The 5 Reasons Inexperience Wins
What You Don’t Know Could Be Your Greatest Asset
When clients initially reach out to me with a potential freelance copywriting project, they can’t help asking if I have experience working in their particular industry or category. It’s a logical question. In the vetting process, clients generally prefer a writer who has been there. In theory someone with insights into their industry needs less ramping up to begin generating great ideas.
Here’s the funny thing: my automotive, healthcare, banking, or (insert product/service here) experience isn’t necessarily an advantage. How do I know this? Each year, I’m given an opportunity to work in areas I’d never touched in my 20-year career. Recently, it was a beverage startup. Before that, it was a maker of children’s eyeglasses. Before that, a sports bra. Before that, an airport. And so on.
These projects ended up benefiting as much from my inexperience as any experience I may have had. Agencies know this every time they land a client. Creative and account services departments love a new challenge. There’s an energy that comes with exploring unfamiliar territory. But it goes beyond that.
There are a number of practical reasons to view inexperience as an asset. Here are a few that come to mind.
1. Familiarity Breeds Contempt.
Ask anyone who has been there. It’s a challenge approaching the same category, day in and day out, with new and interesting angles. Over time, ideas flow less freely than in the early days, when everything was new. Any given subject can begin to feel draining. Eventually the well runs dry. In creative terms, it’s like Groundhog Day. Even the most creative minds can slide into repeat mode. For someone without category experience (or baggage), seeing Bill Murray deliver the weather is a breath of fresh air. After all, it’s the first time.
2. No Experience = No Baggage.
Work in a category long enough and you start to know the ropes. You learn the ideas you can get away with and the ones you’re better off avoiding if you want a happy client. This is especially true of risk-averse industries like healthcare and investing. There’s an understanding of the line you’re never to cross. Experience has a way of putting up creative walls, while inexperience runs free. A client willing to go with a new perspective will likely be on the receiving end of new thinking. More importantly, so will their customers.
3. Firsthand Knowledge Is Overrated.
Herman Melville wrote Moby Dick at his farmhouse in the middle of western Massachusetts, more than a hundred miles from the nearest large body of water. All he needed were the right books about whales, ships and oceans to pen his masterpiece. Point being, if you equip writers with the information they need (and the audience they’re relating to), their talent for communicating takes over. A great copywriter can write an amazing car ad without knowledge of how an automobile is engineered. They’d never admit it, but great engineers can’t.
4. The Medium Doesn’t Matter.
A great copywriter isn’t effective in one area and suddenly a hack in another. This applies as much to mediums as it does to categories. Whether it’s an outdoor board or a Spotify ad, an annual report or pre roll, the medium isn’t the point. The message is. A talented writer enjoys the freedom of moving from one medium to the next, and from category to category.
5. The End Goal Never Changes.
Great copywriting earns someone’s attention, builds a relationship, and ultimately compels action, whether it’s buying a product, signing up for a service, or hitting the donate button. The ability to compel people has less to do with a particular category and more to do with specific needs and motivations. As a writer, I don’t need hiking boot experience to write copy that makes you want to head out on the trail. Nor do I need previous boot experience to translate product attributes into user benefits. All it takes is a capable writer, not one with category experience.
—
The benefits of inexperience go beyond the creative profession. A friend of mine in the restaurant industry rarely hires servers with front-of-the-house experience. As he likes to say, they’ve learned too many bad habits. My point is not to minimize experience. The things you learn along the way are valuable. That said, it takes a true professional to continually look at things through a new lens — to always up your game. In many ways, this poses a greater challenge than working in a category for the first time.
In the end I’d like the experience question to take a back seat to what a person actually has to offer. What’s their track record in other areas? How do they solve problems? What do others have to say about their work? There are as many parallels among industries as distinctions. A professional needs to be evaluated by the level of thinking they’re capable of bringing to a particular category, not how many weeks, months, or years they’ve worked in it. Of course, this takes more work on the part of the vetter. Which may be why so many stick to a line of questioning that all too often means next to nothing.