#057: Writing Opportunities in the Medical Device Industry: An Interview With Casey Demchack

Welcome to the High Income Business Writing Podcast, helping you propel your writing business to a whole new level. And now, here's your host, Ed Gandia. Well, hello everyone. Thank you so much for joining me for episode 57 of the High Income Business Writing Podcast. My name is Ed Gandia and this is the podcast for business writers and copywriters who want to take their writing businesses to the six figure level or the part time equivalent. As a quick reminder, you can find detailed show notes for this episode by going to b2b launcher.com episode 57 so if you have a healthcare background or if you're at least actively interested in the medical industry, and if you have a knack for explaining complex topics or products in simple language, I think you're really going to get a ton out of today's episode. My guest is medical device copywriting veteran Casey Demchak. And in this interview, Casey is going to spill the beans about this fascinating field of commercial writing and copywriting. He's going to explain what's involved in medical device copywriting and writing. He's going to talk about what types of writing projects or in demand, who the best clients are, what these clients look for in a writer, and even how you can break into this market in this niche, even if you have limited or even zero industry experience. Kasey's also going to share his thoughts on having multiple specialties or multiple target markets in how he juggles seemingly unrelated niches. That's exactly where he is today. He's got a very unique set of target markets and specialties, and he's juggled this better than probably anybody else I've seen. So even if the medical device industry thing is not quite as interesting to you, I do encourage you to listen to the show because you'll walk away with some great ideas if you're in a position where you're considering unrelated fields to focus on. So enough about that. Let's get right to the interview. Hey, Casey, welcome to the podcast, man. It's great to have you here.

Thanks, Ed. It's great to be here.

So you and I met, gosh, a few weeks ago at a, at a conference and we struck up a conversation about the medical device industry and just really intrigued by what you had to say and the opportunities in that market. And I, you know, I really wanted to bring you on to talk a little bit more about that. So folks who have thought about this industry or would consider something like this could kind of get a flavor for what's available, what you like, don't like, and so forth. So it's great to have this open discussion and get into a little bit more detail about it.

Great, let's do it.

So let's always start by asking people, tell me about yourself. Tell me a little bit about your writing business. Give me, give me a little bit of history here.

Well, I started my independent copywriting business 14 years ago. I actually, if you go way back into my twenties, I spent my twenties going to film school and running around Hollywood with screenplays. And I was a story analyst for a while. And when I got to be around 30, my big screenwriting career wasn't taking off the way I wanted to. So I started reading my, my junk mail one day and I thought, God, they probably pay people to write this stuff. And then like a lot of people back then, I went to the bookstore and picked up a couple of Bob Bly's books, you know, the Copywriter Handbook.

Oh yeah.

And at the time I, you know, so I started learning about copywriting. And at the time I was working for, I was working at night as a computer operator. And I knew the owner of the company very well. And I went to him and said, you know, can I write some marketing pieces for your business to build a little portfolio for myself? And he was really open to that and put the portfolio together. And that led by chance me being hired by a healthcare company to write business proposals and some marketing materials. It could have been a dog food company or any other company. It just happened to be healthcare.

But they contacted you out of the blue?

No, I just started applying for copywriting jobs in house copywriting jobs. Okay. And this was in Newport Beach, California. And I worked that job for a couple years. Then I saw an opening at a medical device company as senior copywriter in Santa Barbara, California, which is close to where I grew up. So I got hired at that job. And they had three very distinct medical divisions. Plastic surgery products, urology products, and ophthalmology products. So as the in house copywriter, I was able to get very extensive medical copywriting experience in those three areas. And as people started leaving the company and taking jobs at other places, I would get calls to do, you know, moonlighting at night or weekend work for their companies who are even other in other market segments like back implants, spinal implants and products like that. So after five years in that job, I went freelance. I lived about a half mile away from Mentor Corporation where I was working. And I set it up so that when I quit, they didn't replace me. My marketing communications manager and all the product manager just said, you know, go ahead and quit, we'll hire you as a freelancer. So I just basically got to do the same job and stay across the street in my shorts.

So what was the motivation for going solo?

You know, I was raised by an entrepreneur and always wanted to have my own business. And when I was working at this company, I had a manager above me, a marketing communications manager. And people wanted to work directly with me and not have to run projects through her, you know, some in house politics stuff. So I just went around all the groups and said, you know, if I go solo, would you still hire me? Plus, I had started getting freelance work from people who had left mentor and went to other companies. So I was working at nights and weekends on freelance stuff. I knew I could probably make mentor a client and you know, I wanted to have my own business so that it was just something in me, you know, that I had the entrepreneurial bug in me from the way I was raised and it's just what I wanted to do.

Gotcha. Gotcha. So, yeah, and you had enough momentum, you had clients and you saw it as a real possibility, as something you could definitely succeed in. It didn't feel like a huge risk.

No, I planned for it very, very well. I planned it a couple years in advance. And again, those Bob Bly books, the Copywriter Handbook and how to make $85,000 a year as a Freelancer. That book, you know.

Oh yeah, yeah.

I read both those books 50 times and highlighted and folded pages and just planned and planned and planned. I even to tell you a funny story, I knew about six months ahead of time I was going to quit my job. And every day I'd go to the office supply shack and I would take one item home. Sticky pad, note, Arima paper, staples. Actually, when I gave notice and went full time freelance, my bedroom was half of my.