Sometime just hearing a quote can make you completely change the way you’re viewing something.
Years ago I first heard the quote “You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with.”
I pondered on that concept, and realized it was quite true. That same day I organized a small event for some friends that are doing big things in life, just to be around them more.
That action started all because of a one-sentence quote.
Well here’s a list of copywriting quotes I’ve learned from over the years. Hopefully some of them inspire you in the right direction :-)
Collection of helpful Copywriting Quotes:
Here’s my collection of copywriting and marketing quotes you can use in your materials or get inspired by:
| Author: | Quote: |
|---|---|
| David Ogilvy | Talent, I believe, is most likely to be found among nonconformists, dissenters, and rebels. |
| David Ogilvy | Do not … address your readers as though they were gathered together in a stadium. When people read your copy, they are alone. Pretend you are writing to each of them a letter on behalf of your client. |
| Neville Medhora | No one cares about you, they care about themselves. |
| Gary Halbert | Sell people what they want to buy! |
| David Ogilvy | A good advertisement is one which sells the product without drawing attention to itself. |
| Joseph Sugarman | You sell on emotion, but you justify a purchase with logic. |
| Eugene Schwartz | Breakthrough Advertising is not about building better mousetraps. It is, however, about building larger mice - and then building a terrifying fear of them in your customers. |
| Leo Burnett | Anyone who thinks that people can be fooled or pushed around has an inaccurate and pretty low estimate of people - and he won't do very well in advertising. |
| Leo Burnett | Plan the sale when you plan the ad. |
| David Ogilvy | Never stop testing, and your advertising will never stop improving. |
| Eugene Schwartz | No sentence can be effective if it contains facts alone. It must also contain emotion, image, logic, and promise. |
| Gary Halbert | It is almost as if we have all been trained to accept capitalism, but only as part of the workforce. |
| William Bernbach | Nobody counts the number of ads you run; they just remember the impression you make. |
| Joseph Sugarman | All the elements in an advertisement are primarily designed to do one thing and one thing only: get you to read the first sentence of the copy. |
| Eugene Schwartz | There is your audience. There is the language. There are the words that they use. |
| Leo Burnett | Advertising says to people, 'Here's what we've got. Here's what it will do for you. Here's how to get it. |
| Mary Wells Lawrence | The best advertising should make you nervous about what you're not buying. |
| William Bernbach | Research can trap you into the past. |
| Maurice Saatchi | Advertising must respect the intelligence of its audience and if it does not prompt them to think, it will be instantly dismissed. |
| David Ogilvy | On the average, five times as many people read the headline as read the body copy. When you have written your headline, you have spent eighty cents out of your dollar. |
| David Ogilvy | It is flagrantly dishonest for an advertising agent to urge consumers to buy a product which he would not allow his own wife to buy. |
| Gary Halbert | Get yourself a collection of good ads and direct mail pieces and read them aloud and copy them in your own handwriting. |
| William Bernbach | Our job is to bring the dead facts to life. |
| Eugene Schwartz | The greatest mistake marketers make is trying to create demand. |
| Leo Burnett | To swear off making mistakes is very easy. All you have to do is swear off having ideas. |
| David Ogilvy | Our business is infested with idiots who try to impress by using pretentious jargon. |
| David Ogilvy | The headline is the 'ticket on the meat.' Use it to flag down readers who are prospects for the kind of product you are advertising. |
| Gary Halbert | The written word is the strongest source of power in the entire universe. |
| Gary Halbert | Find a market first... and then concentrate on a product! |
| William Bernbach | A great ad campaign will make a bad product fail faster. It will get more people to know it's bad. |
| William Bernbach | Properly practiced creativity must result in greater sales more economically achieved. Properly practiced creativity can lift your claims out of the swamp of sameness and make them accepted, believed, persuasive, urgent. |
| David Ogilvy | First, make yourself a reputation for being a creative genius. Second, surround yourself with partners who are better than you are. Third, leave them to go get on with it. |
| Joseph Sugarman | Everybody saw my successful advertising and thought I was a big success. But, behind those successes were several failures that I had to learn from before I made it. I've always looked at failure as just another step you need to take to reach success. |
| Eugene Schwartz | Copy is not written. If anyone tells you ‘you write copy’, sneer at them. Copy is not written. Copy is assembled. You do not write copy, you assemble it. You are working with a series of building blocks, you are putting the building blocks together, and then you are putting them in certain structures, you are building a little city of desire for your person to come and live in. |
| Leo Burnett | There's no such thing as 'hard sell' and 'soft sell.' There's only 'smart sell' and 'stupid sell.' |
| Leo Burnett | We want consumers to say, 'That's a hell of a product' instead of, 'That's a hell of an ad.' |
| Maurice Saatchi | If you can’t reduce your argument to a few crisp words and phrases, there’s something wrong with your argument. |
| Eugene Schwartz | This is the copywriters task: not to create mass desire — but to channel and direct it. |
| William Bernbach | An idea can turn to dust or magic, depending on the talent that rubs against it. |
| Leo Burnett | If you can't turn yourself into your customer, you probably shouldn't be in the ad writing business at all. |
| William Bernbach | The most powerful element in advertising is the truth. |
| Joseph Sugarman | Your readers should be so compelled to read your copy that they cannot stop reading until they read all of it as if sliding down a slippery slide. |
| Gary Halbert | HALT stands for hungry, angry, lonely and tired and you should never make a decision when you are any of those things. |
| David Ogilvy | If you ever have the good fortune to create a great advertising campaign, you will soon see another agency steal it. This is irritating, but don't let it worry you; nobody has ever built a brand by imitating somebody else's advertising. |
| William Bernbach | We are so busy measuring public opinion that we forget we can mold it. We are so busy listening to statistics we forget we can create them. |
| William Bernbach | All of us who professionally use the mass media are the shapers of society. We can vulgarize that society. We can brutalize it. Or we can help lift it onto a higher level. |
| Neville Medhora | Be interesting! Even if you have something interesting to say, your delivery can make people read, or run. |
| George Gribbin | A copywriter should have ‘an understanding of people, an insight into them, a sympathy toward them. |
| Stuart H. Britt | Doing business without advertising is like winking at a girl in the dark. You know what you are doing, but nobody else does. |
| Shirley Polykoff | Copy is a direct conversation with the consumer. |
| Gary Bencivenga | The vast majority of products are sold because of the need for love, the fear of shame, the pride of achievement, the drive for recognition, the yearning to feel important, the urge to look attractive, the lust for power, the longing for romance, the need to feel secure, the terror of facing the unknown, the lifelong hunger for self-esteem and so on. Emotions are the fire of human motivation, the combustible force that secretly drives most decisions to buy. When your marketing harnesses those forces correctly you will generate explosive increases in response. |
| Helen Woodward | In writing good advertising it is necessary to put a mood into words and to transfer that mood to the reader. |
Hope these help you! If you need more marketing inspiration, I’ve posted my entire personal swipe file for all to use.
Sincerely,
Neville Medhora
P.S. What’s a quote you’ve got a lot of value from? Post it in the comments below!
Post them in comments below. I will be sending 2 lucky commenters a free shirt, of any style, of any size, to any location in the world…for free!
This one is my favorite “You sell on emotion, but you justify a purchase with logic.
I always keep this in mind while writing my copy.
Hello Neville.
Thanks so much.
I’m change myself only to follow you and your articles. Thanks a lot. Your content it’s amazing.
Neville, this article completely changed the way I’m approaching the FB ads for my t-shirt biz. The response to my designs is tremendous, but no sales; so I’ve already re-written the copy for 3 of them. There is a magic combination of whirr-click words, and I’m gonna’ find it come hell or high water.
That’s awesome Annie, glad to be of service! Best of luck with the tshirt biz :)
How did you add the bottom chart on the blog ?
I asked your mom to do it for me.
“Selfish marketing doesn’t work” (Seth Godin) / “I give a f**k” (Gary Vaynerchuk).
I agree…..selfish doesn’t work well…GIVING works really well!
“If you can just divorce the story of your limitation and marry the truth of your unlimited capacity, then the whole game changes.” – Tony Robbins
Interesting. Not sure I like that one as much, it’s too complicated for my dumb brain :-P
Hahah
So it’s not passing the Caveman Test? Too bad ;(
“If you want things that other people don’t have, you’ve gotta be willing to do the things that other people don’t do” – Corey Booker
Love this one!
First things first, second things never
This became my mantra during an extremely challanging period which, thankfully, I am just about out of now. It focused me on the things of most importance and kept my marbles (mostly) together!
Oh wow, never heard that one before….I like this!
“For every Voldemort there’s an opposite and more powerful Dumbledore.” – The 9to5 MisFits. ;)
Bahahaha…..are you SURE this isn’t accredited to Harry Potter?? :-P
“It’s not that I’m so smart, it’s just that I stay with problems longer” ~ Albert Einstein & “Complexity is the enemy of execution.” ~ Tony Robbins
Always liked this Einstein quote :)
“Never half-ass two things. Whole-ass one thing.”
-Ron Swanson
Bahahhaha, Ron-ism’s are the best :)
Vision without action is a daydream. Action without vision is a nightmare.
Not sure where this came from, supposedly it’s a Japanese proverb. But it is essentially the same, just less military, as this from SunTzu: Strategy without tactics is the slowest route to victory. Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat.
I like them because so often we forget about the vision, the overall strategy and keep doing things without knowing what we do them for, just because they seem to be what we should do at the time.
Ohhh I like this a lot. I always need a reminder to be working towards a bigger goal!
Neville, can you please explain this quote by William Bernbach: “Research can trap you into the past.”
Thanks!
Also: “Rules are what the artist breaks; the memorable never emerged from a formula.” — Bill Bernbach
1.) I think it means by simply looking at what people have done in the past, you can miss some future opportunity.
Like if EVERYONE says they make their money through Facebook Ads, and you copy them only……you might be missing out on a far larger opportunity elsewhere.
2.) By just copying what everyone else is doing, you won’t stand out. Russell Simmons once spoke about how RUN DMC was so incredibly different, that at first no one took them seriously. But then the culture and tastes shifted towards their type of music, and then EVERYONE listened.
“Invention, it must be humbly admitted, does not consist in creating out of void but out of chaos.” ― Mary Shelley
I love this quote because it encourages you to look around and reflect on what to use as building blocks for your work and not wait around for an idea to pop out of nowhere. The Universe was created out of chaos after all :)
Very true….some of the biggest innovations in the world came because of big problems.
‘You regret more the things you didn’t do than the things you did.’ Don’t know where I heard this although researching it now seems to be a summary of a Mark Twain quote. To me it means that you don’t want to be left wondering in 20 years: “What if I had done that?” I’d rather try something and fail than not try at all…and I have failed a lot.
I super agree with this!
Most people regret stuff they DIDN’T do more. Awesome quote :)
“You can’t cross a chasm with two small jumps” Former British Prime Minister David Lloyd George
What if it’s a really small chasm?? 😜
Neville? That first jump will still get you every time. :D
“People don’t remember who you are, they remember how do you make them feel” !!
Super true. You make me feel like a naturalllll woommmaaannnnnn…..
I like Sugarman’s “buying on emotion, then justifying with logic”. So true, and speaks a lot to what I’ve been exploring recently (that everything we do comes from our emotional world, either emotional comfort or discomfort, but as creatures of modern society, we don’t live in the emotional world, and we think everything is either mental or physical, so we justify it on that level).
Super true for expensive purchases such as a Mercedes car…..yeah you buy it because “it drives well and has high quality engineering.”
…..but really you drive it cause it makes you look rich :-P
“No Patrick, mayonnaise is not an instrument.”
– Squidward
Truer words have never been spoken 😶
“All good things come to an end, and in the end: all things come good.” — Misappropriated to way too many old sage sayings.
Bahahaha, not super sure what this means!
“Money is, at its essence, that measure of a man’s choices.” Marty Byrde from Netflix’s Ozark.
Oh nice! Earl Nighingale said something similar like: “You can judge a man like you judge an apple tree, by the quality of his fruit.”
“You can’t make chicken salad out of chicken shit” – high school coach
Hahaha…..interesting :p
Thank you for this, Neville. This copywriting quotes will help me to keep copywriting in perspective for me.
“The day you stop learning is the day you start dying.”- The world itself.
I like that quote!
Hahaha, quoting yourself, love it.
Heard you say this on a podcast “No one cares about you, they care about themselves.”
Have found that to be a very true statement the older I get.
Hey……that’s how you fake going down in history. Just quote yourself a bunch till others start quoting you also 😛
Schwartz really nailed it with his quote on “writing” copy. It’s hard to explain to people how copywriting is different and the importance of that difference to their business.
“Copy is not written. If anyone tells you ‘you write copy’, sneer at them. Copy is not written. Copy is assembled. You do not write copy, you assemble it. You are working with a series of building blocks, you are putting the building blocks together, and then you are putting them in certain structures, you are building a little city of desire for your person to come and live in.”
I’ve had this one in my swipe file for years, really like it!
I’ve got 2 quotes I like and try to live by:
1) Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it’s time to pause and reflect – Mark Twain
2) Failure shows us the way, by showing us what isn’t the way – Ryan Holiday (but might actually be a stoic philosopher)
Good one’s Sunny!
I love this one: “Working smart is harder than working hard. It’s just less visible, and we care too much about what others see.” Life is short and it shouldn’t be wasted. Work smarter and not harder!
Good one Jarvee :)
“That which hinders your task…is your task.” – Sanford Meisner
NICE! I really like this one Andrew, never heard it.
Possibly shirt-worthy!
“It is far better to rely on your own strength instead of somebody else’s compassion.”
— Gary Halbert Boron Letters
I like it….makes you take responsibility over your own life.
“The most important thing is to be able, at any moment, to sacrifice what we are for what we could become” – Charles DuBois. Reminds me that I will need to make sacrifices to become a better person. I got this tattooed on my arm when I was in college, I’ve never regretted it!
Oh wow, now THAT’S some commitment to the quote!
“Life is a slam dunk when you’re living with low goals”
Bahahahhaha, funny :)
The most powerful element in advertising is the truth. – This one, definitely. I have experienced at least two businesses fall that wanted to compete with me with false advertising/marketing (without educating people). One has even destroyed the niche but also itself.
Super true Matt!
In the short run, you can maybe scam a few people into buying stuff that is false…..OR you can make a legit business that never goes away, constantly helps people, and constantly brings you money for the long run.
“None of us are getting out of here alive…
So stop treating yourself like an after thought.
Eat the delicious food.
Walk in the sunshine.
Jump in the ocean.
Say the truth that you’re carrying in your heart like hidden treasure.
Be silly. Be kind. Be weird.
There’s no time for anything else.”
Agreed!
Pretty much the end of the story for all of us is: We die. So have fun and don’t take it TOO seriously.
I actually made a death calculator for myself:
http://www.nevblog.com/death-calculator/
Here is one for when you are getting a little to greedy in something….”Pigs get fat. Hogs get slaughtered.”
Interesting :)
“Walk On!”
After breaking his back, doctors told Bruce Lee he would never walk again.
That didn’t stop him though, so he wrote those two words on the back of a business card and it put it in a place that would remind him everyday to walk on, and fight.
And after a painful, and frustrating year of recovery, he got into the best shape of his life, and also wrote his famous book The Art of Jeet Kune Do.
A wonderfully simple quote that inspires me to keep walking on, even when I feel like throwing in the towel. :)
That’s awesome how simple yet effective that is for you Kyel!
Something like this_> “You can work HARD but if you don’t work SMARTER, you work for the rest of your life”
That’s super true.
While I always expect to be working for 99% of my life, it’s still better to where you work smarter so your efforts are compounded (either by automation or hiring great people to help out and get rich with you) :)
In the long run, we shape our lives, and we shape ourselves. The process never ends until we die and the choices we make are ultimately our own responsibility. ~ Eleanor Roosevelt
Very good Tina! I like any quote that makes people take responsibility for their actions and life.
Be kinder than necessary, everyone you meet is fighting some kind of battle.
Some days you’re the dog, others you’re the hydrant, be nice regardless.
Bahahahahah, that’s a great one Forest :)
My Favorite quote is
“Luck happens when preparation meets opportunity”
– Roman Philosopher Seneca
That one is definitely a classic :)
Something to remember when someone hurts you:
‘HURT PEOPLE HURT PEOPLE’
Don’t take it personally…
I really really like this one Hannah, never heard that!
“Victory goes to the most persevering” – Napoleon Bonaparte. This is a quote I think of often, particularly when facing a setback. The only guaranteed way to fail is to give up!
Nice! It’s a good quote to follow….but ALSO good to know when to pull the plug!
“First write, then edit”.
I’m not sure of the author, but the quote helps me to overcome inertias any time I want to write and don’t seem to starting with a bang.
Good one! Also helpful to know that what you write the first time doesn’t have to be set in stone.
Fortune favors the bold.
Love this one….had it in my head for years.
“The cave you fear to enter holds the treasure you seek.” – Joseph Campbell
What if the cave is full of scary monsters?? 😐
“Chop your own wood, and it will warm you twice” – Henry Ford
I read this a while ago and made a copy of it to stick in my purse so I always have it! It reminds me to really dig in and learn for myself (especially because I tend to love planning/researching vs. executing) because that will bring in more benefits.
It helped me move from wantrepreneur to actually doing stuff.
Oh wow, I’ve never heard that one before, great find! Possibly shirt-worthy :)
“Everybody makes mistakes, that’s why they put erasers on pencils.”
— Tommy Lasorda
Hahahah, good thing to tell someone who just screwed up!
Good reminders in this article.
One of my favorite quotes is, “if you think it’s a big deal, it will be.”
Basically, anything you’re scared of will get amplified. You’ll be living in one big self-fulfilling prophecy.
Oh very true, good one Edwin!
If i must be a slave to habit let me be a slave to good habits.My bad habits must be destroyed and new furrows prepared for good seed. Og mandino
Good one! Warren Buffet has a similar thing (paraphrased): “You can simply look at the people you admire, and just start acting like them.”
“The effect you have on others is the most valuable currency there is.” – JIM CARREY
That’s an interesting one.
But will cause you to hide out behind fear, but will cause you to come up with all types of excuses that you can validate your inaction and not acting on your dream. “But” is a dream-killer. ~ Les Brown
Nice Adam!
@Neville – is it possible to build a brand, (like quote.com) around quotes?
I’ve been trying to dovetail social and transactional without a lot of success
examples:
https://quote.com/auto-insurance/einstein/
https://quote.com/life-insurance/one-quote-convinced/
Feel a “5 degree turn” from @Neville could do the trick? ;)
Lol…..selling insurance with Einstein quotes?? I’m no insurance person, but I imagine that’s not going to be super effective vs showing how to save money or get the best insurance for the money.
Is Quote.com your site?
yup, my site
the approach is more top of funnel driven ;)
einstein + quotes introduce a curiosity gap/dissonance (playing off the ubiquity that is quotations)
the idea would be to remarket those folks a direct response offer, and/or get them in a automated sequence to nurture them to the bottom of the funnel
Tao Te Ching – Lao Tzu – chapter 78
Nothing is more soft and yielding than water.
Yet for attacking the solid and strong, nothing is better;
It has no equal.
The weak can overcome the strong;
The supple can overcome the stiff.
Under heaven everyone knows this,
Yet no one puts it into practice.
Therefore the sage says:
He who takes upon himself the humiliation of the people
is fit to rule them.
He who takes upon himself the country’s disasters deserves
to be king of the universe.
The truth often seems paradoxical.
Water when forceful is destructive, when in flow is transformational. As my yoga teacher always taught me, soften your outer, hardened edges. It’s easy to put on armor and masks, to be what we think others want, but it serves no one. Slowly, softly, surely stepping more into my unique gifts, offering up in service and in love, is what truly brings abundance not only to my life, but those in it. When I release my attachment to outcome, I can focus on the goal while staying open to the infinite possibilities- most of which were better than I originally imagined!
Oh wow, deep!
“Loves people and uses things, the contrary does not work” – Minimalism
Interesting, never heard this one before Saint!
“Life’s a bitch and then you die…go for what attracts you” Felix Dennis
Nice…Felix Dennis is one of my favorite authors. “How To Get Rich” is in my Top 3 books.
“Just sell the damn thing.”
Gary Halbert’s advice to John Carlton, after reading through a draft of John’s copy that was dragging on, doing everything it could to sound smart, witty, and justified, doing everything… but selling the ‘damn’ thing.
“Just sell the damn thing.” Simple and concise…
Bahahhaha, that’s a cool lesson eh?
“You don’t have to be great to get started, but you have to get started to be great!” – Les Brown
Super good quote!
“If you hate something, don’t you do it, too.” – Edward Louis Severson, aka Eddie Vedder of Pearl Jam, “Not For You”
Hahah, anything by Eddie Vedder is pretty good in my opinion :)
I have several quotes I love, for which I have a small notebook to make note of the notable (hah!) ones. A good one, which I try to remind myself of often, which also relates to your opening quote, is this:
“You can’t change the people around you, but you can change the people around you”. Don’t know if he/they are the originators, but I got that from “The Minimalists” (Joshua Fields Millburn & Ryan Nicodemus)
Another, from the minimalists (which feels odd mentioning on in tandem with writing copy) is: “Love people, and use things; because the opposite never works”.
Finally, the great Zig Zigglar on investing in people (employees, etc): “I’d rather train someone and lose them, than not train them and keep them”.
Love these Hugo! Possible a shirt-worthy post :)
One that is is this one: “The most learn speak the least while the ignorant speak the most” Chinese proverb…
Totally true. You see it online and in person, there’s always a super-vocal 5 or 10 percent of a population.
“action beats perfection”
It’s short, easy to remember and kick people in their ass. Just right!
You don’t have to get it perfect. You just have to get started! – Ryan Levesque, The Ask Method
I definitely agree!
You ARE the man, Neville.
Give your lovely prize-winning shirt to someone who would do it more justice than I. Of course, Sunday, 30 September is my 70th birthday so if you wish to send a Tesla roadster to me here in China, I won’t refuse.
I’m an editor mostly, so I’ll give you a great Elmore Leonard quote about editing. “Write the book the way it should be written, then give it to somebody to put in the commas and shit.”
Happy early birthday! And may the joy of driving that Tesla be yours!
Bahahha…sending one Tesla P100D your way Terence :-P
A quote so encouraging that I wrote it on a card and stuck it on my desk. It’s a boost to start my day with, it takes away any self-doubt or hesitations and kicks me right into gear!
“What is *impossible* that I am going to do today?”
“I’ve been through a lot of bad things in my life, some of which actually happened.” – Mark Twain
Bahahhaha
Do it today for …. Tomorrow Never Comes (proverbs)
…also a James Bond movie :-P
You see the world not as it is, you see the world as you are.
Very true. If you are always sad and depressed, then everything seems like that.
If you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change. – Dr. Wayne Dyer
Ohhhh really good one!
“If you’re going to be foolish… then you have to be tough”
Interesting.
“To know the road ahead, ask those coming back.” – Chinese Proverb
Oh I REALLY like this Miguel, never heard it. Possibly shirt-worthy post!
The only thing standing between you and your goal is the bullshit story you keep telling yourselves as to why we can’t achieve it.
– Jordan Belfort (The wolf of wall street)
Hahaha, lots of good lessons from that guy despite having a dubious past!
All of these quotes carry weight and value – but this one stood out like a flash of lightning among light-bulbs:
“No sentence can be effective if it contains facts alone. It must also contain emotion, image, logic, and promise.”
I’m afraid my thinking is forever altered…
Thanx – I needed that.
Glad this one helped!!
Great article, as always! ;)
The most relevant quote for me is:
‘Be yourself; everyone else is already taken.’ (Oscar Wilde)
So let’s work on personal branding! :)
I love that one too!
Bahahha, that’s a good one! I tell people if they are boring, JUST WRITE BORING, because other boring people will find you and like you :)
Find A Market First … And Then Concentrate On A Product! by Gary Halbert. We live in an egocentric world; most businesses have this backward, they build something, and then they try to find a market.
This is one of the quotes we made into an image in the post also!
https://copywritingcourse.com/wp-content/uploads/gary-halbert-quote-find-the-market-first-1024×403.jpg
First check and make sure it’s plugged in. ~my Mother
Bahhaha….I feel like this applies to more than just a TV or stereo :-P
Even a great product can’t save a bad copy.
True….definitely need at LEAST decent marketing to go along with a great product.
Life is too short, do what matters most and do it today.
Nice! Kinda sounds like an Instagram quote :-P
“Why is anything worth doing?”
This sounds like some nihilistic/negative question, but it forces me to always reconsider my actions. For example, if I find myself procrastinating, I’d ask myself this as a way to reconnect with my goals. The answer varies when you ask people “why is x worth doing? What do you get out of it?” which really tells what their priorities are.
Interesting way of looking at things J. I bet asking yourself what procrastinating brings is a GREAT way to guilt yourself into productivity!
Take chances, make mistakes. That’s how you grow. Pain nourishes your courage. You have to fail in order to practice being brave.”
– Mary Tyler Moore
Totally true, we definitely learn from our mistakes a ton.
“You can have everything in life you want, if you will just help other people get what they want” Zig Ziglar. This was the guiding principle in my sales career. Focus on the customer, put yourself in their shoes… and always leave them wanting more of your time.
Oh that’s a really good one Charles, possible shirt-worthy!
Risk more than others think is safe. Care more than others think is wise. Dream more than others think is practical. Expect more than others think is possible. I have seen this variously attributed but most frequently to Claude Bissell or Anon
Good one Charles!
“Who strives not when he should strive, who, though young and strong, is given to idleness, who is loose in his purpose and thoughts, and who is lazy – that idler never finds the way to wisdom.”
– Buddha (this is a legitimate quote too)
Lol, kinda sounds like how Yoda talks.
This one really inspires me:
“Think little goals and expect little achievements. Think big goals and win big success.”
– David Joseph Schwartz
That’s a good one Isa! I’ve noticed if you aim super big, even your “failure” is bigger than a small success.
Negativity is not worth your energy.
So very true!
Definitely!
“Don’t give up before the miracles happen!” – Some wise dude 😎
That’s a great one!
The way a man does one thing, he does everything.
– Thomas Craig
Ohhh that’s pretty good.
Like if you always half-ass something, most other things you half-ass. Interesting.
It’s what you do when you do have to that will determine what you will be when you can longer help it.
Ok here it is – It’s what you do when you don’t have to that will determine what you will be when you can no longer help it.
The wording on this one hurts my brain :-P
You can fail at what you don’t want.
So why not take a chance on doing what you love?
– Jim Carrey
Ohhh really like this one!
Perfection is the enemy of accomplishment
Pizza is the enemy of my hunger.
And my hunger to accomplish is the enemy of my enemy….
“Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one.” (Albert Einstein)
This is super true. From a quantum level looking at our reality would look super weird :)
“Do you know what is the most-often missing ingredient in a sales message? It’s the sales message doesn’t tell an interesting story.”
– Gary Halbert
So true!
Very true!
I think sometimes in products like software that do a specific thing, you don’t need as much of a story…but it sure helps!
I think here’s a good one:
“Build it, and they will come” only works in the movies. Social Media is a “build it, nurture it, engage them and they may come and stay.” by Seth Godin
That made a big impact on my perception of marketing in the new age.
Ohh wow, I really like this one! Kinda reminds me of Gary Vaynerchuk’s concept of “Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook.”
Hey Neville, thank you for the great work, I read your book recently.
I have a question, I have been reading the books you recommend. I feel I have the fundamentals of copy writing. The thing is how can I make sure these sink in my mind. How can I apply all these rules, maybe something like a checklist? or will it come with time as I keep reading and writing ads.
Thanks again.
Hey Belal, glad you like my stuff!
I have a whole list of simple copywriting exercises that you can perform here:
https://copywritingcourse.com/copywriting-exercises/
Just do some of those everyday and you will start becoming a much better copywriter!!