VOLUME 21, ISSUE 12 – DECEMBER 2022
THIS MONTH’S MENU:
I. APPETIZER: A HOLIDAY SAMPLER
A Big Sale, a Holiday Treat & a Phishing Warning
II. “FIELD” GREENS: GOT CONSULTANT CLIENTS?
A Good Example of Why this Customer Segment Is Worth Pursuing…
III. MAIN “MEAT” COURSE: KNOW HOW GOOD YOU HAVE IT?
Gratitude for a Quality of Life So Few Ever Achieve
IV. DESSERT: COMBO SUCCESS STORY & TIP
Persistent Follow-Up with Past Client Yields New Work
I. APPETIZER: A HOLIDAY SAMPLER
A Big Sale, a Holiday Treat & a Phishing Warning
20% Off Everything Site-Wide through December 15th!
Until December 15th, 2022, I’m offering 20% OFF everything on WellFedWriter.com. That includes:
- All Books/Ebooks (Solo & Bundles), including Profitable – by Design2!
- One-On-One Coaching (1-, 2- and 3-Hour Blocks)
- My Well-Fed CraftProgram
- All Well-Fed Self-Publisher books, ebooks and coaching
At checkout, enter coupon code: WFWSAVE20 to snag the discount.
Your Best Clients Deserve this AMAZING Rum Cake
If you’re looking for a super-special client-gift idea, or want to be the hit of your holiday party, check out Rumtastic.
I came across Kevin Wilburn’s incredibly decadent rum cakes at a fall festival close to a decade ago, and have purchased them steadily for gifts and special occasions since.
Kevin is a hard-working entrepreneur (and minority business owner), and I love spreading the word about his amazing product. He ships anywhere in the U.S., so go ahead and splurge.
I typically get the chocolate bundt cake (several sizes), and you can specify that (chocolate or regular) in the “Order Comments” section after you start the checkout process.
Tell him you heard about him from me (I get nothing in return but the good feeling of supporting a worthy businessperson and all-round good guy).
Phishing Warning
FYI: I’ve gotten several emails from readers who’ve received strange poorly-worded (shocker!) emails supposedly coming from me and reading as follows:
Hi _____, It’s writing you to confirm your subscription to our mailing list. You can confirm your subscription by simply clicking the link below:
If you received this message in error, or do not wish to be included in future mailings, you do not have to do anything. Simply, delete the message and your information will be removed by our system automatically. You can contact us at , for more information on our service. Regards,
This email was sent to (your email address)
Needless to say, they’re not coming from me, so delete them if you get one (and certainly don’t click ANY links included in them!).
Have a wonderful and “well-fed” (not exactly a challenge this time of year!) holiday season!
II. “FIELD” GREENS: GOT CONSULTANT CLIENTS?
A Good Example of Why this Customer Segment Is Worth Pursuing…
I have this well-paying client I’ve done work for, on and off, for almost 15 years, and with projects across the spectrum. She’s one of those wonderful clients who knows she’s not a writer and needs to hire it out.
She’s a consultant and entrepreneur, and while her businesses and directions have changed over the years, they’re all in the same industry.
Having worked with her as long as I have, I understand what she does, how she does it, the industry vernacular, who her audiences are, what they care about, and how to speak to them in a way that gets their attention.
Yes, 15-year clients are rare. Yet, while conventional wisdom says small clients aren’t good bets, consultants (often solo but with several support staff) can be great candidates for a long-term collaboration.
Not being part of larger corporate organization, they can’t be downsized, leaving you scrambling for a new client. They typically keep their overhead low, and as long as they stay in business, they’ll need writing.
When you learn their business, and can explain it to their audience in a persuasive manner, they’ll keep calling.
(Note: Per my popular ebook on the subject (20% off right now), graphic designers nicely fall into that consultant model—often solo and home-based. As I’ve learned for 25+ years, do good work for them, and they’ll keep you well-fed for a long time).
Recently, she wanted to do an email campaign. Because I’m so well-versed on what she does and how, we spent all of 10 minutes on the phone. I went away, did the work, came back, and a few tiny edits later, we were done.
If you were her, and I’m still around and doing good work for you, why in the world would you ever go anywhere else? Or even talk with another copywriter?
Plus, after you’ve done a lot of the same kind of work for a client for a long time, it gets easier, so you get it done faster. And, if you’re charging the same flat rate you’ve always charged for that project, your hourly rate continues to rise.
So, keep your radar up for busy consultants. Many—like her—pay well, and need a broad array of materials (ideal if you have a wide project range).
III. MAIN “MEAT” COURSE: KNOW HOW GOOD YOU HAVE IT?
Gratitude for a Quality of Life So Few Ever Achieve
In the spirit of recently celebrated Thanksgiving (in the U.S.), my thoughts turned to gratitude for my life in general and my professional life in particular….
We humans are amazingly adaptable creatures. That’s a good thing and a not-so-good thing. On the good side, when survival is on the line, we can adapt to horrific circumstances if we have no other choice (think wartime refugee populations…).
The downside to this impressive adaptability is that we can also get used to really wonderful circumstances and start wildly taking them for granted.
The above thought occurred to me recently as I started work on this one recurring monthly project I have, which I didn’t much enjoy. It wasn’t hard, and it paid reasonably well (~$125/hour). It was just a grind.
Couldn’t I find more enjoyable and equally well-paying work? Possibly.
But there was a strategic component here: staying “top of mind” with this client—a marketing company hired by a huge client on behalf of whom I was doing the work.
This “middleman” client had retained me in the past for a six-month stretch at $2K/month doing work averaging far more than $125/hour.
And, my contact said, they were laying the foundation for a similar ongoing $2K/month commitment, and would I be interested? Silly question.
As long as I was actively writing for her, I was “top of mind” and well positioned to reap the benefits when they materialized.
But another reason occurred to me, related to the aforementioned subject of adaptability. As I see it, there are several possible work scenarios, with the variables being:
1) Money: good pay vs. crappy pay
2) Work Satisfaction: work you love/enjoy on most days vs. work you hate/don’t care for much
3) Working conditions: work from home, tons of freedom/flexibility, etc. vs. long hours, awful commutes, office politics, etc.
Obviously, the Holy Grail—the one everyone dreams of, and few achieve—is good pay, work you enjoy and great working conditions.
My life currently? And the lives of most well-established commercial freelancers? Pretty darn close to that Holy Grail, I’d wager. I mean, great working conditions comes standard with our gig from Day One.
Then, over time, as you refine your skills and client mix, you raise your rates and fine-tune your work mix so you’re largely enjoying the work you do.
None of this is easy, but it’s absolutely doable and absolutely worth pursuing.
Assuming your goal is to have a high-quality life, earning a good living doing work you enjoy (on most days) and on your own terms (vs. aspiring to power, fame and/or great wealth), this gig of ours is about as good as it gets.
That’s no understatement.
Consider the typical lives of the vast majority of human beings across the millennia. Whether you compare to today (i.e., the bad side of the work scenarios noted above), or to most of history (i.e., the “nasty, brutish and short” existences—in the words of Thomas Hobbes), we’re livin’ seriously large.
Bottom line, don’t let yourself get too accustomed to how good you have it, and forget to be grateful.
If you’re a reasonably thriving commercial freelancer, stop and count your blessings. In the big scheme of things, you’re breathing pretty darn rarefied air.
IV. DESSERT: COMBO SUCCESS STORY & TIP
Persistent Follow-Up with Past Client Yields New Work
A few years back, I landed a client off a higher-end leads site for creatives called Communo (worth checking out). I did some steady work for them for 7-8 months—mostly press releases and web site copy.
When my main contact went radio silent after several outreach efforts, I looked her up on LinkedIn, and discovered she’d changed jobs some months earlier.
I pinged her through LI, didn’t hear back, then reached out again. This time, she got back to me, and was happy to hear from me; she loved the work I’d done for and her previous employer.
(Note: It usually takes multiple contacts to get a response. Sure, often, they’re not interested, so if multiple follow-up attempts go unanswered, let it go. But often, they’re just busy, as was the case here).
She then asked if I did technical writing. I don’t, but a few probing questions revealed it wasn’t really technical writing she needed, but rather, high-tech marketing writing. And that I do do… 😉
Fast forward a few weeks, and I completed my first job for her new company—a pretty juicy white paper they were really happy with.
The CEO was especially delighted, given that he hates to write. He wrote:
“This looks great. Thank you for saving me the pain of doing it myself!”
FYI, this a really common scenario: CEOs who need to keep a high profile in their industries, don’t have the time and/or the inclination (the case here) to do it themselves, but absolutely have the money to pay someone else to do it.
In fact, the italicized verbiage in the preceding paragraph contains the relevant selling point to make in a targeted pitch to companies and their C-suite folks.
Bottom line, while we all have to do some cold prospecting from time to time, make sure you’re tapping past satisfied clients you’ve lost touch with—those who know you and the quality of the work you deliver.
That’s just classic “working-smarter-not-harder” stuff.