves. The way I am works well with the projects that I'm focusing on.Will power goes a long way. These are just some of the lessons that I've found out. Hopefully the ascent will continue...

Thanks for reading my first article/blog in a while. Kudos if you noticed the several references to pop and rock music. You truly can read between the lines!

If you'd like to get in touch with me for work, business, friendship or solidarity you can email me: [email protected]. Just send me a LinkedIn message and we can take it from there. Happy sharing!