Show Me The Money…And The Love, Part II

“Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity.”
–Lucius Annaeus Seneca, Roman Philosopher

In This Issue:

Show Me The Money… And The Love, Part II
by Monica Day

I realized some of you might need a week to absorb my last essay.

I heard you all the way from here. Who me? cried your inner voice of doubt and gloom. Get asked to sign a contract for ongoing work? I’d be happy to land a client…

You’ll have to just trust me on this – once your career starts to smoke, the flames will pick up quickly. So it pays to entertain the “what if” notions even when they seem far-fetched. You keep plugging, and you’ll be there before you know it.

Today I want to talk about what to do after your client pops the question.

  1. DO NOTHING! That’s right – this isn’t an emergency. There’s no need to deliver a speedy answer. Don’t do anything until the shock of being asked wears off. Allow yourself time to be flattered, nervous, overwhelmed, excited – those are all very appropriate emotions for the occasion. But they don’t offer firm footing for the ensuing negotiation.

  2. Consider love first, then money: During your career you’ll write promotions for companies or products that you feel half-hearted about. But you should never, ever sign on for an extended engagement with a client you don’t love. Or at least, respect. This means different things to different people. One of my considerations, for example, was that I wanted to sign on with a client that offered conferences – and an extra bonus was if they were held outside the U.S. I like to travel, and I like having the opportunity to meet my target prospect at least once a year. You might have the opposite criteria – you might not want to travel to work with your client. These are the little extras that should be considered before you enter into the financial aspect of the contract.

  3. To be or not to be exclusive…that is the question: The main difference between the first contract I was offered – and the one I ultimately signed – was the matter of exclusivity. The first client wanted me to commit to only writing financial copy for them – although I was free to write other types of copy for other clients. The problem with that was that financial copywriting was my bread and butter – and at the time, I was churning out copy like a machine. I had put out 12 packages that year – but they were only offering five or six. Which meant I had to ask for a lot of money – ultimately more than I was worth at that point in my career – to make it worthwhile to go exclusive. But the client I ended up signing with just wanted me to give them preferential treatment – first dibs on my time – but I was free to write financial copy for other clients if and when I could fit them in. This was an important distinction to me. When a client wants exclusivity, they either want to corner the market on your ideas…or your time. Find out which one. And decide whether you can afford to – or want to – put all your eggs in one basket.

  4. Finally – show me the money: Now – and only now – are you ready to talk turkey. There are usually two elements of this type of agreement: fee and royalty or bonus. Let’s talk fee first. The best contracts specify the number of packages you’ll complete in a set amount of time (never hours!) in exchange for a certain fee plus bonus. For example, you might agree to write four promotions a year for $3,000 a pop for a total of $12,000 a year. Then, you can negotiate how that gets paid out. You might like the idea of getting $1,000 a month since cash flow is the toughest part of this business, especially when you’re just starting out. But the client might prefer to pay half upfront and half upon completion. Again, knowing what matters to you helps you design a contract that works for you.

    As far as royalty or bonus, there are several ways to do it. You can get a % for online sales, and a per piece bonus when your promotion gets mailed. Or sometimes, you might get a set amount if you beat the existing control. Or some combination of these.

  5. Second set of eyes: Once you craft a contract that is a win-win scenario for both you and your client, it’s not a bad idea to have someone of the legal persuasion take a look at it. They are rarely written by one of us – or in plain language. And legalese can be a bit confounding.

    6. I hope we hear from more and more Copy Protégé readers facing this happy dilemma. And I hope this rundown helps when the day arrives. And don’t worry…it will.

Mentoring Program Update!

Thank you to everyone who has applied to our new mentoring program! We received more applications than we had spaces ñ which was a real honor and thrill for us. If you havenít heard from us yet, you will soon. When we accept someone, we give them 7 days to enroll in the program before we release their space to the next person on the waiting list. So if you want to apply, but havenít gotten around to it yet, donít delay. Our first session will be full soon. And then, it could be as much as three months before a new space opens up.

Resource Referral: How To Join The Big Leagues

Whether you are looking to join the masters – or simply get through your first few assignments – I recommend you add the AWAI Masters course to your list of things to do. It takes all the concepts and lessons in the basic course and breaks them down even further. The chapter on writing bullets alone has been worth the price of the course to me – many times over.

The other reason to get the Masters Course sooner rather than later are the spec assignments that are included. For example, a few of the new participants in our Mentoring Program have mentioned that they are not sure what copy they’ll work on during our sessions since they don’t have a client yet. When I was in between projects, I was always working on a spec assignment – and used them to get my foot in the door more than once. In fact, I’m still not above it. If it was a client I liked and I couldn’t land them with my samples or experience alone, I would definitely consider doing a spec assignment to get my foot in the door.

Become a copywriting master…or just think like one…today.

Quick Copy Tip: Storing Swipes

I have a question that I can no longer ignore. How do you organize your swipe files? I have a drawer in a filing cabinet that is overflowing. I can barely open and close it. And more direct mail arrives daily. I’ve started trashing letters that I’m sure I should be keeping. Do you file daily? I find mountains of paper throughout my tiny four room house. Any advice would help save my sanity.
–JS

You are not the first one to be completely confounded by swipe management! I confess that I still don’t feel like I’ve got it absolutely right. I felt that they were too awkward and numerous for my filing cabinets, so I moved them into plastic tubs. From there, it’s a process:

  1. Because I have a few specialty areas, I’ve organized the swipes by health, finance, self-help, travel, etc. From there, they are organized by company (ie Nightingale-Conant, True Wealth Newsletter, etc).
  2. Keep up with it or it gets completely out of hand! Take an hour or so each week to review the swipes you’ve collected and file them.
  3. And one more sanity-saving measure you must take: don’t be afraid to throw them away! When you get behind and overwhelmed by your swipes…do throw them away. The beauty of our business is that there is always more direct mail where the last piece came from. Controls are mailed over and over, so odds are if you throw away a good swipe, it will come around again. And if it doesn’t…it wasn’t worth studying in the first place. But your sanity is more important than saving every swipe that comes over your transom!

Final Hint: Last week I mentioned Monthly Copywriting Genius – this service is the ultimate swipe file. It doesn’t take up any space in your office, comes with a study guide and interview with the copywriter, and you can be assured that each letter included was a success before you devote the time and effort to studying it! If swipe files are taking over your office like kudzu along the highway…revolt. Subscribe to MCG!