VOLUME 22, ISSUE 9 – SEPTEMBER 2023
THIS MONTH’S MENU:
I. APPETIZER: ARE YOU “SCOPE-BLIND”?
What Do You Do When the Project Scope Balloons?
II. “FIELD” GREENS: AI’s SERIOUS LIMITATION
AI’s Audience Is Broad, But Copywriting Must Be Tailored
III. MAIN “MEAT” COURSE: STAIR-STEPPING TO SUCCESS
Gradually Building the Confidence to Pursue High-End Clients
IV. DESSERT: COMBO SUCCESS STORY & TIP
Close Call with Client Reminds: Limit Revisions!
I. APPETIZER: ARE YOU “SCOPE-BLIND”?
What Do You Do When the Project Scope Balloons?
Got an email (excerpted) from a reader recently:
Hey Peter: I’ve landed an agency client. They offered me a gig writing 10 landing pages a week for two months at X$ each. Seemed great for a rookie, but they’ve added more and more style guidelines over the last few weeks.
I now have to carefully check through around 20 style pointers before I can send them a finished page. Plus, the agency made revisions on my work, which I had to update. Then the client revised the agency’s revisions, and the agency asked me to fix them.
Also, the pages require a lot of research. It’s 1k+ words of technical information per page. This project initially seemed so financially promising, but now it’s looking like the opposite. What should I do? Cut them off or bite the bullet for two months?
Whew! Tough situation. On one hand, if you agreed to the terms, without seeing exactly how it would shake out, you’re committed to those terms.
On the other hand, if you indeed determined upfront, through questions, what a typical project would entail in terms of writing, interviews, research, and yes, style guidelines, etc., and they went well beyond those parameters, then you should re-negotiate the fee.
Course, some clients are hard-asses: if you agreed to a set of terms, you’re stuck. If it’s a good client—inherently fair—they may respond far more positively, knowing that a happy copywriter = an optimal outcome.
Either way, it’ll be an uncomfortable conversation!
In the future, with a similarly large project (or ghostwriting a book, writing a 50-page website, writing a 20-module manual, etc.), definitely suggest to the client that you do two or three pieces at an agreed-upon price, and see how it goes.
Had you done that here, you’d have been able to definitively tell them the project took far longer than expected, given the original parameters. Then, you could’ve negotiated a more equitable price for the balance of the project.
Your call what to do. If business is slow, maybe you just grin and bear it. Though, if so, definitely let them know the original expectations changed dramatically, and that the industry standard is to revisit the agreed-upon fee.
Little consolation, but we’ve all been there! Just learn from it. Remember the old saying: “Good judgment comes from experience, and experience comes from bad judgment.”
II. “FIELD” GREENS: AI’s SERIOUS LIMITATION
AI’s Audience Is Broad, But Copywriting Must Be Tailored
Got the following excellent piece from J.M. Lacey, a NC-based writer, copyeditor and content creator for nonprofit and corporate communications.
I thought she brilliantly explained what a seasoned copywriter can do that AI simply can’t. Make sure your clients—present and future—get this “memo” in some form or fashion. Thanks, J.M.!
Can you train technology to have feelings? Can you train it to distinguish individuals? Can you train it to understand human behavior?
In working as a writer with many different individuals and organizations over the years, I learned that culture, environment, location and many other things all shape how we communicate.
Global corporations have to learn to communicate widely to appeal to their employees and customers across the world.
What is crafted in the United States cannot be shared with say, China, in the same form. Different cultures need different communications styles.
Understanding people takes empathy, which needs to be trained. Sometimes that comes from personal experience.
Emotional intelligence is often cited as a crucial component of learning to communicate with others.
We can read about it and study it, but to understand it, we have to delve into human behavior. Sometimes that is based on experience, either our own or from people close to us.
Communicating verbally with individuals takes a lot of preparation and care. But when it needs to be done in written form, even more care is needed because it is hard to read emotion, say, in an email.
Enter AI… Now, you can ask ChatGPT to formulate a firm, professional email to help you communicate intentions. But, understand that it’s basing its response on general information.
Would the same communication appeal to a person who likes messages short and to the point? Or someone who wants numbers, facts and data, not emotion?
What if the person is in another country? Of a different generation and age bracket? Or is especially sensitive?
Our writing stems from a background of understanding. We should be able to take the intention of the message and shape it in a way that fits the person and circumstance.
What one finds helpful, another could find offensive because of the tone or language. And here’s the thing:
AI is incapable of understanding human emotion and behavior.
Professional writers, on the other hand, have learned the art of appealing on an emotional level to specific audiences and people.
After gathering our intel, we step back and ask ourselves: “Is this the best way to communicate this message?” Our skills (and mistakes) have taught us to recognize flaws in our message.
And frankly, the best writers, the best communicators, the best storytellers, are the ones who have erred and have experienced life.
Writers can appeal to humans on an emotional level to persuade. While AI might have its use, ultimately, professional writers understand the backgrounds and makeup of people, putting us in the best place to communicate effectively.
“In order to write about life first you must live it.” — Ernest Hemingway
III. MAIN “MEAT” COURSE: STAIR-STEPPING TO SUCCESS
Gradually Building the Confidence to Pursue High-End Clients
This great piece on incrementally building the confidence needed to pursue better clients comes from friend, colleague, “business-building coach for writers and copywriters” and E-PUB regular, Ed Gandia.
This business of ours is, in many ways, a mental game, and, as such, we are usually the biggest obstacle standing in the way of our being successful.
Ed’s solid advice can help us use what we have now to more quickly get to the high-caliber clients.
A coaching client recently asked me what she needed to do to start going after and landing well-known clients—Fortune 500 clients. Big organizations that look impressive in your client roster and portfolio.
What I found most interesting were her assumptions about what this would take. She specifically asked what kind of skills training she’d need to take to qualify to pursue these types of clients.
In other words, what knowledge or skillset she would need in order to be worthy of even knocking on the doors of these bigger organizations. My advice:
Chances are excellent, it’s not skills training you’re missing.
What’s missing are two things:
1) Understanding that only YOU need to give yourself permission to go after these clients—no one else. There’s no “certification board” dictating which prospects you’re qualified to pursue.
2) A strategy that uses whatever confidence level you have TODAY to stretch that a bit and then move in the direction you want to go.
#1 is pretty self-explanatory. You can go after whomever you want, whenever you want. And there’s a very good chance that you already qualify to go after the IBMs of the world.
Boatloads of writers pursue bigger clients than you do, despite being less experienced, less skilled and less qualified to do so. And some of them actually land these clients!
Women often struggle with this more than men. I know I’m generalizing, but there’s a good amount of evidence showing that women often sell themselves short when compared to men with the same level of skill.
Point #2 was about working with your current confidence level in order to
get to a better place.
Experience, ability, skill and confidence are all relative. Say you’re on step 5 of a 10-step staircase—with each step representing both where you are in your business AND your confidence level.
You’d love to land some clients in the 9 and 10 categories, but you’re terrified. You don’t feel ready.
Fine. Work with your level-5 confidence and pursue 6’s and 7’s—a bit outside your comfort zone, but not so far that you’re terrified to make your move.
Once you land a few 6’s and 7’s, that’s your new baseline. What used to feel out of reach is now our new normal. We’ve ALL been there.
Now, go after 8’s and 9’s. Again, outside—but not too outside—your comfort zone. Once you land your first client in that category, and a second, this becomes your new comfort zone.
Now, you’re so close to the 10s, why you wouldn’t go after them?
One last point. Wherever you are on the staircase, there are people on lower steps admiring you, wondering how they’ll ever get to that step. Just like you were not very long ago.
Again, it’s all relative. And the fact that you are where you are right now is proof that you’re capable of so much more. Onward!
IV. DESSERT: COMBO SUCCESS STORY & TIP
Close Call with Client Reminds: Limit Revisions!
I recently had a case-study project with a client. Because I’d done plenty of other projects with them, I dispensed with my normal agreement, which I usually skip after the first four or five successful projects.
In that agreement, I clearly state that I include two rounds of revisions, and reserve the right to charge an extra fee for additional rounds.
On this project, because they added more content after the fact, revisions extended beyond three rounds.
Because they were a good well-paying client, I didn’t want to make a big stink about it, but thought it prudent to diplomatically remind them of the rule.
I wrote:
FYI, I have a simple agreement I use with clients (and used with you on the first few projects). We didn’t use one here, but one of the terms is that I include two rounds of revisions, and I note that, “additional rounds may incur an additional charge.”
I almost never charge extra, and I certainly won’t here if there are any other minor edits required, but I include it so clients know what’s customary.
So, just keep it in mind moving forward, as far as providing me (as much as possible), at the start, with all (or close) I’ll need to write the piece. Obviously, not saying you can’t add anything as we go, but…you get the idea! 😉
Because she’s a good egg, as expected, she wrote:
Not a problem! Totally understand that. Thank you!
Remember: While there are no hard-and-fast rules in our business, it’s not never a bad idea to remind clients of the “standards,” so they don’t—even inadvertently—take too much latitude.