Quitting the Day Job

Article 3 of 5 in series "Setting Your Goal of Becoming a Copywriter"

So when do you feel safe enough to grab that goal of quitting your day job?

That depends on factors only you can determine, such as:

• Savings - Do you have a savings that allows you to quit at the 6 month mark?
• Household Income - Is there a working partner in the house to keep the bills up for you?
• Boldness - Are you bold and confident enough to jump into this and make it work straight away? Or do you need to ease into this, little by little?
• Health Insurance - Do you have a partner to carry health insurance for you or do you need to wait until your copywriting income is producing X amount of dollars to handle the bills plus self-employment health insurance?

Whatever time frame you decide on, make sure that you fully understand the techniques and strategies that make you a good copywriter. This includes the mechanics of writing a sales letter, how to persuade the reader to make a purchase, the uses of a sales letter, and how you can help your client efficiently use the promotional materials you build.

If you know that you need a savings account before you can feel safe quitting your day job, figure out how long you need to keep working. Determine how much you can save per month from your day job paycheck. If you're working part time on your copywriting, figure out what you can save from the jobs you do per month. How much savings do you need in the bank to feel safe about quitting? Take that figure and divide it by the amounts you're able to save and that will be how many months you need to keep working.

Are you feeling bold enough to step out on your own? Do you need to save money up first to join a mentoring program or attend a bootcamp for that extra push? If so, figure in time for you to achieve this side-goal. I've seen people add a few months to their plan to a year, depending on how quickly they can get hold of the money for this.

Perhaps, you're confident about the copywriting, but not the marketing. If you're an introvert who's not used to dealing with people, this could be a consideration. In this case, figuring in time to learn from a marketing expert through a mentoring program or a bootcamp is a good idea. Often the programs and bootcamps will combine both copywriting and marketing skills so you can advance in both.

Tomorrow I'll touch upon what it takes from YOU (on the inside) to learn copywriting.