If not, have you worked with one in the past?
It is said that out of 100 people, three or four of them are considered sociopaths.
But what exactly is a sociopath?
According to PsychologyToday,
Sociopathy refers to a pattern of antisocial behaviors and attitudes, including manipulation, deceit, aggression, and a lack of empathy for others…Sociopaths may or may not break the law, but by exploiting and manipulating others, they violate the trust that the human enterprise runs on.
And you bet I have a lot of juicy stories of people in business who fit that definition, including copywriters.
For example:
Years ago, there was a person (We’ll name him Thomas) who was on Facebook reading some posts published by some copywriter (We’ll name him Kevin).
Like a lot of other copywriters, this guy was constantly posting sharing tips, resources, knowledge, and value.
At the time, Thomas happened to need a copywriter, so he reached out to Kevin for help. And Kevin made a good impression. He was smart, empathetic, kind, you know, all those good personality traits you wished in a copywriter. Not to mention, he had a portfolio full of successful sales letters and had a client history full of reputable businesses.
Thomas was impressed, and immediately hired Kevin to write a sales letter for him. He sent over a check for $10,000 and let Kevin take care of the rest.
He believed he was in good hands…
Until, the deadline comes and not a word from Kevin.
He waited a few days…nothing. And before he knew it, a few weeks went by…still no word from him.
He tried emailing and calling him, but they were ignored. He tried to message him on Facebook, but turns out, Kevin blocked him. He even tried to reach him through a friend of Kevin, and the friend got blocked too!
Finally, after some miracle, Thomas managed to get Kevin on the phone with him, and he came up with all these ridiculous excuses on why he went radio silent. Unfortunately, Thomas gave him the benefit of the doubt and believed him.
The very next day, Kevin turned some work in to Thomas.
But that “work” turned out to be a sales letter copied and pasted from one of Thomas’ competitors.
Obviously, he couldn’t use it. So he got on the phone with Kevin again and asked him what’s going on.
This time, there were no excuses. Kevin simply broke down crying, said he did the best he could, wished Thomas the best of luck, and vanished for good.
In the end, Thomas ended up with a plagiarized sales letter and a wasted 10 grand. Not only that, he found out that the sales letters in Kevin’s portfolio were also plagiarized.
So the lesson of this horror story?
There were several things Thomas could’ve done to prevent that whole situation from happening, and one of them was to do his due diligence like taking a closer look at his portfolio or contacting his past clients.
It’s no exception if you want to work with me as well.
Once you do your due diligence and still want to work together, use the link below.