Give Prospective Clients What They Want and They’ll Do The Same  For You

Our work is the presentation of our capabilities.
–Edward Gibbon, English Historian

In Issue #144

Give Prospective Clients What They Want and They’ll Do The Same For You
by Monica Day

You already have an edge in getting clients to book you for projects – but I’m willing to bet you haven’t been using it.

A couple of weeks ago I got the following email:

“I like your article on the top 5 professions. Having posted a job on the direct response job site, I was offered services of many AWAI [members]…

Let me know if you want to know who got the job, why and the reasons why some offers put me off as soon as I opened them. This info will be a must-have addition to your list of 3 things copywriters should be doing.”

Needless to say, I was intrigued. And I knew you would be, too. After all, here is a real, live paying client (from Belgium by the way, just to prove that you really can work for anyone, anywhere, from the comforts of your own home!) who has offered to reveal to you his latest attempt to hire a copywriter. Take a look:

“Basically, there were 5 types of responses:

  1. Resume only, no price.
  2. Resume and short generic intro, no price
  3. Price and short intro
  4. Price and personal intro
  5. A copywriter’s offer, including a question for my budget and a proper pitch for the job.

I went for the last offer. For the sole reason that it made me feel how I want my potential customers to feel: intrigued, excited and, most importantly, jumping in my seat to take action! All the other offers didn’t make me feel that way and were too generic. Some, I would have considered, if not for that one superior offer…it showed skill, made me want to get to know this one better and see what she could do for me…”

And then, he asked the most important question – one that we’ll grapple with in more detail today:  

“If you can’t even sell yourself, how can you sell my stuff?”

This is probably the #1 burning question in the mind of any client looking to hire a copywriter. And yet, the majority of new writers that I hear from confess that they have a hard time selling themselves.

My wise words of advice on the subject: Get over it!

Seriously, you can’t afford the shy, sheepish, insecure routine if you want the work. Here’s a little trick that might make it easier…

Don’t think about it as “selling yourself” but rather, what can you offer the client to make their life easier and their promotion more profitable? Then, focus your response to them completely on that offer. 

If there is one thing to learn from the response this client has so generously offered Copy Protégé readers, it is that your offer counts more than anything – more than your experience, your price, anything.

Since I can’t say it any better than the client did himself, I’m going to share the rest of his feedback for you, verbatim. It’s priceless:

“The copywriter "sold" me the higher fee, which is exactly what I need. Our product costs $3500 and even though it’s a lot of money, it’s hand-built etc, so really worth it. I need someone to make our customers feel like they need the product and that the price is justified. In contrast to the higher fee offer, some copywriters asked for $100 or $200. That means, either they don’t know the value of their time or, worse, they won’t do the necessary research. And that, I won’t risk.

The copywriter [I picked] said she would find a unique, hidden benefit that would draw in buyers. That gives me 2 words I like to hear: the first being "benefit", the second "buyers". I can tell you all the tech specs, but that’s not what will make customers buy. They need a benefit, and if she can’t find me a hidden one I never would think of, now that’s worth something to me!

Second, she was talking about what her services will get ME. Sounds egocentric, but hey, I am paying for the services, so I would like to hear I am getting my money’s worth. Other copywriters talked about their education and what they’ve achieved. It’s a way of qualifying, I agree, but there are better, more subtle ways. Or, the in-your-face ones, which I would like too: examples of how YOUR services improved the bottom line for a customer.

And, even though it was an offer for just one job, I have more work available. We don’t have the budgets to provide 6 figure incomes for full-time copywriters, but we do have interesting jobs frequently. So, getting this one, will lead to more work for the one who "gets it" (in both senses ;-) )

I hope this is helpful, but if you need any other info, please let me know.”

What do you think, helpful? Heck, yeah! That is, as long as you take this inside look at the way a client is thinking about hiring a copywriter, and put it to work in your own practice. And next week, we’ll talk a little bit more about how to best use his advice to nail your next – or first – client.

Resource Referral: Take The Mystery Out Of Getting Clients

Getting clients doesn’t have to be such a mystery. Here are two resources that Krista and I have found helpful in growing our own practice:

Getting Your First Client: The Copywriter’s Shortcut to Making $100k per Year:
Getting Your First Client gives you the "inside scoop" on how it works – from people just like you who’ve used it to build a successful copywriting career. This isn’t classroom theory. It’s the real deal: a hands-on "how-to" from people who’ve been right where you are today. You’ll hear the stories of real AWAI members who started out right where you are now. You’ll learn exactly what they did to win their first clients – straight from the source.

Bob Bly’s Getting and Keeping Great Clients: Everything in this opportunity is based on experience – by people who’ve already achieved what you want to achieve. You get practical, real-world advice on how to succeed as a copywriter from top freelancers like Bob Bly… Joan Damico … Steve Slaunwhite … Herschell Gordon Lewis … Michael Stelzner … and many others who "spill the beans" about their copywriting specialties, success, and secrets. There’s no theory in Bob Bly’s Getting and Keeping Great Clients. Just proven, real-world results.

Quick Marketing Tip: Make Sure You Know A Good Opportunity When It Bites You In The Behind

I was mentoring another writer who lived near me. He was making a good living, but according to him, working too hard for it for too many years. He wanted to transition to copywriting and make the bigger dollars while working less time.

With his experience, I was sure he could make the switch in no time. I introduced him to AWAI. He attended a bootcamp, got a plum assignment with a well-known client at the Job Fair. Things were going quite well for him. But they could have been going better…if he would have taken more time to get to know some key people. Like Michael Masterson.

Michael had heard of my friend through his new Job Fair contact…and knew that he was once a stock broker and knew a lot about the financial markets. So, he contacted my friend and asked for a bid to do some editorial writing for Early To Rise. Unfortunately, when the call came, my friend didn’t recognize Michael’s name, didn’t understand how many doors it might have opened if he did the work or at least made an effort to make the contact. When he did respond, he made a super-high bid, reasoning that he was too busy to take on an editorial assignment at that time.

How is this possible, I wondered? He had supposedly taken the copywriting course. He’d been to a bootcamp. Odds are, he’d at least shaken Michael Masterson’s hand. Somehow, he just didn’t recognize the name when the email came through, he responded quickly and without doing any research, and he missed the opportunity to strike up a more meaningful relationship with one of the best and well-connected copywriters in the business.

The following year, he told me he was finding it too difficult to really break in to the higher paying assignments, and he was going to stick with what he knew: editorial writing. I bit my lip. But if I’d had more courage, I might have told him that if he had done his research and played his hand a bit better, his copywriting income would have already doubled or tripled by now.