There are a few copywriter habits that can either be considered a bad habit or a superpower, and how you frame it makes all the difference. In this article, I’m breaking down each of the four copywriter habits and showing you how to flip the bad habit into a superpower. 

Isn’t it amazing how making a few tweaks on how you think about something can shift the action you take can make a huge difference in the outcome you get. 

Scrolling Social Media

The first bad habit is scrolling social media. If you write sales copy for paid campaigns and online promotions where you’re working with clients and putting out content and emails and sales funnels and ads, you’re going to be spending time scrolling social media. 

We all know how easy it is to just keep going and keep binge-watching your favorite creators.  Before you know it, an hour has gone by you’re still on Tik Tok, and that email you were supposed to write hasn’t even been started yet. Yikes, right? Scrolling the socials can be one of the worst time-sucking copywriter habits – or anyone, really. 

But did you know there’s a way you can get your social media time and have it benefit your business, too, if you strategically use the time you spend scrolling to do social research? 

There are a lot of different ways you can use social media to benefit your business. First of all, when you’re purposeful about it, you can use social media to hone your ability to tap into target audiences in terms of what’s trending in the industries you write for by looking at what’s working and what’s not. So … how do you do it without getting distracted by the scroll?

Set a time limit and an objective. Turn that bad scrolling habit into a social media research superpower that will benefit your business by changing how you approach it. Hold yourself accountable by deciding on a specific objective you want to research, then give yourself a time limit to do it. 

Shiny Object Syndrome

I don’t know if it’s just me, but I feel like a lot of freelance copywriters tend to have an overabundance of “stuff” cluttering up our hard drives. I know I do. Maybe it’s the latest book on copy, or a course, membership, or mastermind. How about that program you’ve always wanted to join, or the latest challenge by an influencer?

We tend to just opt into stuff because we like to see what other people are doing. We don’t want to think we’re missing out on something that’s going to work. We want to keep growing our skill sets. 

But no matter how great all that stuff is, when all we do is just let stuff clutter up our hard drive, and we never actually use it, what good is it? Shiny object syndrome – that behavior pattern of always getting the new thing (the new course, the new offer, the new book) but never actually implementing anything is dangerous to your business. 

Let’s turn that bad habit into a copywriter superpower by shutting down our purchasing and consuming the content we’ve already purchased. Do it! Read the book, watch the training, and take action. 

Getting inside other people’s programs, books, and courses is not a bad idea. Looking at how others put things together is a great way to research the industry. You can get really strategic about it and take notes as you go. This can really benefit your clients when they come to you for advice on strategy, too. 

If you’re only putting those programs, books, courses, whatever on your hard drive, but never hopping into them, you’re missing a goldmine of information that could help you and your clients create stronger offers, try new things, and get better conversions. Use what you already have to help benefit your business, and kick this copywriter habit to the curb. 

Comparing Yourself with Others

Another copywriter habit many of us can fall into is comparing ourselves to other influencers. Copywriters aren’t the only ones who can fall into this – it can be a pitfall for anyone in any industry – but it’s worth mentioning because we all face it, and it can absolutely bring your business to a screeching halt if you let it.

We all have our favorite people we follow on social media. These are the people we admire, the people who make us laugh, the people who are ahead of us in their businesses. We tend to look up to them and be like, “Gosh, look at what they’re doing. That’s amazing, I wish I could do something like that” of “I’m never going to be able to do anything like that”. 

When we do that, we get so wrapped up in what’s going on in other people’s lives and businesses we forget to take action on our own. We sell ourselves short on what we can accomplish by comparing ourselves to others. This is not okay. It’s a really bad habit. 

There’s nothing wrong with having favorite influencers or people we like to follow, and we can combat the comparison trap by turning that bad habit on its head without having to stop following all of our favorite influencers. Here’s how!

Turn that bad habit on its head by looking at what others are doing and taking what will be useful for our own businesses and modeling it. For instance, if you see a copywriter really dialing in on a certain type of copy, take a closer look. Ask yourself how you can implement your own version of what they’re doing into your own business and pitch it to clients. 

Use what you learn to help benefit your business and help yourself grow. Honestly, there’s probably somebody who’s looking at YOU right now and thinking, “I wish I could be like that. I wish I was that far ahead. I wish I was that funny. I wish I had four goats in my front yard.” 

Remember, you can’t get so focused on what everyone else is doing that you neglect your own business. Stop the comparison game and model what works inside your business. 

Doing Everything Yourself

Out of all four copywriter habits, trying to do everything myself is the one I probably have the most trouble with, and I’m guessing I’m not the only one. I started a business because I love writing copy, and I’m good at it. I didn’t just start a business to start a business. I am the technician inside my business. 

It’s hard to delegate when you’re the technician inside your business to delegate. Every technician business owner has a certain way of doing things it works for them. I would get frustrated trying to get help because I had to take time out to teach someone else how, and no one else could do it quite like me. “Oh, it’s just quicker if I do it myself” was a common thought in my brain.

This type of thinking will restrict the growth of your business like nothing else will. You cannot do everything inside your business and expect to keep growing. You can get to $150k-$250k per year doing it all yourself if you charge really decent rates. Once you get to that level, if you still want to grow, you have to start buying back some of your time by hiring people to help you. 

Does that mean you have to stop doing everything yourself? Yes, it does. But as you ease yourself back from that, use that transition time of doing everything yourself to record SOPs and trainings you can use to train people. 

It won’t happen overnight, but you can have a much better onboarding experience with the people you bring on to help you grow your business by just recording what you do today. The only way you’ll ever clone yourself inside your business is if you make a record of how you do what you do to get the results that you get so that someone else can learn from it. 

Do the thing just one more time. Do your process, do your framework, do your recipe just one more time … but this time record it step by step this time, and then use that to help someone else inside your business be able to serve you better. This is the only way you can buy back some of your time and continue to grow. 

I’m the worst at this to be honest. I am the slowest ever at integrating and forcing myself to not try to do everything. Not only do I tell myself it’s quicker if I just do it myself real quick, but I don’t like to feel like I’m putting anybody out. I’m that person who says, “Oh, I don’t want to ask them to do that. What if they’re busy right now? I don’t know, maybe they don’t like doing that particular task.” Guess what? That’s not gonna help my business grow. 

Kick These Copywriter Habits

These four copywriter habits can become super strengths inside your business when you flip the way you think about each one and get very purposeful about the action you take. Scrolling social can turn into social research time for the benefit of yourself and your clients. Getting too many courses, books, programs memberships can turn into industry research on what’s working and different ways that you can help your clients and your own programs up level. Comparing yourself to influencers can turn into modeling what works in a way that works for your business. Doing everything yourself can turn into creating systems and processes that can help you help someone else. 

Almost anything can be turned into a positive if you change the way you think and change the action you take surrounding it! Want to learn more about freelance copywriting as a career? Click here to check out my free course on how to attract and land copywriting clients.