It’s About Value

May 22, 2008

*** Who Pays This Kind of Money for Copywriting?

*** This Isn’t Smoke and Mirrors

*** If Someone Dropped Gold on Your Doorstep, Would You Know?

— Special Offer —

This is your last chance… to invest $47 in your copywriting business education and get an IMMEDIATE return on your investment of $400. Some people have called me crazy for ever offering that in the first place. I may be crazy… but in about 16 hours, I’m “coming to my senses” and taking it off the table.

So there are only a few hours left before the “complimentary month of mentoring” (a $400 value) disappears from the offer.

Most of my mentoring clients have their worlds turned upside down (in a good, painless and profitable way), during the first few weeks.

So you’re going to see results fast… if you take action.

Learn more…

———————

Dear Copywriter,

So today’s issue is about one of the only things that matters to your success as a freelance copywriter. (Well, except for writing good copy of course…)

How to get compensated for the VALUE you deliver to your clients.

You can be the best copywriter in the world, but no matter how many homeruns you hit (by luck or by skill), you’ll most likely struggle if you don’t get the VALUE thing down pat.

So let’s jump in…

Who Pays This Kind of
Money for Copywriting?

When I got started in freelance copywriting, I always wondered how the heck people were charging $10,000… $20,000 and more for a salesletter.

“What type of client PAYS that kind of money? And where are they hiding?”

And then things even got weirder…

Because I started running into those same clients. Clients who’d tell me they paid a well known copywriter $20,000 or so… the promotion FLOPPED and the copywriter blamed the client.

“How are they getting away with this?” That was my next question…

The answer to BOTH questions is the little secret not too many people seem to be preaching. And it’s the whole reason I started this business.

It’s just like my former life as a musician.

The best players didn’t get the best jobs. The best “players of the political game” did.

I hated it. And that’s why I left. Not because I couldn’t play the game (OK… I couldn’t at first.), but more because I hated HAVING to play the game.

I either learned how to play the system or I’d spend my life getting PLAYED by the system.

Well this copywriting business is DIFFERENT. One of the greatest things about it is that YOU can create your OWN system. And in your system, people play by YOUR rules.

I like that :)

But there are certain rules that will raise your income and certain rules that will keep it low.

And the biggest rule for MAXIMIZING your income is to develop your skill at communicating the VALUE of your services to your clients.

This Isn’t Smoke and Mirrors

I’m not talking about learning how to milk your clients for a big one-time payday.

You might make some money, but that’s hardly a way to build a stable copywriting business.

You need clients who come back again and again. You need clients who hire you 10, 20 or even 30 times…

To do that you need to DELIVER consistently.

That’s how you create wealth in this business.

BUT… what I’m talking about here is getting that FIRST sale. The FIRST time you get hired by a client (unless you’re a big name), something extra is required.

That something is your SELLING skills.

You use those skills to build value.

Because your fees will depend DIRECTLY on your ability to build the value of what you offer in the MIND of your prospects.

If Someone Dropped Gold on Your
Doorstep, Would You Know?

Would you know if someone dropped an ounce or two of gold on YOUR doorstep?

What if that gold was in the shape of a bottle cap… and what if it was covered with DIRT?

Would you know just how valuable that little piece of gold really is?

Probably not.

In this case, the “gold” is YOU… a copywriter.

It’s your responsibility to communicate the VALUE you’re delivering to your client.

If you don’t do it, no one else well. And you’ll end up getting peanuts for your gold.

So how do you communicate value?

Take my “special offer” up at the beginning of this letter. I could have just said, “Look… you buy my book, you get free mentoring. That IS in fact what you’re getting.

And a lot of copywriters say that very thing to their clients. “I’ll write a salesletter for you for $X and I’ll even throw in an extra ______.”

But that’s really shortchanging yourself and your clients.

Back to my example…

You want value… and a return on your money.

So to communicate that, I put the value details in black and white.

You invest $47… you get an IMMEDIATE return on your money of $400 because THAT’S the market value of the complimentary mentoring.

(Not to mention the pay raise you’re going to get when you start selling VALUE.)

But to start talking with your clients in VALUE terms, you need to get the right information to make your case.

For starters… you need to know where they are now in their business (in dollars and cents) and where they’re going (in dollars and cents).

You’re part of how they’re going to get to their goal. But you have to communicate just how VALUABLE the role you play really is.

That takes practice and creativity.

So who pays $25,000 to a copywriter WITHOUT a big name… WITHOUT any controls?

The client who perceives that his investment of $25,000 has a good chance of returning many times that investment.

Where does that perception come from?

It comes from YOU.


Posted by Jason | Filed Under Blog 

Comments

Got something to say?