I saw quite the most splendid example of batshittery on LinkedIn the other day.
Scene: freshly-minted copywriter-wannabe with zero skills and zero experience (by his own admission), asking how he can get into the business.
The result was ugly if highly amusing.
First, let me be clear on something: I am not criticising or finding fault with this young man in any way whatsoever. His aim is laudable and at least he has something the vast majority of other people don’t: a goal he’s working towards.
More power to him, says this curmudgeonly old git.
No, my criticisms and blood-boiling ranting are aimed at the clueless fuckwits giving him advice.
The details varied, but for the most part they were saying, in effect, “study your craft, then offer your services free to local businesses to get exposure, experience, and to build a portfolio”.
If I had the words “this is a fucking stupid idea” tattooed on every single one of the trillions upon trillions of individual cells in my body it would not come even close to expressing even 1% of the amount of Stupid in that single idea.
If all the idiots in all the world left their villages and made a village of their own, the individual giving this advice would be the idiot in that new village.
Here are just a few reasons I say this:
- Working for free is stupid. I hope I don’t need to qualify this any further.
- The kind of clients you’ll get with this approach are perhaps the worst possible kind of clients you could find in the entirety of the universe. If you want me to qualify this further, then ask.
- The foundation you’ll build for your business during this exercise will be insubstantial, weak, and as shifty as a Catholic priest in a child-abuse investigation. Again, if you want would qualify this further then ask (although I’m sure you can work out the bit about the Catholic priest yourself).
But there’s another reason this is a bad idea (and by “bad” I mean “perhaps the worst idea anyone had anywhere, ever”).
And the fact people are giving the advice in the first place tells me they haven’t considered this reason, and that tells me their understanding of the whole topic is shallow and superficial — because if they had considered and understood it, they’d never dream of dishing out such poor and lowbrow advice.
And what is that reason?
Well… I’ll share it with you tomorrow.
But, if you’re impatient and want a longer and more in-depth explanation from the man himself, you’d do well to talk to me (apart from anything else I also show you unequivocally how this affects your business, too, whether you’re a copywriter or something else).
Warmly,
P.S. You know what I find exciting (apart from kinky sex, that is)?
The days are getting longer and brighter.
I started getting up at 0600 just over four weeks ago, and it’s now become a part of my habitual and established routine.
But even then, just a month ago, when I left the house to come out of the Cave at about 7 o’clock, it was still pitch black. Fast-forward the rest of the day and it’d be dark again when I went back into the house to start cooking dinner for me and Mrs EBG.
Yet now, just a few weeks later, the inevitable precession and procession of the Earth and seasons means the sky is beginning to lighten as I make my way along the narrow concrete path to the Cave in the morning; and it’s still daylight when I finish in the evenings.
I can feel spring on its way.
The birds sing, the light’s changing, and it feels like everything’s starting to wake up, bursting with life, and anticipating the long, warm days of the summer to come.
And that sends a tingle down my spine, because I know my favourite day of the year is approaching.
And what day is that?
I’ll share that with you tomorrow.
In the meantime, if you want to start a spring-like revamp of your business you could do a lot worse than talk to little old me.