Business-to-Business Copywriter
Dave's
Recommended Copywriting Books
Recommended Copywriting Books
Recently, copywriter Ray Edwards interviewed me … Ray is a very talented marketer, a great guy, and we’re now fast friends. One of the first questions he asked really got me to thinking about why so many people who decide to make copywriting their new career fail to rake in the big bucks ...
Heck, most of them have ordered and studied the American Writers and Artists Institute course, “Accelerated Program for Six-Figure Copywriting “. And still, the vast majority of you are struggling.
I know, because I’ve spoken to you at events like AWAI’s annual boot camps. I frequently correspond with you through my e-zine. I feel your pain on the discussion boards. And the common thread that seems to be stonewalling so many of you is painfully clear.
Oh sure, there are common reasons why people struggle at anything: lack of discipline, lack of self-belief, etc., but I’m not talking about that.
Ray’s question was this: “Do copywriter’s really need clients?” Now to be honest, the question caught me a little off guard. What a bizarre question. But I knew where he was going …
Here’s my response … “No, all client’s suck. Just kidding. Yeah, I don’t think you can really call yourself a copywriter if you don’t have clients, at least at some point in your career.
It’s a tremendous education that gives you all kinds of exposure to different markets, and a real head start if you want to try your hand at information marketing in any of them.
At which point you can take clients or leave them. I think that’s the best position to be in, don’t you?”
The conversation veered off in another direction, but what I would have liked to have added was that the two endeavors - copywriting and information marketing - actually support each other in all kinds of ways that are invisible from the outside … ways that every aspiring copywriter should be aware of. In fact, information marketing is the only kind of marketing I’ve ever done to support the copywriting side of my business.
Now don’t get me wrong, I don’t doubt for a minute that anybody who puts their mind to it can find copywriting work with the traditional shoe leather direct selling methods recommended by AWAI. Offer to apply your marketing magic cheap - or even free in lieu of a piece of the increased sales - build a quick portfolio, conduct an intensive marketing campaign with your samples, and establish your client base. But I think there’s a better way …
How to make big bucks getting prospective
clients to proposition you … instead of you
having to proposition them …
One of the people I studied closely in my direct selling days had this to say about closing, “He who speaks first loses”. Of course, what J. Douglas Edwards was referring to is the all too common habit of asking a prospect a closing question, and then not shutting up long enough to hear the answer. Of course I don’t agree with the adversarial analogy. I don’t think anyone should “lose” in a sales transaction, but otherwise the advice is entirely sound.
And what I’ve discovered is that the same thing holds true at the other end of the sales cycle. “He who speaks first loses.” When you make the first move by asking somebody if they’re interested in hiring you as a copywriter, it’s they, not you, who are in the driver’s seat. They smell your need. They shop around. They feel they have the upper hand in negotiation, and you’re at an immediate disadvantage …
How would you like to turn the tables on them? How would you like to smell their need? How would you like to charge more, and never have to spend time pounding the pavement for your next assignment? Here’s the secret: Information marketing!
When copywriters (or any service professional for that matter) “need” clients, it’s bad news. When you’re continually prospecting for your next assignment, it means you’re bottom feeding for the scraps the big time pros leave behind. But when you become your own best customer, everything changes.
How to consistently raise your fees … and never waste time talking to a potential customer who isn’t ready to do business with you …
Selling your own information products allows you to “position” yourself in the marketplace, so prospective clients find you, instead of you “prospecting” to find them. It liquidates all of your marketing expenses, whether you get a customer or not. It’s a leveraged activity. You do it once, and it keeps on working for you for years, eliminating the time consuming distraction of having to devote time to digging up new work. And it allows you to charge substantially more!
When your prospective clients approach you, you have a tremendous psychological advantage. When you’re making more money selling your own information products per hour than other copywriters are making copywriting, naturally your fees go up. Why would you write copy for someone else for any less than what you’re already making selling your own information?
No matter what kind of information you decide to sell, you’re building precious copywriting experience, a portfolio, even a business, and all the while positioning yourself as a copywriter. It’s cheap, easy, and brutally effective. Let me count the ways …
4 great reasons for becoming
your own best customer …
Costs almost nothing to get started - There’s no other real business on the face of this earth that’s easier to get involved with. I started literally with just a laptop computer and a couple of hundred bucks. I invested in a web host … an Internet connection … a special kind of e-mail account known as an autoresponder … a couple of cheap software programs … and a telephone. And that was it.
I began selling a downloadable e-book on the Internet for $67 the very next week. It’s almost three years later, and I just received an e-mail notifying me that I sold another copy now as I’m writing this.
Incredible Profit Margins - This is one of the only businesses you’ll find anywhere where the cost of producing a product has almost nothing to do with the price people are willing to pay for it. Imagine assembling an e-book. You do the work once. Then you deliver it digitally over the Internet for pennies a copy, and collect $67 for each download - for years!
Or how about creating a hard product comprised of printed manuals or CDs that you deliver through the mail. What costs you $20 or $30 to produce can be sold easily for $300 or more!
You see, people don’t care how much the product cost to produce. What’s important to them is the results they can get from the information.
Now you might be wondering why people would want to buy information from you, instead of going off to Barnes and Noble or Amazon to get it. Great question. And the reason is simple. For a piece of media to become published through the regular channels requires that it be targeted toward a broad audience.
Your information however, is going to be laser-targeted to the needs of select groups of individuals that are underserved by these mainstream channels.
No Overhead or Inventory Required - This is the ultimate home-based business. You can get started by delivering your information entirely online. And like I said, physical products are incredibly cheap to create as well. And no inventory is required. It’s all done on demand.
You sell a product. Then your fulfillment partner produces it and sends it to your customer. No fuss, no muss. You can easily operate globally, building your information marketing empire from your kitchen table!
Unlimited Income Potential - This is a business that’s truly scalable. You can do it a little, or you can do it a lot. Start small, and grow big. I have clients that do close to a $100 million in sales annually.
You make the rules. You bend them to suit your lifestyle. And unlike any other business endeavor you care to name, you need not sacrifice anything to achieve enormous success!
As a “copywriter” under the traditional definition, you’re basically trading your hours for money. Sure there are royalties, but essentially, if you stop working, the money stops pretty quickly.
As an information marketer, you create a product once, and you’re done. The money can keep rolling in for years! I have friends earning as much $3 million a year with a single employee in this business. Talk about leverage!
The Bottom Line:
Hey, copywriting is a pretty cool gig. It’s fun working with clients and helping them to build their businesses. And it’s a nice hit of quick cash if you structure the deal right. But it sure sucks having to continually beat the bushes trying to scare up gigs with the shoe leather approach, over and over again, don’t you agree?
Why not get smart, and become your own best customer? It’s easier than you might think. There are no less than 6 detailed step-by-step plans for getting a turbo-lift head start in the info-marketing biz in my Bootstrap Money Makers package. Click here to check it out!
Until next time, Good Selling!
Daniel Levis
Editor, The Web Marketing Advisor
THE TOTAL PACKAGE™
Daniel Levis is a top marketing consultant & direct response copywriter based in Toronto, Canada and publisher of the world famous copywriting anthology Masters of Copywriting featuring the selling wisdom of 44 of the “Top Money” marketing minds of all time, including Clayton Makepeace, Dan Kennedy, Joe Sugarman, John Carlton, Joe Vitale, Michel Fortin, Richard Armstrong and dozens more! For a FREE excerpt visit http://www.Sellingtohumannature.com
Heck, most of them have ordered and studied the American Writers and Artists Institute course, “Accelerated Program for Six-Figure Copywriting “. And still, the vast majority of you are struggling.
I know, because I’ve spoken to you at events like AWAI’s annual boot camps. I frequently correspond with you through my e-zine. I feel your pain on the discussion boards. And the common thread that seems to be stonewalling so many of you is painfully clear.
Oh sure, there are common reasons why people struggle at anything: lack of discipline, lack of self-belief, etc., but I’m not talking about that.
Ray’s question was this: “Do copywriter’s really need clients?” Now to be honest, the question caught me a little off guard. What a bizarre question. But I knew where he was going …
Here’s my response … “No, all client’s suck. Just kidding. Yeah, I don’t think you can really call yourself a copywriter if you don’t have clients, at least at some point in your career.
It’s a tremendous education that gives you all kinds of exposure to different markets, and a real head start if you want to try your hand at information marketing in any of them.
At which point you can take clients or leave them. I think that’s the best position to be in, don’t you?”
The conversation veered off in another direction, but what I would have liked to have added was that the two endeavors - copywriting and information marketing - actually support each other in all kinds of ways that are invisible from the outside … ways that every aspiring copywriter should be aware of. In fact, information marketing is the only kind of marketing I’ve ever done to support the copywriting side of my business.
Now don’t get me wrong, I don’t doubt for a minute that anybody who puts their mind to it can find copywriting work with the traditional shoe leather direct selling methods recommended by AWAI. Offer to apply your marketing magic cheap - or even free in lieu of a piece of the increased sales - build a quick portfolio, conduct an intensive marketing campaign with your samples, and establish your client base. But I think there’s a better way …
How to make big bucks getting prospective
clients to proposition you … instead of you
having to proposition them …
One of the people I studied closely in my direct selling days had this to say about closing, “He who speaks first loses”. Of course, what J. Douglas Edwards was referring to is the all too common habit of asking a prospect a closing question, and then not shutting up long enough to hear the answer. Of course I don’t agree with the adversarial analogy. I don’t think anyone should “lose” in a sales transaction, but otherwise the advice is entirely sound.
And what I’ve discovered is that the same thing holds true at the other end of the sales cycle. “He who speaks first loses.” When you make the first move by asking somebody if they’re interested in hiring you as a copywriter, it’s they, not you, who are in the driver’s seat. They smell your need. They shop around. They feel they have the upper hand in negotiation, and you’re at an immediate disadvantage …
How would you like to turn the tables on them? How would you like to smell their need? How would you like to charge more, and never have to spend time pounding the pavement for your next assignment? Here’s the secret: Information marketing!
When copywriters (or any service professional for that matter) “need” clients, it’s bad news. When you’re continually prospecting for your next assignment, it means you’re bottom feeding for the scraps the big time pros leave behind. But when you become your own best customer, everything changes.
How to consistently raise your fees … and never waste time talking to a potential customer who isn’t ready to do business with you …
Selling your own information products allows you to “position” yourself in the marketplace, so prospective clients find you, instead of you “prospecting” to find them. It liquidates all of your marketing expenses, whether you get a customer or not. It’s a leveraged activity. You do it once, and it keeps on working for you for years, eliminating the time consuming distraction of having to devote time to digging up new work. And it allows you to charge substantially more!
When your prospective clients approach you, you have a tremendous psychological advantage. When you’re making more money selling your own information products per hour than other copywriters are making copywriting, naturally your fees go up. Why would you write copy for someone else for any less than what you’re already making selling your own information?
No matter what kind of information you decide to sell, you’re building precious copywriting experience, a portfolio, even a business, and all the while positioning yourself as a copywriter. It’s cheap, easy, and brutally effective. Let me count the ways …
4 great reasons for becoming
your own best customer …
Costs almost nothing to get started - There’s no other real business on the face of this earth that’s easier to get involved with. I started literally with just a laptop computer and a couple of hundred bucks. I invested in a web host … an Internet connection … a special kind of e-mail account known as an autoresponder … a couple of cheap software programs … and a telephone. And that was it.
I began selling a downloadable e-book on the Internet for $67 the very next week. It’s almost three years later, and I just received an e-mail notifying me that I sold another copy now as I’m writing this.
Incredible Profit Margins - This is one of the only businesses you’ll find anywhere where the cost of producing a product has almost nothing to do with the price people are willing to pay for it. Imagine assembling an e-book. You do the work once. Then you deliver it digitally over the Internet for pennies a copy, and collect $67 for each download - for years!
Or how about creating a hard product comprised of printed manuals or CDs that you deliver through the mail. What costs you $20 or $30 to produce can be sold easily for $300 or more!
You see, people don’t care how much the product cost to produce. What’s important to them is the results they can get from the information.
Now you might be wondering why people would want to buy information from you, instead of going off to Barnes and Noble or Amazon to get it. Great question. And the reason is simple. For a piece of media to become published through the regular channels requires that it be targeted toward a broad audience.
Your information however, is going to be laser-targeted to the needs of select groups of individuals that are underserved by these mainstream channels.
No Overhead or Inventory Required - This is the ultimate home-based business. You can get started by delivering your information entirely online. And like I said, physical products are incredibly cheap to create as well. And no inventory is required. It’s all done on demand.
You sell a product. Then your fulfillment partner produces it and sends it to your customer. No fuss, no muss. You can easily operate globally, building your information marketing empire from your kitchen table!
Unlimited Income Potential - This is a business that’s truly scalable. You can do it a little, or you can do it a lot. Start small, and grow big. I have clients that do close to a $100 million in sales annually.
You make the rules. You bend them to suit your lifestyle. And unlike any other business endeavor you care to name, you need not sacrifice anything to achieve enormous success!
As a “copywriter” under the traditional definition, you’re basically trading your hours for money. Sure there are royalties, but essentially, if you stop working, the money stops pretty quickly.
As an information marketer, you create a product once, and you’re done. The money can keep rolling in for years! I have friends earning as much $3 million a year with a single employee in this business. Talk about leverage!
The Bottom Line:
Hey, copywriting is a pretty cool gig. It’s fun working with clients and helping them to build their businesses. And it’s a nice hit of quick cash if you structure the deal right. But it sure sucks having to continually beat the bushes trying to scare up gigs with the shoe leather approach, over and over again, don’t you agree?
Why not get smart, and become your own best customer? It’s easier than you might think. There are no less than 6 detailed step-by-step plans for getting a turbo-lift head start in the info-marketing biz in my Bootstrap Money Makers package. Click here to check it out!
Until next time, Good Selling!
Daniel Levis
Editor, The Web Marketing Advisor
THE TOTAL PACKAGE™
Daniel Levis is a top marketing consultant & direct response copywriter based in Toronto, Canada and publisher of the world famous copywriting anthology Masters of Copywriting featuring the selling wisdom of 44 of the “Top Money” marketing minds of all time, including Clayton Makepeace, Dan Kennedy, Joe Sugarman, John Carlton, Joe Vitale, Michel Fortin, Richard Armstrong and dozens more! For a FREE excerpt visit http://www.Sellingtohumannature.com
Do Copywriters Really Need Clients?
By Daniel Levis
By Daniel Levis