Where would I be without this tool? I can’t even guess. I’m sure I wouldn’t be sitting in my warm basement, earning a living doing something I love.
I write for real estate professionals. How would I have found the ones who need me without the Internet? How would anyone know I could help them promote themselves? How would I have even known that real estate copywriting was a real job?
I wouldn’t have.
Somewhere in the back of my mind I knew there were people who wrote advertising, but I’m sure I 
didn’t know they were freelancers. I think I envisioned them all in some Madison Avenue office building or working on staff at some corporation.
I know I didn’t know that individual real estate agents hired people to help them promote themselves. After all, even after I’d been licensed for years, I’d never seen a prospecting letter, a personal brochure, or an agent bio. To this day, no agent in our small town has his or her own website.
When I became an agent, the brokerage placed the ads – and they were written by “the girls at the newspaper” for free. It wasn’t until I began reading the REALTOR® magazine that I learned about individual agents promoting themselves.
Those magazines, along with a couple of trips to the National REALTORS® Convention, pushed me into starting and promoting my own agency. Believe me – when you’re the only one in town doing any kind of real marketing, it isn’t difficult to become the #1 agency in town.
I was writing our ads, writing a monthly newsletter, writing prospecting letters, and creating flyers for boxes outside of homes. After a while I was writing web copy – and we were the only agency in town with a website.
But I still hadn’t thought about doing the same for other agents. It wasn’t until I started receiving promotions for the American Writers and Artists Institute that I began thinking that this was something I could do.
When I decided to take the leap, the Internet was crucial. Without it I would not have known where or how to get started.
Today, after reading books by many of our legendary copywriters, I know that freelancing goes back far into the past. But I think those early writers had an advantage I didn’t have.
For one thing, they knew that the occupation existed! Many of them did start out writing for ad agencies. Also, they lived in cities that housed large companies – the kind that did hire people to create advertising. They had some sort of focus for their own self-marketing.
I’m thankful for the Internet every day – for giving me a way to get started, and for allowing me to reach out to agents who need and want my help.
Image courtesy of punsayaporn at FreeDigitalPhotos.net
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