FIRE: Become an Expert
comment now!Everyone loves a specialist.
As a copywriter, if you specialize in a specific industry or market, then you can command a higher fee and stand apart form the competition. We just saw how to start getting work in a particular industry. Now, how do you build on that and really take command of your expert status?
First off, the one thing that separated most recognized experts isn’t that they are the best in their field. It is simply that they are the most recognized. They publish. They speak. They market themselves as experts in their field. As long as they actually know what they’re talking about, they can create long-lived careers simply being experts.
What Do You Know?
So, the first thing you have to have is knowledge. Thanks to the big-box bookstores, the Net, and college bookstores, that knowledge is easy to come by. The simple truth is, if you read two or three books on the industry, you’ll know more about it than 95% of the copywriters out there (and the general population, for that matter). Read each book, and write a two page summary.
Once you’ve done this, let the information cool for a bit, come up with an angle you can call your own, and then write a 5-10 page special report based on the information you’ve read so far, and offer it for free on your site to subscribers of your free monthly newsletter. Keep reading a new book on the industry each month, along with half an hour or so of research online, and use this information as the basis for your newsletter. At the same time, you’re talking regularly with your clients and learning as much as you can about the various aspects of the business that affect them on a day-to-day basis.
Act Like The Expert You Are!
Next, contact you local university annex or community center and offer to teach a free seminar on some aspect of the subject at hand. Once you’ve taught it two or three times, contact the local trade association, and offer to speak to the industry about effective marketing. Record these seminars and offer them as free videos to your newsletter subscribers.
Once the members of the industry see you speaking authoritatively, they will see you as an credible expert…because you will be one. At this point, you can start charging fees for speaking, and you’ll have enough first-hand knowledge to start writing your own books on the subject. Not to mention the fees you can command as a Specialist Copywriter in the industry.
All from a few extra hours work each month.
SHELTER: Step Away From The Computer
comment now!The computer is an amazing tool. It simplifies work, makes research and communication a breeze and even provides much needed diversion from time to time. But as amazing as it is, it can come at a bit of a price. While it can be a helpful tool to use in the day-to-day aspects of work, it can also hurt you productivity by monopolizing your focus AND by causing you to lose your focus at the same time.
Familiarity Breeds Contempt
Sitting at the computer hour after hour can rob you of the very thing that makes freelancing such a great thing: freedom to work when and where you want. If you’re always at the computer, then you could be at your kitchen table, in a corner office, or in a tiny gray-walled cubicle. What’s the difference when your entire world is encompassed by a 10″ by 12″ piece of class and plastic? Being busy it great, but make sure you’re actually BUSY, and not simply keeping busy.
No Distance= No Perspective
Creative work is best done in short, intense bursts. So, too, is analytical work. Since the majority of a writer’s time is spent concepting and writing (creative) or editing (analytical), your workday should be comprised of several short, intense periods of work, broken up by longer periods of, say, research and business management tasks.
Otherwise, you’ll get locked into one creative/analytical task and stay stuck in it for hours…and end up wasting half a day on something that could have been done more productively in thee separate 15-minute blocks. Write or edit until it starts feeling like you’re forcing it, then stop and take a break. Look at your to-do list and make sure you’re staying on-track.
Take a Break, Take a Breath, Go Low Tech for a Sec
You don’t even have to do all of your writing at the computer. Grab a pen and paper, and go sit out in the front yard and enjoy the day while you work. Or go sit in a museum, surrounded by creative masterpieces. Or out in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by nature.
You’re a freelancer, by god. Don’t forget to act like it! You’ll find yourself being more productive and enjoying the job a whole lot more, because of it.
FOOD: Instant Muse
comment now!Stuck? Quick, grab something. Anything!
Seriously, anything with words on it. Take a pen, and underline every noun, verb, adjective and adverb you see. Transpose this word list to your notebook or computer. (A few days ago, I’d reached a bit of an impasse where it seemed like I was just recycling the same ideas over and over. I found the packaging from a pair of slant-tip tweezers my wife bough a few days ago, and got this word list: Tweeze, slant, grip, easy, point, simple, quick, make, work.)
Take these words and see if you can work them into your copy. Even if you can’t, the process of trying, of bringing in new concepts will jump start your brain, and you’ll end up finding something that works.
The Principle of Inertia
Here’s why this works; it’s simple physics, really. The Principle of Inertia states that an object in motion will stay in motion and an object at rest will stay at rest, until acted upon by an outside force. In this case, the object is your current project…and it will stay within the status quo unless something upsets the equilibrium.
The outside force is the word list that you found (that someone else wrote). Most of these words will have nothing to do with your project—and that’s a good thing. The brain looks for patterns to see how things fit together. When you introduce these new words, you brain will expand its frame of reference trying to figure out how all of this sorts out. New neurons start firing, and suddenly…magic!
The Creative Catalyst
The new words act as a catalyst to get your mind over the equilibrium. They provide just enough of a nudge to get all the ideas bouncing around again, until something sticks. And then your project is off and running at full speed again.
FIRE: Blogging for New Business
comment now!
The only way to get business in some markets is to prove yourself by writing about it. This is where blogs come in really handy as a marketing tool, even for the beginning writer.
Write about ten to fifteen articles (200-400 words each) about marketing for that specific industry. Set up a blog, either as part of your current domain, or set up a free blog at wordpress.com or typepad.com. Add your articles to the blog, and create an about page tailored to this industry, as well as links to your main writing site.
If you’ve done some work in the industry already, then go ahead and put the applicable pieces in your portfolio. If you don’t have many pieces for that industry, go ahead and beef it up with some of your other pieces. If you don’t have any paid work at all, yet, you can either throw up some spec pieces, or just let your articles suffice for the moment, until you get some.
You can use some of the articles you wrote for Article PR at submission sites if you want, but you don’t have to. A better strategy is to take a day or two out of your schedule and just start making phone calls. As always, you’re not calling to beg for work. Just to approach companies in this industry to see if they use copywriters, and if so, let them know you’re available and ask if they’d mind a follow-up call in a week or two. In the mean time, point them at your new site.
The fact that you have a site devoted specifically to marketing for their industry now puts you in a “specialist” category that not only puts you ahead of the competition, but also allows you to command a higher fee for your work. Now, take two or three hours once a month to write ten to twelve new posts for the blog, and schedule them to post throughout the month, every three days or so, and within a few months, you’ll have one of the most comprehensive marketing sites in that industry. Assuming you’re writing quality articles with helpful content, people in the industry will spread your name around, and you could soon be a recognized industry expert.
FIRE: Thanks for the Memory…
comment now!I had this idea while talking with a friend not too long ago. You can get jump drives (or flash memory drives) for very cheap, nowdays. In fact, my own “data backup” is a 2 gigabyte flash drive I got in a 2-pack for $25. A little searching online shows 256K flash drives for about three bucks.
So, put together a PowerPoint presentation (or trade out with a programmer who can create a flash presentation for you) selling your services, and add your portfolio, and send it to your prospects. Not only is it something no one else is doing, but they get a free jump drive out of it, something they’ll be reluctant to throw away.
SHELTER: Adobe Connect
comment now!Need to meet with a client across the country to show (or look at) documents? Adobe Connect is a fantastic, easy-to-use online meeting application. You get an online meeting room where you can share your computer desktop or specific applications with everyone else, plus you get a dedicated, dial-in conference call number for your meetings.
At the very least, this will save you gas money and drive time, if not airfare and lodging, for a long-distance trip.
There is a cost: $39 per month, so it might not make sense for everyone, but as you build your business and pick up more long-distance clients, it’s a good tool to have. They have a 15-day free trial, without having to enter and CC info, so you might want to just try it out and see what you think.
FOOD: Using Google Alerts
comment now!On of the big causes of writer’s block is that the well just runs dry. This usually happens because we get so busy we forget to replenish the well by reading up on the industry, subject or whatever the topic might be.
Using Google Alerts (www.google.com/alerts) is a great way to avoid this. Simply type in a phrase associated with your topic, and you will get an alert with news and blog posts about that subject daily in your inbox, so you are constantly kept in the loop about the topic, and you can have a wealth of material to draw from when you’re ready to write on the subject.
To avoid clogging your inbox with tons of alerts, you can set up a filter to send the alerts directly to a dedicated folder, of if you use gmail, apply a tag and skip the inbox, so they are there whenever you are ready to check them out.
With this tool, you’ll never be stuck for what to write again, no matter what your subject!
“On Spec”
comment now!I had a question from a reader about something I mention in 10 Days to Paid: creating a portfolio of “spec work.” As I mention, if you don’t have any work to show, spec work can be a great way to show prospects what you can do.
I was asked how one should label the spec work. In my own initial portfolio, it simply said “spec ad” or “spec brochure.”
This is a little different from work created “On Spec” (which is common in ad agencies, but not for freelance writers. In the agency world, a potential client will often ask to see an example of what your agency can do for them. So the agency gets a team together and creates a campaign to pitch to the prospect.
This work is “on spec,” or, on the speculation that they will be paid for the work if they get the gig (and sometimes, even if they don’t).
As writers, such work would be silly, as you’d be giving the client your words and THEN letting him decide whether or not to pay.
Wow…what a weekend.
1 commentI posed a question about answering your questions, and more than a few if you surprised me with variations on a theme. That theme:
“Write a bigger e-book and sell it.”
If course, perhaps it shouldn’t surprise me…this is a group of writers after all. But that goes against two of the basic tenets I set out with when I started this site: make the information accessible fast, and put it out for free.
It would solve the problem I wrote about. If I sold a full-length e-book based on the Copywriter Survival Guide (at this point, with all the extra chapters I’d add based on your questions, we’re looking at about 250 pages or so), then I could focus on writing it over the course of about two months, taking time off from other work to get it done.
Which is where this starts to get pretty hairy. If I put the time in and no one decides to buy it (and who can blame them…this is supposed to be a Free-Resource site)…then I’m out two-month’s salary. Which, let’s face it, isn’t a fun prospect to look at.
So, I’ve decided once again to leave it in your hands.
First, let me detail what the book would cover:
Right now, I’m looking at 17 Chapters
1. Introduction
2. Maslow and the Hierarchy of needs (a more in-depth study than my post here)
3. Water
4. Fire
5. Shelter
6. Food
7. Teach a Man to Fish (the art of copywriting)
8. A Good Knife (the copywriter’s most indispensible tool)
9. Tracking (getting inside the mind of your target)
10. Toolmaking (How-to’s on a wide range of copywriting formats, print, radio, newsletters, Web, email, brochures, etc)
11. Navigation (Dreams, Goals and planning for increasing success)
12. Living with the Land (Waste-nothing tactics for turning each job into recurring, residual income)
13. Trapping (Getting clients to come to you, instead of you looking for them)
14. Quicksand and Predators (Important legal and tax concerns copywriters must know about.)
15. Should I Stay or Should I go Now? (To expand your niche, go general-purpose, or move on to greener pastures)
16. Giving Back to the Land (You get what you give…so what should you give?)
17. Beyond Survival (A down and dirty primer for moving past survival mode and “getting civilized” as a successful writer).
Well, there you have it. That’s what I have planned. I have no idea if you want to pay for this or not…but I’m hoping you DO have an idea.
So here’s the deal: I’m going to take the next week and write one chapter (the chapter I think MOST people will be interested in seeing right away; the chapter on Water)
On the 7th of April, around noonish, I’ll put it up for sale on the site for just $7. In order to keep the site uncluttered and to truly gauge interest, I’ll make it available for just 24 hours. On the 8th of April, I’ll gauge the results. If there is enough interest, then I’ll make plans to write the entire thing, and try to have it out by the end of May.
The good news, then, will be that, since the basic survival information will all be available there, I can move ahead with the blog and the special reports, and start getting into the real, high-impact business-building, money-making stuff. Which, to me would be really cool.
But, first things first. If you’re still stuck in survival mode, you might not even be ready for that yet. So, I’m going to be posting sparsely this week, as I’ll trying to finish up Son of a Niche (you don’t even want to know about the resst of my weekend. Ugh) and writing the chapter on Water.
And we’ll go from there!
Here’s to your success!
One more reason to look into the online freelancing sites
comment now!I’ve talked a fair bit about sites like Guru and Elance, and how they should be a part of your search for paying work, albeit a small part. And I also advise picking one or the other to pursue jobs on. There’s no need to frequent both a couple of times a month. One will suffice.
That said, I would create a profile on both sites. I did this when I was first looking into the sites and trying to decide which seemed more worth it. I ended up going with Guru.
But I also opted to leave my free profile up at Elance. Two days ago I got a contact from a fairly well-known co-blogger. His business has picked up and he just can’t keep up the pace with the blog. He saw my profile on Elance, followed the link to my site, liked what he saw and asked if I’d be interested in ghostwriting his posts for a couple of different blogs.
Now, keep in mind…I’ve bid on maybe five jobs on Elance, back when I was first testing it out. But I don’t think I’ve even logged on for, like a year and a half. And I’ve gotten three sizeable jobs, just from people stumbling upon my profile. This one is recurring income, with 4-figures per month (one more step toward keeping me on-track for a six-figure year). And it’s gonna be fun work.
No, “setting & forgetting” profiles alone won’t get you rich, but as I’ve said before, the easier it is for people to find you, the more people will. And you’ll get occasional surprise gigs out of the blue, without having to lift a finger to find them.