VOLUME 16, ISSUE 8 – AUGUST 2017
THIS MONTH’S MENU:
I. APPETIZER: WHY IT’S CALLED THE “LAW” OF AVERAGES
Coaching Client Keeps Pounding Away, Discovers the Law’s Infallibility
II. “FIELD” GREENS: DEATH AND THE COPYWRITER
AZ FLCW Honors Her Just-Passed Father, Fortuitously Lands Related Writing Jobs
III. MAIN “MEAT” COURSE: THE SENSIBLE SABBATICAL
MS FLCW Shows How to Get Back Out There When You Take a Life Break!
IV. DESSERT: SWEET SUCCESS STORIES & TIPS
UT FLCW Gets Lay of the Land, Adjusts Strategy, and Scores a Few Big Gigs!
TIP: Stop Using Contact Forms on Your “Contact Us” Page!
I. APPETIZER: WHY IT’S CALLED THE “LAW” OF AVERAGES
Coaching Client Keeps Pounding Away, Discovers the Law’s Infallibility
Had a few interesting exchanges of late with one of my coaching clients. He’d made a ton of cold calls over several months (close to 600), and all he had to show for it was one small $450 project. One client offering up a big promising project (~$4K) had gone radio silent, and a few other leads had fizzled out.
He wrote me: “I’m confused by the results. I’ve made more calls than any past marketing campaigns and feel like I’m doing a better job, but just not getting any work. Not enough calls? Not enough time? Am I doing something wrong?”
As for the vanishing BIG job, he wrote: “I’m pretty shocked. We seemed all set to launch, they liked my samples, asked for my first invoice, spent a bunch of time getting me in the system and getting client references. And now they won’t reply to my calls/emails?”
Can you relate? Having been through this myself, of course, many years ago, AND having coached a bunch of other writers through it, I knew that these things can take time. AND, even 600 calls, in the big scheme of things, isn’t a lot. AND, clients vanish for a lot of reasons having nothing to do with you.
Through it all, as disappointed as he was, he stayed upbeat and was keeping up the marketing pressure: He had a postcard campaign on tap, and planned another 400-500 calls. I wrote him, essentially saying…
Sorry things haven’t started dropping, but the Law of Averages is ironclad: Make enough calls and you’ll get the business. Several people I worked with over the years had made a TON of calls, yielding nothing, more nothing, even more nothing, then a little bit more than nothing, a little bit more than that, and finally, a whole bunch.
Know that nothing you’re doing is a waste; everything is making a difference and getting you closer to the yes’s. It no fun right now, but as I talk about in TWFW, the early business-building days are lonely, grueling, tedious and often very unproductive.
As a coach, it was a bit nerve-wracking for me, too, but I had faith. And sure enough, less than a week after our most recent exchange, I get an email with the subject line, “Great news!” Yup, the big job dropped (“She was happy to hear from me and said they’ve been really busy redesigning their website so she had to delay the project”).
Additionally, he’d been asked to bid on a far bigger gig (which he landed as well), along with a few more. When it rains, indeed. All because he didn’t give up.
However you’re building your business (and cold-calling is still an effective strategy, and don’t believe anyone who tells you differently), as long as your samples are good, you have a web site, and you’re reaching out to the kinds of people who can hire you and pay well, if you keep at it, you’ll succeed. On that “keep-plugging-away” note, let’s eat!
II. “FIELD” GREENS: DEATH AND THE COPYWRITER
AZ FLCW Honors Her Just-Passed Father, Fortuitously Lands Related Writing Jobs
Got this touching piece from Tucson, AZ FLCW Martha Retallick, about an interesting professional contact received on the heels of a personal loss. Life indeed unfolds in mysterious ways. Thanks, Martha!
The phone call wasn’t a surprise. The lady, from Dad’s nursing home in eastern Pennsylvania, said, “Your father just died.”
I thanked her for taking care of him and let her go. I had plenty of other calls to make. One was to the crematorium in Philadelphia. A question: Is there such a thing as a biodegradable urn? Answer: Yes. I ordered one.
A week later, I’m in Pennsylvania, sitting next to Mom when she casually says, “Let’s bury Bill’s ashes in the woods.” Fine, but I needed to do something first. I dash into the woods with a trowel. I’m seized with the desire, the need, to…build a cairn.
In Celtic tradition, cairns are rock piles people create at a gravesite. Dad was of Scottish, Irish, and Cornish descent, and I also have Scottish blood on Mom’s side.
The Cornish hail from Cornwall, in SW Great Britain. Cornwall’s name is an Anglicized version of the Cornish, “Kernow,” which some people interpret as “The Land of the Cairns.” So, long story short: We are cairn-building people.
When I tell my 90-year-old mother I’m building a cairn, she gets it. It takes a week to gather enough rocks for a proper cairn. Then it’s time for the burial. I really work at getting this grave right, and I’m thinking of the highest compliment my father would ever offer: “Capital stuff!”
I place the urn in the grave, cover it carefully, and then it’s cairn-building time. It took a week to gather the right rocks, and I arrange and re-arrange them. And those seashells? Don’t know how those landed in our woods, but I want them to be the perfect finishing touch. After all, Dad was a Naval Reserve officer and very proud of his service.
And then it’s done. Exactly two weeks after my father’s death. I gather up the tools, put them back in the garage, then head into the house for a tearful shower.
The next day, I’m checking email, and there it is. An Arizona-based mortuary and cemetery looking for a copywriter. This isn’t coming at a good time. That’s what I say in my reply. Then I reconsider. Given what I’ve just experienced, I’m very well qualified to handle this job. So I take it.
A few months later, Dad’s estate lawyer asks me to rewrite his firm’s website copy. I say yes to that job, too.
Your life story, even the difficult parts, give you the know-how that copywriting clients are looking for. So say yes.
III. MAIN “MEAT” COURSE: THE SENSIBLE SABBATICAL
MS FLCW Shows How to Get Back Out There When You Take a Life Break!
Oxford, MS FLCW Amanda Brandon, a content marketing and social-media pro, offers up a great piece on a real-life issue for many: How to effectively manage a long-term sabbatical (in her case, having children), when your goal is to return to work. Great stuff. Thanks, Amanda!
Taking a break from the job market is risky for anyone. Common knowledge will tell you that you run the risk of becoming an unskilled professional. But that’s a lie. And I’m here to tell you why.
I had two babies—16 months apart—and an older child. I was overwhelmed and not sleeping much. Not exactly an ideal climate for a growing freelance writing business.
I didn’t know then when I would go back to work, but I knew that at some point, I would come out of the baby fog and want to return to the freelance world.
Just because I needed a break didn’t mean that I wasn’t still “relevant.” I never let myself think that I was anything but a professional FLCW. I was just taking a sabbatical.
However, I didn’t want to return without skills and a plan. So, I took some measures to ensure I would still be “relevant” when I wanted to return to my craft.
1) Keep reading. Before I took my break, I was heavily involved in content strategy and social media. I kept my subscriptions to newsletters and kept a pulse on where social media was moving. I kept reading marketing books.
2) Keep in touch with your network. I didn’t take my LinkedIn profile down. I kept my website up and occasionally reached out to professional contacts and clients.
3) Keep writing. For the years I took time to be a mama, instead of writing for businesses, I pursued a personal writing project. I started a few blogs and educated myself on self-publishing and platform-building. I’m not yet making money from these ventures, but the work kept me writing and gave me some ideas for “What’s next?”
4) Keep talking about your craft. Even though my days now involved diapers, story times and play dates, I kept talking about my work. I discussed strategies with friends and acquaintances for growing their businesses.
5) Make some plans before you embark. In January, I decided to go part-time as a freelance writer and marketing consultant again. To do this around my family responsibilities, I had to treat it like a new business. So, I dedicated about a month to rebuilding my resume, LinkedIn profile and website.
I set some goals for the type of work I wanted to take on. I hired a babysitter to help me with my children. I set some specific work hours. I created a service package for the type of work I wanted—helping jobseekers and solopreneurs polish up their communications.
6) Work that network. Before I went off the grid, I had an excellent network. Because I didn’t burn my list of contacts or take down my LinkedIn profile, I didn’t really have to start at square one. I started telling friends and family I was back in the game. I sent emails to old clients asking if they needed a good writer or social media strategist.
7) Keep up with freelance search and marketing strategies. Even though I reached back out to my old network, I still needed to employ an old strategy for finding work. I’m quite effective at answering freelance ads (hence my desire to help jobseekers and solopreneurs), so I started watching the ads for work that interested me.
I also signed up with LinkedIn Profinder and FlexJobs. I received a very lucrative project via Profinder because I asked some strategic questions about the client request. He wanted a manual. I saw that he needed a marketing presence and won the project because of my questions.
Taking time off is sometimes necessary, but follow these ideas, and you’ll make your eventual return that much smoother and profitable.
IV. DESSERT: SWEET SUCCESS STORIES & TIPS
UT FLCW Gets Lay of the Land, Adjusts Strategy, and Scores a Few Big Gigs!
TIP: Stop Using Contact Forms on Your “Contact Us” Page!
Great success story from St. George, UT FLCW David Whiteside, about working smarter, leveraging what you know, and learning what you don’t. After that, a personal pet peeve turned into a tip. Do you do this? Read on…
I read TWFW, took some courses, and put up a web site…what next? I had no marketing budget, and my spouse was fuming over months of time and expense.
Advice in TWFW matched my insurance industry experience (i.e., pick likely prospects, then ask for work!). Insurance writing became my inescapable first niche.
That meant contacting big insurers, industry press and their advertisers. I realized I needed stature, so I started a blog. This let me “self-publish” more timely samples and demonstrate expertise.
I found that reaching insurance company execs would take time. For quicker results, I Googled a short list of trade publications.
Most pub sites show editor contact info. I sent them basic intro emails, using subject lines like “Submission questions.” My text was straightforward, essentially “I’ve been an agent for years, I understand the industry, I write now. How can I help?”
Over half the list responded, most saying “no, thanks” or that they didn’t pay writers. Two indicated they did pay, and I followed up as instructed. After a couple of weeks one suddenly asked for an in-depth article on industry trends.
They wanted 1500 words at a dollar a word (bye-bye, Problogger!), provided a list of interview sources, and even a previous article on the same subject. The editor was accessible and supportive. She mentioned she’d looked at my blog, which showed journalistic chops.
Negotiations were swift, and a whirlwind three weeks later I had done my (first-ever) six industry interviews and beat my deadline. I had to work around my day job, but luckily we had vacation scheduled. Everything fell into place.
I don’t consider myself a journalist, or covet journalistic work—but by reading everything I could find online related to the topic, and using my own knowledge, I produced adequate copy. The editor was patient, and much of my second draft survived.
Besides the real-money $1500.00 fee (and resulting spousal endorsement!) my editor gave me a great testimonial and permission to use her as a reference. My web site highlights that testimonial, you can be sure.
I just finished another article for the second pub that got back to me (lower fee but not chicken feed). This was easier given all the ground broken in the first one. Nothing like getting paid to ramp up.
Most importantly, confidence is high for the coming year.
How many copywriters’ sites have I visited that have a form a visitor needs to fill out to get ahold of you? Too many. Isn’t the point of your site to get them to reach out to you?
If so, WHY in the world would you then put this big obstacle right in their path—a contact form they’re forced to fill out—as if you’re protecting yourself against them? It’s a totally unnecessary—and off-putting—barrier.
The funny thing is I see them on sites whose home page copy reads: “Thanks for stopping by my copywriting website…” which, as discussed in the July 2017 Greens course, is unnecessarily obsequious. Of course, this is the exact opposite—unnecessarily elusive.
They have a need for your services—and very likely, an immediate need—or they wouldn’t have visited your site (trust me, the folks who’d be hiring you don’t go visiting copywriters’ sites because they don’t have enough things to fill up their day).
As such, don’t make it hard for them to reach you. At the very least, if you insist on having the contact form, on the same page, give them your actual email address.
If you’re afraid of “spiders” harvesting your email address, just give them a direct-email option and note the address as: “joe at joewrites dot com.”