VOLUME 19, ISSUE 1 – JANUARY 2020
THIS MONTH’S MENU:
I. APPETIZER: GOT PASSIVE INCOME? YOU WANT THIS…
What We Can Learn from My Cool Songwriting Uncle’s Brush with Fame & Fortune
II. “FIELD” GREENS: GOT “MISE EN PLACE” IN PLACE?
MN FLCW Adapts Cooking System to Writing & Serves Up Tasty Results
III. MAIN “MEAT” COURSE: NEGOTIATING 101
Small-Biz Coach Serves Up 2 Negotiating Tricks You Should Know!
IV. DESSERT: SWEET SUCCESS STORIES & TIPS
FLCW Sticks to His (Billing) Guns, Walks Away from Present/Future Work
TIP: Use “The Reluctant Rock Star” Close to Light a Fire Under a Prospect
I. APPETIZER: GOT PASSIVE INCOME?
Learning from My Cool Songwriting Uncle’s Brush with Fame & Fortune
So, one of my uncles died a few years back. I remember, when I was little, I thought of him as The Cool Uncle. Sort of a beatnik musician type. Youngest of my Mom’s siblings, and apparently, as such, got most of the attention.
As a young man, he reportedly was somewhat unfocused and drifting. He did a tour in the Korean War (which he never talked about), and then, as music had always called to him, tried his hand at songwriting.
And struck a small vein of gold. He wrote a song, and his agent got it in front of none other than Frankie Avalon. And it became the song that made the crooner famous. “Venus.” #1 for 5 weeks in February 1959.
And here’s the clincher: After writing that ONE song in his mid-20’s, this scattered, dabbling, lovable dilettante of a man never worked a day in his life again. Royalties from that solitary effort provided a modest but comfortable lifelong living.
Oh sure, he wrote other songs, arguably far better, but was never much of a businessman, and they never went anywhere.
Meanwhile, Venus continued to deliver, both after Avalon released a disco version in 1976 (of course), and more significantly, in 2006, when Barry Manilow covered it on his platinum “Greatest Hits of the Fifties” album.
The point of this (literal and figurative) stroll down memory lane?
The power of passive income.
Sure, I’d have loved to have written one song and been done for life (hey, take a number…). But, through my books/ebooks/related products and services, I, like my uncle, have richly benefited from having created something once, while profiting from it over and over again.
No, it’s not easy (my Uncle Ed wrote countless flops before AND after hitting it big), and you have to create something deemed valuable to enough people.
But, I invite you (urge you) to keep your radar up for that (info)product YOU could create based on your expertise in some arena of writing/marketing/??, which will keep paying dividends well beyond the initial effort expended.
To open your email and find a few $20, $30, $50 or $300 sales waiting for you, with nothing to do but reply, “Thanks!” is truly a beautiful thing. And something that’ll go far towards a “well-fed” life. On that happy note, let’s eat!
II. “FIELD” GREENS: GOT “MISE EN PLACE” IN PLACE?
MN FLCW Adapts Cooking System to Writing & Serves Up Tasty Results
Fun and useful piece from Minnesota FLCW Natalie M. Rotunda about transferring a system from the kitchen to the office. Natalie “writes fresh content for business clients, and edits and critiques content needing a makeover.” Thanks, Natalie!
My daughter and I had the perfect arrangement: She, 11, handled KP two nights while I cooked. And then we switched. Two on, two off.
But, soon, we each grew bored. So, we agreed she’d do ALL the cooking, and I’d do ALL the KP. After I had transferred my store of cooking and baking knowledge to her, she borrowed piles of cookbooks from the library and dove into her new role.
Eventually, my self-taught cook/baker-daughter wrote a column for a regional women’s magazine we both wrote for. Readers loved her style and recipes.
Stumbling onto a system Now, I love to eat, but don’t love to cook. After she left home, I cooked AND cleaned up. Meals are simple, but nutritious and (usually) edible. And, it quickly occurred to me that it’s not all about tossing the food into a pan. First comes the prep.
The French have a word for prep: mise en place (MEEZ ahn plahs), meaning to have all a dish’s necessary ingredients prepared and ready to combine.
Recently, I baked some goodies for neighbors. Using mise en place as my guide, I first re-read the recipe, then gathered and staged my ingredients and tools: mixing cups and spoons, cooling racks, oven mitts, baking pan, etc., then set the oven temp. Because I’d just mise en placed my success, both recipes turned out perfectly. Then, it hit me…
The same system could help me be a more productive, efficient writer.
Now, I gather everything I’ll need for draft-writing sessions: dictionary, thesaurus—and because I love handwriting first drafts—(PB: Me, too!) pens, pencils (with erasers), highlighters, paperclips, stapler, pads of paper, 3×5 cards, file folders. Soft instrumental (no words) music, and a lovely beverage completed my Mise en Place System™.
I was cookin’ now! I’d transformed the prepping phase from ho-hum and bland to fresh and new. Maybe this simple system can help you roar ahead in the ‘20s!
III. MAIN “MEAT” COURSE: NEGOTIATING 101
Small-Biz Coach Serves Up 2 Negotiating Tricks You Should Know!
An exceptionally useful and practical contribution from Atlanta-based small-business coach, friend and colleague, Ed Gandia. Say “negotiation” to many FLCWs, and they break out in a cold sweat. But, by breaking down the thinking behind it (and relating it to familiar situations), Ed ratchets down the stress factor. Enjoy!
How would you respond to a prospect who says,
“Sorry, that’s more than I can pay.”
Should you budge? If so, how to do you do it without giving away the farm? Negotiating isn’t that difficult. Just keep in mind two key concepts:
- Each party must feel like they won.
- For every concession you make, ask for something in return.
Each Party Must Feel Like They Won: Say you need to buy a car. Your budget is $15,000. But, the car you want is $17,000. You’re about to walk away, but the salesman comes back with an offer. He’ll give you the car for $16,000, and throw in a three-year warranty AND a year’s worth of oil changes.
This sounds like a sweet deal, so you take it. In your mind, you won the negotiation. And you did. But, so did the car salesman. He sold a car. And the concessions he made weren’t that costly to the dealership.
So, in reality, both of you won!
As a freelance writer, some of your clients are going to negotiate your fee. That’s just the way it is. So, when it happens, look at it as an opportunity to create a win/win situation.
Ask for Something in Return: Say your client feels the $3,500 you quoted is too high for a white paper. She says she only has $3,000 to spend. If you agree to cut your fee, then the client also has to give something up.
And here’s the key: it doesn’t have to be anything that’s important to you. It just needs to be perceived as something she had to concede in order to get what she wanted.
So instead of agreeing to cut your white paper fee by $500 and leaving it at that, you should ask the client for a concession of her own. For example, you could:
- Ask for full payment up front.
- Ask for a larger project. For instance, if this is the first white paper in a series of three, tell the client that you’ll write all three for $9,000, if she’s willing to cut a purchase order for the entire amount now.
- Ask for a longer deadline. If your schedule is tight, this can be a great concession.
- Do less for less. Offer to write a shorter piece. Or the first component of a bigger project.
Another approach you could take is to NOT cut your fee and instead offer the client something of value. For instance, you could:
- Offer to submit the draft earlier than the original deadline.
- Offer to throw in some extra work for free.
If you plan to throw in some extra work, look for things that don’t require a ton of time and are natural extensions of what you’re already doing.
Humans have an inherent need to feel like we’ve earned what we have. So, don’t give in too easily. It’s bad for you. And it’s bad for the client. Sound a bit far-fetched?
Think back to our car buying example. If the price was $17,000 and you offered $15,000, how would you feel if the salesman immediately said, “Done!” You’d feel great for about five minutes—until you starting wondering how much money you’d left on the table!
IV. DESSERT: SWEET SUCCESS STORIES & TIPS
FLCW Sticks to His (Billing) Guns, Walks Away from Present/Future Work
TIP: Use “The Reluctant Rock Star” Close to Light a Fire Under a Prospect
Not your typical “success story,” but in terms of being the right attitude of self-respect, it’s definitely a success philosophy. The FLCW, due to the sensitive nature of the story, would prefer to remain anonymous.
Good for them for drawing their line in the sand. After that, I share a handy tip for spurring a sluggish prospect to pull the trigger.
I recently did some work for a company I was referred to by a colleague. After working well together, I was introduced to the marketing guy from a sister company of theirs. Textbook success: A two-tier referral leading to work with TWO companies.
The marketing guy reached out to me just before I was leaving on a trip, asking if I could help out with a small project, to start. I explained I was leaving for nine days, but offered, while away, to quantify the scope of the project, and give them an estimate, so that, upon my return, I could hit the ground running. All sounded good to my contact.
We did all that, and then I sent him an invoice. Because it was a small job (under $400), and a first job with them, I asked for payment upfront. Here was the first line of his reply:
Thanks for the sending the invoice. We will take care of it once we have a chance to see your direction with the rewrite.
Unh-uh. That’s not going to work. We went back-and-forth several times during my vacation, and immediately upon my return, and I even compromised to 50% upfront. He wouldn’t budge. Regarding his email’s opening line, I wrote:
“It implied I might NOT get paid if you didn’t like the direction. That’s just not how I work. Amateurs will accept all sorts of conditions that serve their clients, but not them. As a professional who brings solid value to the table, all I ask is to treated as one.
“I’d love to work with you, but these are my terms, and frankly, by any objective industry standards, there’s absolutely nothing unusual or unreasonable about them. If you somehow feel differently, then we’ll have to agree to disagree and part friends.”
He indeed disagreed and we went our separate ways. Given that things have been a bit slow of late, I was sorry to lose the work—both this project and the promised pile of stuff coming with a rebrand in the new year.
Some might say, “Oh, just bend the rules a bit.” Nope. And truthfully, it wasn’t a hard decision—a bit painful, but not difficult. You’re either a professional or an amateur. Period.
Scenario: You’ve turned in an estimate to a client you suspect is dragging their feet. You want to spur them to action without being pushy about it. Try saying this (in an email):
Hey Mary: I do NOT want to bug you about the estimate, but just a heads-up that in a week or two, I’ll be starting on a new project that’s going to keep me busy for a few weeks. I’d welcome the chance to work with you, and want to be available when you’re ready. If that’s not now, no problem, but just letting you know.
Maybe it works, maybe not, but at the very least, it’ll convey that you’re a busy, in-demand copywriter (even if that’s not always the case… :-).
Yes, there’s a bit of risk involved, but if they pull back at that point, they likely weren’t a serious prospect anyway.
And if they are, it might just snap them out of a (possibly unconscious) mindset that clients who’re unaccustomed to working with writers often have: that you’re just waiting by the phone and will always be ready to go when they are.