Dramatic Sales Writing

The first assignment of the Basic course is
the restaurant letter.

Close to the end of the first (though very
long) lesson, we're told to write a letter to
Michael Masterson to convince him to visit our
favorite restaurant.

I hate to confess this, but I didn't take the
assignment very seriously.

First of all, since I started out getting my
lessons one at a time, I didn't realize that
it was the ONLY assignment except for the
vitamin letter assignment. I wouldn't have been
surprised at having to turn in one per month.

I wrote mine on Taco Bell -- might as well be
honest. That's where I eat out the most, and
there're certainly no sit-down restaurants
where I currently spend time.

I did work pretty hard at it, and got a
score of 32 out of 40. But by the time I
got it back I was thinking of so many
other copywriting issues that I didn't
pay much more attention to it.

Late last year, I noticed some threads in
the AWAI forum that mentioned doing rewrites
of the restaurant assignment. I checked with
AWAI and they said yes, send it in again. So I
rewrote it and sent it back and improved my
score to 36.

But I still did not go to the trouble that
some AWAI students I see posting in the student
forum do. They write long, elaborate letters.
I don't know what their score is.

Though at least one person has mentioned taking
the letter they wrote to the restaurant and
getting some kind of assignment to write copy
for them.

And one new student scored a perfect 40.

I'm jealous, but I'll get over it. I'll be
satisfied if I get a 98 on my rewrite of the
vitamin letter :)

Ballwin MO copywriter