How do you know when it is time to hire a copywriter, a.k.a one who writes text, or copy, for the purpose of marketing a product, business, person, opinion or idea?

If you’re a recruiter at Goodby Silverstein & Partners, you just know. But what if you’re not in that world? What if you work for a design shop or a Web development firm? What if you work in marketing on the client side? In these cases, the question often becomes a difficult and puzzling one. But it needn’t be that way.

The murkiness, of course, is caused by one overriding reason. Too many people think they can do what copywriters do. Which makes me wonder, do these same wannabe copywriters also think they can perform their own root canal, or defend themselves in a court of law? Perhaps, they can do these things, but unless they’re some kind of real life MacGyver, they’re bound to make a mess of things and cause undue pain.

Because AdPulp is here to help — and carefully crafted lists are helpful constructs — please review these 10 signs that you do, indeed, need to hire a copywriter.

1. It’s time to hire a copywriter when you have no idea what prospective consumers find valuable in your product or service offering.

2. It’s time to hire a copywriter when you lack the tools to express your brand’s singular idea in a concise and memorable way.

3. It’s time to hire a copywriter when you are busy doing the job you were hired to do, versus imitating the job of someone you have yet to hire.

4. It’s time to hire a copywriter when you are ready to earn and hold your audience’s attention.

5. It’s time to hire a copywriter when you realize that without a paid professional on the job, you’re actually wasting all the money you’re putting in to “a new look.”

Perhaps, these logical approaches to the problem aren’t working for you. That’s okay, a nimble copywriter can turn on a dime and head in a new direction.

6. It’s time to hire a copywriter when you start to believe David Ogilvy was born in a French Chateau.

7. It’s time to hire a copywriter when you are done messin’ with Sasquatch.

8. It’s time to hire a copywriter when you don’t want to sell your hair to a wig shop, wake up in a roadside ditch or re-enact scenes from Platoon with Charlie Sheen.

9. It’s time to hire a copywriter when the most interesting man in the world says so.

10. It’s time to hire a copywriter when you are no longer afraid to Just Do It.

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Separating fact from opinion ain’t what it used to be. There was a time when the more you read, the more engaged you were with your world. Your city. Your neighborhood. Not some imaginary world you wished could be, but the world as it actually existed outside your door.

Back in these ancient times (otherwise known as “just a few years ago”) being up on Current Events was a thing people aspired to. (See? It was even a proper noun.) The simple act of staying informed separated you from those who lived in a bubble or just couldn’t be bothered.

Part of what made this true was that the main news source for most people was the newspaper, filled with page after page of news items written by professional Writers and double-checked for clarity by professional Editors. Each story began with a simple sentence—the “lead”—that delivered the most important factual information first and ensured that regardless of what happened later (spin, cover-ups, etc—sometimes within the article itself) you at least had some facts to chew on before all the hemming-and-hawing began. Opinions were there too, of course, but they were usually relegated to one clearly labeled page at the back of the paper. Sometimes it was even called The Opinion Page. How cute.

But then came the 24-hour news cycle, niche news channels aimed at specific audiences, online news feeds and aggregators, not to mention email portals and homepages that don’t so much deliver actual news as merely use news-like headlines as filler or decoration, giving people the illusion that they’re being informed before they jump to something more important like checking out a Groupon or updating their relationship status.

Nope, these days if you’re reading about something that has just happened, you’re probably reading about it online. A place where there are many more opinions than facts. Where “What’s Happening” has been replaced by “What’s Trending”—a phrase that couldn’t sound more subjective if it tried.

From Twitter to the Like button, to the scores of Op-Ed pieces from people you’ve never heard of that now grace the front page of every news site and trade publication around, suddenly we readers find ourselves awash in opinion with not nearly enough factual lifeboats to go around. How do we cope? By doing what all desperate drowners do: we start flailing about, eager to grab onto anything that might keep us afloat, which in this case results in people merely clinging to one another for the safety of their shared beliefs. (Which makes things even worse of course, since the only thing more helpless than a world with too many opinions is a world with only one.)

Add in the ubiquitous comments section of most websites and you reach the conclusion that to be an engaged member of the reading public today is to be surrounded by arguments. All of which makes you feel less like a reader and more like a spectator at a shouting match.

I’ve noticed the same thing happening in Advertising. Not the shouting so much (unless you work for a real jerk), but the ever-increasing supply of opinions. Big meetings where small ones used to suffice. Endless comments streaming in throughout the process via email. (FYI: Just because we’re all connected doesn’t mean we should spend all our time connecting.) All of it capped off by the constant inclusion of everyone in everything, regardless of interest, experience, talent or qualification. The more opinions the merrier. And since opinions rule over fact, there are no experts. Which means everyone’s an expert. Hooray! Participation Medals for all! Amateur hour? We call that Crowdsourcing now. A disorganized mess? No, no, no, that’s a Hive. A true buzzword in more ways than one, I suppose. (Speaking of buzzwords, can someone tell me why people stopped calling or emailing and instead started “reaching out?” It’s such a ridiculous term, and one that’s very telling about the conflicted state of the workplace psyche these days. Apparently we’re so afraid of the cutthroat capitalism we claim to love so much that we feel the need to give a cutesy name to even the most mundane workday activities. But does the simple act of rational business communication really need to be described like a rescue attempt or an invitation to join a cult? Bizarre.)

Anyway, the points I’m trying to make here are these: I think some of us are better than others at certain things, and that’s as it should be. When I pay someone for their expertise, I’d prefer they actually have some, thank you very much. I also think it should be corporate policy that some opinions matter more than others. And I think most people at work are happier knowing not only who’s in charge of a given project but that they’re actually qualified to be. Yes, good ideas can come from anywhere. But anywhere’s an awfully big place. And as such, the bad ideas—much like opinions—will always be in much greater supply.

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Could you imagine laboring over a piece of copy the way old-timers like Howard Gossage did? And if you did, what would your current clients do to it after you sent a draft to them?

Thanks to these internet tubes, people everywhere are writing, all the time. Or at least, they’re typing. Has all this collective writing ability lowered the grammatical and stylistic standards of the ad industry?

That’s the conundrum for our industry: the quicker and sloppier society gets with language, the more precise we have to be. We know more precisely than ever that the right words impact sales. If you’re writing for e-commerce, mobile, SEO, or if you’re working on some utility-focused website or app, you’ve seen that even mundane phrases like “click here” get tested and altered to achieve the best results.

As a writer, it’s my obligation to mind the words I write for my clients. But I also have to be aware of the overall effect a piece of communication has. Our audience can respond to any aspect of what we do, or none at all.

It’s the subject of my new column on Talent Zoo.

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