“How do I know if I’m actually getting any better at this?”

It’s Mailbox Monday! And if you actually APPLY the answer to today’s question, it will absolutely change your life.

I actually picked this question up from the comments section of an article I wrote about a month ago called How Green Copywriters Can Get Great Fast.

MaryAnna Rose — a regular reader — had a question about my recommendation of 1% improvement.

And I’ll get to it in a moment, but first I want to restate that 1% improvement lesson…

You probably know this is something I picked up from Gary Bencivenga… Widely considered to be the greatest living copywriter.

In an interview he did with Ken McCarthy for The System Club, Gary explained this approach he’d used for his entire career.

(… An interview I strongly encouraged Brian Kurtz to get permission to share with Titans of Direct Response attendees… And when attendee Casey Slaughter Stanton listened to the interview he said, “I’ve got to say, those are the best audios I think I’ve ever listened to on copywriting.”)

Gary’s goal was to merely improve his craft by 1% every week.

Now, I actually do the math for this in the video on my opt-in page for Breakthrough Marketing Secrets. I’ll break it down quickly here though…

… In a year of 1% improvement — compounded week after week — you’re not 52% better, but actually 68% better…

… 2 years of 1% per week improvement makes you 181% better than when you started…

… In 10 years — and YES, I know this seems ludicrous — you’re 17,565% better, by compounding a mere 1% improvement per week…

And here’s where the numbers go totally off the charts…

Imagine for a moment that over the course of a 40-year career in marketing — which Gary Bencivenga had — you simply tried to improve yourself by 1% every week.

1% better at whatever it was that would generate a higher response for your ads and marketing campaigns.

Do the math, and 40 years of this weekly compounding makes you…

97,377,241,444% better than you were when you started!

Yes, that’s…

97 BILLION…

377 MILLION…

241 THOUSAND…

444 percent…

And you wonder how Gary Bencivenga got the reputation for writing “untouchable” copy?

In fact, that’s my entire premise of Breakthrough Marketing Secrets…

It’s my publicly-stated goal and promise that in reading these issues, you will make yourself at least 1% better at direct marketing every week.

It’s my service to you as a reader.

But it’s also selfish. Because you know they often say that the best way to learn is by teaching…

So in writing these issues, it forces me to think about my copywriting and direct marketing. And I can feel my own improvement by 1% every week as well.

But back to the question…

MaryAnna Rose challenged me!

Here’s her question…

 

First, thank you MaryAnna (again!) for being a regular reader, and for your excellent question…

Now let’s dive in to the answer!

Here’s how to make sure you’re actually improving 1% every week, and keeping yourself on the path to greatness…

Now, there are many layers of usefulness to what I’m about to tell you. It’s actually the secret to productivity, among other things. But to avoid going too far astray, I’m going to tell you to look for those layered lessons here — but leave the finding up to you.

Now on to the answer…

First off, it’s practically impossible to measure!

Weekly measurement would be a painstaking process. For a million different reasons.

First off, there would have to be a central database of the collective (and ever-changing!) direct marketing best practices and wisdom. Each measurement would have to be designed from that central database. Which there really isn’t.

And measurement is effectively a “meta” process. Which means the person who designs your measurement has to be able to see beyond what you know. Meaning you can’t come up with your own weekly measurement.

And each measurement would have to be catered to your learning process.

Et cetera, et cetera, and so forth…

What it all comes down to is what I told MaryAnna…

You’d probably waste a bunch of time just trying to get it properly measured!

Maybe there’s a future where we have artificial intelligence and quantum computers with unlimited instant access to the entire store of human knowledge, where these tests can be devised… But it’s nothing you should worry about now.

If you can’t measure what you know, here’s what you should measure instead…

Okay, so our goal is this 1% improvement per week. But we already know we can’t measure the goal.

So instead, you can focus on and measure the mechanism of achieving that goal.

For example, if you want to write a book, you can focus on the goal of writing the book. Or you can focus each day on sitting down and writing 1,000 words toward the book.

I don’t know if focusing on the goal of writing the book will get it done (for most wannabe authors, it doesn’t!). But I do know that if you focus on writing 1000 words per day, you will eventually have a full book.

Similarly, if you focus on improving 1% per week, you may not actually do it.

But if you dedicate yourself to consuming marketing related information for 30 minutes every day, and spending another 30 minutes applying what you learn, that is a formula that works for improving 1% every week. It is also very measurable.

This makes it really simple — all you have to do is focus on the mechanism of achieving your goal!

It’s November, known in the fiction community as NaNoWriMo — National Novel Writing Month. The idea is that you set a goal to finish a 50,000+ word rough draft within the month of November. That’s 30 days.

What’s the best way to do it? Simple. Every day, before you go to bed, write at least 2,000 words on your novel. You’ll actually hit the 50,000 word mark by day 25, and have 5 days to celebrate (eating a ton of turkey, if you’re here in the US).

The same applies for getting good at marketing. Every day, before you go to bed, make sure you read Breakthrough Marketing Secrets. (Isn’t that self-serving!) Or listen to one of your favorite marketing podcasts. Or read a chapter out of a marketing book. SOMETHING! And then take a moment to think about how you can apply it.

This is all very measurable. And each time you sit down and “Just Do It!” you’re doing something you can measure that has a reasonable chance of delivering on that 1% improvement.

And it doesn’t even always have to be new material or new lessons, either. Here’s something fascinating I’ve found when going back to my favorite books and materials on marketing. Even a couple months’ space gives me new perspective on their lessons. I get a deeper understanding each time. I bring new experience to my interpretation. I’m able to apply it to current projects to learn it in new ways. It can add tremendous depth and nuance.

Oh yeah, and your time today could also come in the form of having another copywriter review your copy. Going through a peer review. Listening to a good sales presentation — and then analyzing it afterward. Going out into the marketplace (malls, retail stores, digital stores, etc.) and paying attention to what works and what gets your attention. The ideas are endless…

The key is just doing something — anything — with regularity — to improve yourself.

When I had a job, I listened to things on my way to and from work. 10 minutes of commute each way meant 20 minutes every day, 100 minutes every week. That’s more time learning marketing than most college marketing classes deliver (and probably a better education — because I’d turn around and apply these real-world lessons immediately in my marketing gig).

Contrary to Dan Kennedy’s recommendation to never mow your yard or do any manual labor around the house, I actually enjoy it. I throw on my headphones and a marketing podcast, seminar recording, audio book, or other material, and can spend hours on end improving myself. Recently I’ve even grown accustomed to listening to everything at 2X speed, so I get twice as much content in the same amount of listening time.

Make this a habit, and it will be totally and completely transformational.

It was a breakthrough idea for Gary Bencivenga. It was a breakthrough idea for me. It’s probably worth you trying it, too.

Yours for bigger breakthroughs,

Roy Furr

Editor, Breakthrough Marketing Secrets