On a recent holiday we caught up with a family friend, retired well and truly from business and now taking a well earned lifestyle break from as he put it “All that stuff”.
He got chatting about his fathers business, it turned out he had a couple of retail stores that were really big and his business made it through the depression and WW2. So I asked (how could I not) about what made these businesses successful… He said “You know what I asked my father this on a number of occasions and he was unswerving in his answer. Be great with people and always have honest headlines and honest copy.” that was it.
I know I have even been guilty of trying to make copy do things it can’t do as it stretches the truth between the lines, but our friends father was implicit that the honesty be there.
I recall thinking how elegant the response was, ‘Great with people and good honest copy’. Task No 1, take a look at yours and ask how good is the copy, and of course if you are followers of great business practices you will already be working solidly in being great with people.
#1 by Michael Crooks on February 3, 2008 - 2:17 pm
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Steve,
There;s a difference between how “good” your copy is and how “honest” it is. I believe the old man wasn’t just talking about advert copy. His reference to “honest copy” was a metaphor for everything you say and do. So I agree with you that we must all take stock. But when it comes to our copy ie: what we say and do, lets not confuse “good” with “honest”. Because there’s a whole lot of good copy out there that’s as dishonest as it is good.