VOLUME 21, ISSUE 6 – JUNE 2022
THIS MONTH’S MENU:
I. APPETIZER: MAXIMIZING YOUR “EXTRA-EFFORT ROI”?
Doing a Little More Can Earn You Far More
II. “FIELD” GREENS: HAVE YOU SAID ENOUGH?
Marketing/Copywriting Pro: Brevity Isn’t Always Clarity
III. MAIN “MEAT” COURSE: HOW TO MAKE SIX FIGURES!
Decade-Long, 100K+ Atlanta Commercial Writer Shares His Top Four Tips
IV. DESSERT: COMBO SUCCESS STORY & TIP
Canadian FLCW Strikes Gold with an “End-Around” Online Job Sites
I. APPETIZER: MAXIMIZING YOUR “EXTRA-EFFORT ROI”?
Doing a Little More Can Earn You Far More
I recently hired a service provider on Fiverr to handle a very specific formatting need that I had on a client project. The person in question had strong reviews, and her prices were super-reasonable, so I gave her a try.
All in all, she did decent work, but, before too long, her performance started falling short. Little things ended up being big things (in terms of additional time I needed to spend).
I’d give her copy to format, and it would come with paragraphs jammed together, headlines on top of body copy, not enough breathing room, and so on. In short, she didn’t have much of an eye for the visual aesthetics—i.e., making sure a final product was nicely structured and laid out.
Also, I’d send her four small edits, and her return draft would include three of the edits, necessitating another email to remind her to fix #4.
That wouldn’t be a huge deal except, she’d send me the first draft at 10:00 a.m., I’d respond at noon with my edit requests, and I wouldn’t hear back from her until the next day (FYI, the editing process was such that she had to make the edits; I wasn’t able to).
Finally, after dealing with this on two different projects, I was done.
You could say, “Well, you get what you pay for,” and yes, I hadn’t paid very much. So, point taken.
But what struck me was that all the things she fell short on—little formatting sense, not completing all requested edits, and taking too long to reply—would have taken such little extra effort to get right, and no experience whatever.
I mean, how much experience do you need to be thorough, responsive, and to turn in something that looks visually symmetrical (when you’re calling yourself a designer)?
And because all of these things (that would have been so easy to do) would have been so enormously valuable to a client, this woman could easily have charged a good bit more for her services in return for delivering them in a far more buttoned-up way.
It made me realize what it must be like for a client dealing with a mediocre writer, who turns in sloppy work, isn’t thorough in covering all the bases, and has little sense of urgency about getting things done quickly (and I’ve heard countless such stories over the years!).
Sure, if you’re starting out as a writer, you may not have honed your craft like more seasoned scribes have, but you can certainly deliver many other things—i.e., reliability, attention to detail, responsiveness, easygoing nature—that clients will value HIGHLY, and do so with minimal effort.
You know that old adage: The difference between good and great is often this much (i.e., not much). On that “success-is-closer-than-you-think” note, let’s eat!
II. “FIELD” GREENS: HAVE YOU SAID ENOUGH?
Marketing/Copywriting Pro: Brevity Isn’t Always Clarity
This following exceptionally useful advice first appeared as a Marketing Minute (subscribe here) from marketing/copywriting pro Marcia Yudkin.
Her message resonated with me, big time: brevity is great in marketing copy, but not if you’ve made all sorts of assumptions about what people know and need to know before making a buying decision. Thanks, Marcia!
When an aspiring copywriter asked me what mistake I see most often in marketing pieces, I didn’t hesitate for a moment. “Not explaining enough,” I replied.
It’s trendy now to pitch expensive items, services or events with just a few up-front sentences, then several bite-sized headlined segments along with some evocative images. Then comes the Order Now button.
This approach misses many opportunities. First is the building of rapport. When you dive right in, expecting that the reader already hums in sync with you, you may lose folks who need a warmup demonstrating that you understand their needs, wants and attitudes.
Second, little islands of text don’t allow you to develop persuasive arguments about why your offering is needed, how your service differs from others like it and who it’s best suited for.
Third, boiled-down brevity tends to overlook the myriad of “what if” and “what about” wonderings that people contemplating spending serious money, effort or time often have.
After all, many shopping sites show dozens of user do-or-die questions for seemingly simple products.
Properly organized, when you say more you’ll sell more.
PB: Marcia nicely covers the types of additional info that are worth including. One more example of additional “explaining” that can be valuable…
I’m a big fan of adding “What-Happens-Next” copy to marketing materials (web sites, brochure, direct mail, etc.), especially if it’s a bigger-ticket item.
Letting people know what’s going to happen after they say yes can remove any lingering—and often unconscious—hesitation about saying yes.
Like, “Once you make the decision to move forward, we’ll set up a call with one of installation specialists to book your appointment and answer any questions you have…”, etc., etc.
It “closes the circle” for people by removing all unknowns from the process.
III. MAIN “MEAT” COURSE: HOW TO MAKE SIX FIGURES!
Decade-Long, 100K+ Atlanta FLCW Shares His Top Four Tips
Got this terrific piece from exceptionally successful, Atlanta-area financial services writer, Don Sadler.
If you want to know how to hit the often-elusive, but oh-so-desirable six-figure-income level (and well beyond…), I can’t think of anyone better suited to give advice than Don. Enjoy!
I’ve been a fan of Peter’s since I first read The Well-Fed Writer before going full-time freelance in 2009. His book helped me believe that yes, I could make a go of it as a full-time freelancer and not “starve.”
A couple of years after launching, I achieved the Holy Grail: a six-figure annual income. I’ve been able to maintain this income level ever since.
When I mentioned this to Peter recently, he asked if I’d share a few tips on reaching and maintain this income level. So here are my top four tips…
- Be disciplined.The most important tip. To build a six-figure freelance writing business, you need to be disciplined enough to write every single day. Of course, you also have to do your prospecting, marketing, invoicing, client management, etc., but if you’re not writing content, you’re not making money.
This means fighting through the times when you don’t “feel” like writing. Not getting distracted by family interruptions, home-related to-dos, or getting sucked down internet rabbit holes that can gobble up hours of your time.
- Treat your freelance business like a real business. Incorporate your business and have a business email address (not gmail or yahoo), a professional website and professional-looking invoices and proposals. Failure to do these things screams “amateur” to clients and prospects.
If you don’t view freelancing as a “real” business (maybe because there aren’t employees, office space, etc.), clients won’t either, and this will severely limit your income potential.
- Find a profitable niche.I’ve weighed in before here on the generalist vs. niche debate. Before freelancing I wrote in the financial services space, so this was a logical niche. Generalists argue that focusing on a narrow niche seriously shrinks their prospect universe and income potential.
Yes, having one niche shrinks my overall prospect universe, but this is a plus: I can stay focused in this area and be more productive. I still only need a small sliver of the overall financial services writing pie to make a really good living.
- Charge by the project, not by the hour. Charging hourly rates has never made sense to me. Why? Charging by the hour penalizes youfor working fast.
It actually incents you to work more slowly on projects to make more money, but clients—who want to know how much they’ll ultimately pay for a project—won’t put up with that for long.
If you know you write fast, you can potentially make MUCH more money charging by the project than by the hour.
Because of my extensive experience in the financial services niche, I write fast, and hence, can charge relatively high rates, earning three to four times as much as I ever could charging hourly rates.
I can’t guarantee putting these tips into practice will ensure you hit six figures this year, but I can promise that they’ll help increase your freelance income.
IV. DESSERT: COMBO SUCCESS STORY & TIP
Canadian FLCW Strikes Gold with an “End-Around” Online Job Sites
Got this great combo tip/success story from a Canadian FLCW who prefers to remain anonymous. As she points out, job sites are rarely promising avenues, but they CAN potentially be quite valuable if approached the right way.
Keep a watchful eye on job posting sites like Indeed to see who’s hiring freelance writers, ghostwriters, copywriters and other relevant keyword titles.
Although I avoid applying via these sites, if I know they’re hiring, I’ll contact them via their own site—by email, phone or sometimes by submitting a professional profile to a current posting in their “Careers” section. It’s usually easy to find the right person’s name, title and email too.
Quite often these online job sites will recommend positions I’m not interested in at all, such as full-time editor or on-site content manager.
It’s worth looking at the job descriptions for them though. They’ll often include “manage freelancers” as a responsibility, so you know there’s an opportunity to enquire and possibly join the stable.
The very first time I tried this, I landed three solid, long-term clients based in the U.S. Fellow Canadians—be sure you explore the counterpart U.S. site, too.
Finally, notice the wording of the job descriptions and requirements. It’s amazing how the things we consider no-brainers like “meeting deadlines,” “accepting feedback gracefully,” “communicating regularly” and others appear to be so rare they feel the need to mention them!