Yesterday I had a consultation with a young guy who's been writing copy for a couple of years.

With all the recent noise about AI, he's seen that the writing is on the wall for at least 80% of the people who currently go by the title of Copywriter.

Of course the very best will stay in the game and prosper.

They already have personal brands, referral networks, and deep portfolios of wins that will continue to generate business for years to come.

Plus, if they make use of the new AI tools, they will become 3-10x as productive as they are now.

But on the other hand...

The lower end of the market is going to find themselves squeezed out and even further commoditized by our new robot helpers.

And it's going to be much harder for newcomers to get a foothold in the market.

All this to say - 'copywriting biz op' is looking a lot less sexy now than it did a couple of years ago when Dan Lok was riding high in his shiny red satin suit.

Anyway, I digress.

This young guy came to me understanding the above.

He wanted help with creating a unique offer to move himself away from being an undifferentiated 'service provider'.

But he was feeling some imposter syndrome because the wins in his portfolio weren't blockbuster numbers he could use to make the '7 figures in 7 minutes' type claims we all know and love.

The reason for this has nothing to do with his skills, which are rock solid...

But his choice of market.

The thing is, he's chosen a market and a niche that is personally meaningful to him and aligned with his deepest interests...

But it's not the most lucrative market in the world.

The clients he works with don't make claims about getting abs without exercise, curing cancer with happy thoughts, or making it rain like an Atlanta strip club.

They work on helping people with personal issues that are holding them back, and their key outcomes tend to be of a personal nature - overcoming trauma, building confidence, letting go of past disappointments, finding ways to become more optimistic, and looking toward future goals.

All very valuable work, but a bit harder to pin a monetary value outcome to.

With that said - the results my client is getting for his clients are still moving the needle in their businesses...

It's just that they might not sound so transformational when compared to a blockbuster biz-op that promises billionaire status by Bugs Bunny Day (April 30).

IMO, this doesn't really matter, and I told him so.

If you compare a Mandarin orange to a grapefruit based on size alone, it looks pretty poor...

But the enjoyment you'll get from either is really a matter of taste.

Yes, money and financial results are important.

Most of us got in this business not just for money, but also for more control and freedom over the direction of our lives.

And success is a slippery thing to define.

For me - it's making sure all my responsibilities are taken care of without me being subservient to any person or organization.

In that sense, I've already 'made it', and anything from here on out is just gravy.

I encouraged my young friend to take a similar view.

I got him to write up case studies for a list of the 5 most meaningful results he'd delivered for his clients to date.

And use those case studies as a starting point for offers he can sell to his audience.

Like the smart guy he is, he went off and did this right away, and sent the case studies to me this morning.

Now we've got 5 possible offers to test... And if any one of them gets traction, he's going to have unique positioning in his market that stops him getting lumped in with the undifferentiated mass of commodity copywriters.

If it doesn't work? No worries.

Back to the whiteboard and try again.

Persistence and the willingness to take creative risks are both fundamental skills worth developing for their own sake.

They're the 2 things that will let us humans keep an edge on our Frankenstein creations for at least a couple more years 😉

Your friend,

John Caprani