I heard Rory Sutherland talk about how the job of copywriters is like detective work.

I already used to make that comparison, especially when it comes to the type of research, to paying attention to detail, to speaking to and extracting information from people.

But what he said had another angle.

Copywriting is like detective work, because the middle, muddy and messy investigative work can be boring and repetitive. You might not find anything useful or relevant in your research for weeks.

It can be demoralizing.

But then, with persistence and trust in the process, you get to a realization. That big idea. That aha! moment.

And suddenly it all starts making sense.

All your work acquires a seemingly linear and logical form.

That’s the way you ultimately present it to your clients.

They don’t know the hurdles, the painstaking, redundant work of filtering out what doesn’t matter, so you could bring to them only what does.

And that’s fine.

I find it a great reminder, for anyone, not only copywriters.

Whenever you’re doubting your work or process, and no matter the messy middle, trust that by the end, you too will have a neatly packaged story to tell.

It happened a lot while creating something I’ve been meaning to put out for a while.

It’s the entire step by step process I use to figure out what might be blocking conversions on a website from a copy and UX stand point.

You can read it here.

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