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729renegades · 5 years ago

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UP CLOSE & PERSONAL – JAMES DANIEL

Hello and welcome to Up Close & Personal. Yet another interview with an extraordinary entrepreneur. Today you’re listening to Dave Dean and I’m with somebody I’ve had the pleasure of knowing for some 8 years or so now. When he and I first worked on a new idea I had, where I wanted to create magazines for one off events. And who better than to work with to create the copy and content for that, than the gentlemen we’re going to speak to today. He has also worked with far more prestigious clients than myself, and I’m aware he’s worked with people you may well know within the UK marketing and direct response marketing fraternity. People like Chris Cardell, Johnathan Jay, Christian Simpson even and many other private companies’ like Hidden Hearing, Ladbrokes. Including Welsh Government, Welsh Water, Sport Wales and many, many other companies. In fact, his work has been exalted and used as an example by some of the industry’s biggest hitters like Drayden Bird and Bill Glazer. And I’m told actually by a reliable source, that he’s also had more jobs than Homer Simpson. He’ll tell us a little bit more about that I’m sure, but without further ado, let me introduce today’s guest, it’s James Daniel. Welcome James.

James Daniel: Thank you Dave. It’s great to be here, excited.

Dave Dean: It’s a pleasure to have this time with you, in these very dark surroundings. It’s one of those horrible winter nights James that starts to creep in and I’m starting to think now that Christmas is coming. Should I really be thinking that way?

JD: Yea, I think so. It’s the only way to look at it. Christmas is here to get us through cold autumn and winter nights.

DD: That’s very true my friend, but of course, we’ve only just said goodbye to Halloween. Another one of those night where I’d rather be at the cinema than sitting in the house waiting for those dreaded, pesky kids coming around knocking on the doors, saying “trick or treat”. I say “trick”, what do they do? Nothing! They just look at me as if to say, “well, no-ones said that before”.

JD: They don’t know what to do, do they. . . I was with you on Halloween night in a restaurant, enjoying a very nice Panettone bread and butter pudding.

DD: This is true, we did indeed. . . So, James, the purpose of Up Close & Personal is help the members of Renegades and the readers of the magazine to get a little insight into people, into their kindred spirits, their peer group. Others that are perhaps going through the same journey as they are, or as they’re going to. And so, knowing you a little bit, I know how interesting your background has been. So, tell us a little bit . . . How the hell does one become a copywriter?

JD: That’s a really good question. I think, if you were to get a100 copywriters in a room and ask them all their story, you’d get a 100 very different stories. I think copywriting is great job for mis-fits. People who didn’t quite fit into one peg or another in society. So, in my case it was just the perfect thing because I couldn’t stand working in the Corporate world. But also, because it just suited my background. I think a good copywriter will either have a background in journalism or sales. Or potentially in creative writing. One of those three. I would say sales or journalism is more important, but a creative flair certainly can help. I happened to have done all of those different things, so I think I got to a point where I left my Corporate job. It was the only thing that made sense to me because I’d been a script writer for TV and radio and I’d been a journalist for about 8 years and I’d spent 9 years working in Corporate in sales and marketing and business development. I remember speaking to a recruitment consultant when I was 36, who said, “this is like I’m talking to two 30-year olds, who the hell are you”?

DD: Which one of them am I talking to today?

JD: Yes, exactly. This is the whole Homer Simpson problem of having so many jobs. I’ve never been to outer space, but I’ve done everything else. It took me a long time to sort of get a feel of what is it that I do. I was always in writing. I picked up a pen when I was 8 years old and started re-writing song lyrics like the Baron Knights did. And writing plays, and things like that.

DD: I remember you telling me that you’ve written plays, you’ve written songs. So, for you, what was the very first thing that told you that you were going to write for a living?

JD: I think I always knew that I was kind of heading in that direction, but I did swerve and thought about going into acting and stand-up comedy, but I realised I wasn’t very good at either. All the way through that, I was always writing. I got my first professional writing job when I was 19, while I was at Uni. I sold some sketches to radio and got a magazine column, a regular gig with that. That was when it first occurred to me. . . I can get paid for something that I love doing and it doesn’t feel like work at all. But of course, it was another 16-17 years before I turned it into a full time living, other than writing as a journalist or something like that, which I hated. When I could actually turn it into a living, writing stuff that I found interesting. That took time. But all the way through, I think I always knew that ultimately that was what I was going to be doing, because it’s the only skill I have.

DD: I think that applies to most of us. We end up, certainly as entrepreneurs, we seem to end up doing the thing that we enjoy most. Although Michael Gerber would always tell us of course, that we should set up a business in something we can’t do. That way we have to figure out how to get it done rather than be doing the work ourselves.

JD: That is a very good lesson. I probably got too bogged down sometimes in my own business in the delivery and needed to practice the self-removal process.

DD: Yea, I know it’s something that you’re going through heavily at the moment, and we’ll come back to that I’m sure, but I’d like to go back, right back to the beginning, in the early days if I may. Because the other thing you said to me once that totally threw me, was that you were a stand-up comic at one point.

JD: That is correct. Yes. . . I was terrible. Have you ever heard of the comedian called Jerry Sadowitz?

DD: No.

JD: Right, so he’s quite a notorious Scottish comedian. Very, very aggressive. Gets the audience really sort of riled up. You’ve heard of the Comedy Store? The place in London.

DD: Yes.

JD: It’s quite a nice place now, but in the 80’s it was like bear pit.

DD: You had to perform behind a net.

JD: Gladiatorial. . . Yea. So, I want you imagine ok, in that kind of an environment, it’s Friday night, actually it’s 2am Saturday morning by this time. This guy Jerry Sadowitz has just been on stage and he’s really been having a go at the audience. It’s been a real contest. Then suddenly, this open mic slot comes on and they go, “And now we’re going to see a young guy called James”. Now, I’m 19, I look about 12 coming on stage.

DD: You look 12 now at times, it’s just the beard makes you look a bit older.

JD: I came on straight after that and I had no chance, but I kept at it. I stayed on for the 5 minutes and I kept going back. Time after time doing one slot after another. The second time I went back there I actually forgot everything I was supposed to say. I got a laugh for my first joke and it threw me, I thought “that can’t be right”. I ended up, just having to make things up on the spot and not in a Paul Murton way that’s any good, it was terrible. It was on my 4th attempt at the Comedy Store that it actually went down well. The thing with stand-up is, when it goes well, it’s the best feeling in the world, but when it goes badly, it’s the absolute worst. What I found was, I used to go down very, very well in Cardiff and terribly in London doing the exact same material. It was weird. I think it’s because London audiences were quite spoilt for comedy and therefore there was that attitude of. . . Come on then, make me laugh, while Cardiff audiences were naturally receptive. I think that would probably change a little now because there’s more available in Cardiff. It’s more of a metropolitan place, people just expect a higher level of entertainment now. I got into stand-up simply because I was writing the material and thought it was a good way to get it out there. What became very clear to me was, my material was actually pretty good, but my delivery wasn’t. No, it wasn’t even that, my delivery was ok. What I couldn’t do very well at the time was deal with the audience, when you got heckled for example. . .

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