15 Bloodthirsty Villains Who
Will Try to Murder Your Clientless
Copywriting Business
By Ben Settle

The single most important asset you can have if you want to have a successful clientless copywriting business is having your inner game tight.

What that means is, people don’t fail because they lack talent or skills.

Or because they don’t have money.

Or even because they don’t have time.

Those are just excuses kicked up by the “rationalization hamster” inside all our heads.

No, the main reason someone fails in this business is that their inner game is weak, and they fall prey to the exact same “mind villains” who routinely bring down otherwise-smart, talented, and dedicated writers. Below are 15 of the most common of these villains who could very well be stalking you before you even begin.

1. The Not Comfortable With (Or Don’t Think You Deserve) Success Villain — If you aren’t comfortable with success, you’ll likely sabotage yourself when you achieve it. Many great marketers (like, for example, Gary Halbert) were, by their own admission, notorious for doing this.

2. The Not Comfortable With (Or Don’t Think You Deserve) Money Villain — Same as above, if you’re not comfortable with money, or don’t think you deserve it, you won’t be able to keep it even if you make it.

3. The Poor Attitude Villain — It’s astonishing how many people don’t even like themselves, yet still wonder why nobody wants to buy from them or do business with them.

4. The Paralyzing Fear of Failure Villain — This could very well be the most common of all the inner-game villains, and it often manifests itself as procrastination and/or analysis paralysis.

5. The Play the Marketing Game to Not Lose Instead of Playing to Win Villain — It’s hard to make any real leaps in your business if you play it safe and never take chances (on new ideas, tests, sales letters, emails, and so on).

6. The Too Lazy to Do the Work Villain — Like the late Earl Nightingale used to say, it’s futile to sit in front of the stove and say, “Give me heat, and then I’ll add the wood!”

7. The Don’t Make a Plan and Stick to It Villain — With the explosion of new marketing products and systems, it’s easy to get distracted and quit one thing only to try something else, then rinse and repeat.

8. The Don’t Specialize Villain — By not specializing in something, you automatically make yourself expendable, and easily ignored.

9. The Won’t Even Commit a Single Hour of Each Day to Building Their Business Villain — I once heard “A-list” copywriter John Carlton say anyone who works for two solid hours per day (actual writing time) can move mountains. I would say, even just one hour will put you way ahead of anyone else.

10. The Blame Others for Their Problems Villain — A helpful philosophy to live by is, no matter what happens to you, “it is always your fault.” And even if it’s not, taking responsibility makes you better, sharper, wiser, and less likely to make more mistakes.

11. The Care Too Much What Others Think Villain — Most people are broke, are going nowhere, and are like crabs in a bucket: When they see you try to crawl out and do something noteworthy with your life, their first instinct is to try to pull you back in. Why in the world would you care what they think?

12. The Afraid of Criticism Villain — The great Dan Kennedy teaches that the most successful and highest-paid entrepreneurs he knows have an incredible tolerance to criticism. The only way you can develop that is to not avoid it, and even seek it out regularly until it no longer bothers you.

13. The Zero Accountability Villain — If you have no accountability to yourself, your goals, or your mission in life, you will never find lasting success.

14. The Lack of Character Villain — There’s a saying that goes, “Character is following through on a decision long after the excitement of the moment has passed.” Having no character is like being a house with a shoddy foundation: You’ll be easily wiped out the first time a strong wind hits you.

15. The Poor Time Management Villain — Most people don’t value their time or anyone else’s, making themselves untrustworthy by default, and showing would-be customers they aren’t safe to buy from.

There are many more “villains” in addition to these. In fact, there is an infinite number of them. But, these 15 are some of the most common ones.

Question is, what do you do to defeat them?

One of the best weapons I have ever used to destroy them is to simply do this:

When you’re building your clientless copywriting business, before you say you “can’t” do something you know you need to do or are putting off, replace “can’t” with “won’t.”

Doing this will make you realize you are the only thing holding you back, not some imaginary roadblock like money, time, or ability.

Because at the end of the day, you are your own worst villain or best hero. The difference is all in how you think.

Bottom line:

Print out this list of 15 inner-game villains, and carefully go through them regularly as you build your clientless copywriting business. If you find any that are keeping you back, confront and defeat them by replacing “can’t” with “won’t.”

The rest will take care of itself.