I see a lot of comments from copywriters here about finding work and selling yourself as a new copywriter. As a 30-year veteran, I would like to share my experience.
As I have repeatedly told my followers, there are two ways to find clients especially when you have little experience: The hard way and the easy way.
- The hard way is setting up a website and thinking the world will come beating a path to your door.
- The easy way (for me) is picking up the phone (remember the phone) and entering into a money making conversation with a prospect.
That’s how I did it when I started out, as I say, when dinosaurs roamed the earth.
If I wanted to work for someone, I would get their number and call them.
To be sure, I could have sent them a letter, but then I would have to worry that I had the perfectly worded letter that hit all the right buttons–hoping they wouldn’t see I was new to this.
Frankly, that was too much work, as I could spend days and days writing and rewriting to get it perfect. I’m sure many of you who are reading this now know exactly what I mean.
Calling on the phone was better and easier for me because I could just be myself and ask them about their business instead of telling them about me.
Please remember that.
Because in the end your clients don’t really care about you–and I don’t mean that in a mean way.
What they care about is making money!
When you call, you need to position yourself as “The Rainmaker.”
In fact, one of my clients actually pitched me to another publisher “The Rainmaker” and I did a lot of work for them, too!
FUNNY STORY:
Years later, after I had established myself as a direct mail copywriter, I pitched one investment newsletter publisher about writing their emails, which, and I know this sounds weird, was a whole new world. This was right at the beginning of email marketing.
The marketing manager wanted to know my experience. I told her that I wrote all the emails for another publisher. I sent her one sample.
She really wasn’t convinced
I told her I also wrote an small e-letter called, “Email Marketing Ideas that Work” and asked her to be on my list.
So I send her the next five issues.
She must have loved them because she picked up the phone and asked me to write their emails at $5,000 a pop.
Here’s the funny part:
The publisher whom I said wrote all their emails: they only sent out one and I wrote it! So, in effect, I did write all their emails!
As for my newsletter, “Email Marketing Ideas That Work,” there was only one person on that list-her!
What I am saying here is, if you continue to sell yourself like everyone else, people will think of you was just anybody else.
Think out of the box. Find someone you want to work for and go after them and try picking up the phone. It worked for me. It can work for you.
Starting this year, I will be giving away my Selling Yourself as a Copywriter course PDFs FREE when you sign up for my Million-Dollar Copywriting Formula coaching course.
Not only will you learn how to find more work and get paid more money, but also take your skills to the next level.
Click here for more information.
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