Welcome to THE WELL-FED E-PUB!
The companion monthly ezine to the quadruple-award-winning how-to guide, “The Well-Fed Writer.” Serving up food for thought and tasty tips for the prospering FLCW*. Come on in, sit anywhere and bring your appetite!
*FLCW, peppered throughout the ezine, stands for “Freelance Commercial Writer”—anyone who freelances for businesses (vs. writing magazine articles, short stories, poetry, etc.), typically earns $50-125+ an hour, and is the sole focus of this e-newsletter.
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VOLUME 18, ISSUE 10 – OCTOBER 2019
Publishing the first Tuesday of every month since May 2002
Read it online HERE.
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READY TO MOVE BEYOND LOW-$ ARTICLES/BLOG POSTS?
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1-ON-1 COACHING PROGRAMS: SAMPLE/SITE REVIEW & “SIDECAR”!
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THE WELL-FED WRITER BLOG! Weigh in on, “I Want Your Stories of Social Contacts Leading to Paying Work"; "Good Clients Will Pay Handsomely for This (Often-Elusive) Outcome”; “Four Client-Repelling Mistakes, & What I Learned to Do Instead" (Guest Post); and more!
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THIS MONTH’S MENU:
I. APPETIZER: WE’RE NOT “SELLING” OR “TELEMARKETING”!
Yours Truly Addresses (Yet Again) Disempowering Beliefs about Marketing
II. “FIELD” GREENS: ARE YOU A RETAIL STORE OR A BOUTIQUE BIZ? Small-Biz Coach: One Will Ensure a FAR Tougher Road than the Other!
III. MAIN “MEAT” COURSE: THE FACTS ABOUT “FRESH CONTENT”
SEO Pro: What’s Meant by “Regularly Add Fresh Content” and What’s Not!
IV. DESSERT: COMBO SUCCESS STORY & TIP
FLCW Sees Article on “Loyalty Locks,” Then Creates One of His Own!
V. COFFEE, MINTS AND TOOTHPICKS
- MORE WORK WITH LESS EFFORT? Ebook Serves Up "How-To"!
- I NEED ALL COURSES FOR THE WELL-FED E-PUB! PLEASE SHARE!
- The WELL-FED WRITER BLOG is Rockin'!
- AWAI Copywriting (& Other) Courses: Register HERE, Get Bonus CD!
- How Can My Mentoring Service Serve You?
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I. APPETIZER: WE’RE NOT “SELLING” OR “TELEMARKETING”!
Yours Truly Addresses (Yet Again) Disempowering Beliefs about Marketing
Was talking with a coaching client recently—a longtime copywriter whose business had flagged in recent years. She wanted to start marketing again, and build the business back up.
Not having done a lot of cold-calling, but willing to give it a shot, she was nonetheless a bit nervous about it, not wanting to come across as a pushy "salesperson." Sigh.
I’ve heard similar concerns voiced over the years by people for whom sales and marketing weren’t second nature. And my rap on the subject is always something like this:
Just remember, these people put on their pants (or pantyhose) just like you do. All you’re trying to do is find some common ground—a match between your skills and their needs. You’re not trying to “sell” them anything, or “talk them into” buying something they don’t need (like we could!).
Rather, you’re offering them something of great value, that, for the ones who say yes, is exactly what they want and need. And assuming you do a good job, they’ll be very glad you reached out.
Another coaching client with a successful copywriting practice, was looking to take his business to the next level of profitability. Thanks to a well-established industry niche, he hadn't had to do much marketing over the years. But, growing his business would require that he do just that.
He also invoked concerns similar to the first client, adding that cold-calling prospects, which he’d never done, felt like telemarketing, and he hated telemarketers. Well. He got to hear my standard rap on that subject, which is basically:
You and a telemarketer—who interrupts somebody's dinner selling home security systems or similar—have absolutely nothing in common. He/she is a hired gun. YOU, by contrast, are the same person who provides the service you’re offering.
More importantly, you’re a professional selling a professional service to other professionals. They may not be interested, but I promise you, they don't view you as a telemarketer, so don't YOU put yourself in that box.
It’s not hard to see how these ideas gain traction. When you’re proactively reaching out to people who aren’t expecting your call, it’s easy to see yourself as an unwelcome intrusion. Fair enough.
BUT, for the record, the kinds of clients we want (i.e., those who understand the value a professional copywriter brings; who know how crucial good copywriting is for business success; and who are willing to pay handsomely for that skill) do expect to hear from copywriters.
On that “here’s-to-fearless-prospecting” note, let’s eat!
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II. “FIELD” GREENS: ARE YOU A RETAIL STORE OR A BOUTIQUE BIZ?
Small-Biz Coach: One Will Ensure a FAR Tougher Road than the Other!
Friend, colleague, ex-FLCW and small-business coach, Ed Gandia (look for regular pieces from Ed here) poses some important questions in the piece below—questions that may be tough to hear if we see ourselves in the first description! But, take his words to heart, and you can’t help but have a more rewarding (in many ways) practice.
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Do you have a retail store mentality when it comes to your clients?
By this I mean that you’ll take whatever client walks in the door. That’s what retail stores do. They just want traffic and paying customers. Doesn’t matter who they are or how they treat you. A dollar is a dollar.
For solo creative professionals, however, that’s a big mistake. Instead of emulating a retail store, you’d do well to act more like a premium tour company. A boutique business.
Pretend that you offer small group tours of select Bordeaux wineries via your luxury van.
You’re not just hitting the usual locations—the ones packed with tourists. You’re taking your clients to the small chateaus. The ones few people know about. The wineries that are producing true works of art. Because they care more than others about their product.
Oh, and you’re purposely keeping your operation small. So, you only have one van, with a limited number of seats. Do you want to fill those seats with clients who complain about the price, the weather, the roads, and even the wine? Or, rather, those who will truly value the journey and enjoy the experience?
When you make this mindset shift in your business, your thinking changes. So does your approach to business. And your actions.
You go from “I’ll take any client I can get” to “I have a limited work capacity. I can’t accept everyone as a client. So, let’s make sure that the clients I DO choose see the value of what I do for them.”
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III. MAIN “MEAT” COURSE: THE FACTS ABOUT “FRESH CONTENT”
SEO Pro Shares What’s Meant by “Regularly Add Fresh Content” and What’s Not!
Katherine Andes is a top-notch SEO pro, who specializes in web content development and Internet copywriting. Her weekly “Easy Web Tips” is billed as “super short, sweet, and smart” (all true). Sign up at the link above.
In this great piece, she addresses that eternal recommendation from SEO folks to always be adding “fresh content” to a site, and explains what makes sense in that department, and what’s NOT necessary. While this is always good advice for folks like us and OUR web sites, at the very least, it’s good info to share with our clients (which can raise our value in their minds!). Enjoy!
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I often hear prospective clients express their worry about generating “fresh content” for their websites. “Fresh content” usually refers to the written text on a web page, as opposed to images, videos, tools, etc.
There are two types of fresh content:
- Changing the content of current web pages
- Uploading fresh content via additional web pages
There can be good reasons to change the existing content of a web page:
- Your product or service offerings have changed.
- You have a better way to communicate your message.
But you never need to change existing content just because you think you need “fresh content.” The most important thing for any web page is that the text is clear, relevant, helpful, accurate, search-engine-friendly, and well written.
And when your content is all the above, it’s “evergreen.” Meaning? It’ll never be obsolete, and it can stay on your site for a long time—even years.
So why do so many experts seem to advise changing your content regularly? Well, maybe they want to land gigs writing content! They also may be speaking to a different kind of business (with a different kind of website), than you—the small business.
Many of these experts are speaking about sites which attract thousands of folks daily. For example, a site about nutrition or exercise would benefit from lots of fresh content about the latest and greatest fitness trends.
Other examples would include websites about celebrities, recipes, or other hobbies. For most smaller businesses (and assuming the “evergreen” criteria is in place), the above just doesn’t apply.
The second type of “fresh content”? That has to do with building out your website. This I do recommend heartily. By adding fresh pages, you will bring more visitors to your site and do better in the search rankings. There are ways to do this relatively painlessly.
For example, I originally wrote this article for The Fresno Business Journal. After it was published, I put it up on my website.
You could write a case study about how you helped a customer or a best practice in your industry. You could submit it to a trade publication or send it out to your customer mailing list. Then post it on your site.
Regular article writing for various publications is an easy way to build up the pages of your website with quality fresh content. Plus, you get the benefit of your article being in front of the publication’s audience.
As busy as we all are, it’d be easy to put off the above in favor of more urgent tasks. But if you want to excel in rankings and conversions, and get a leg up on your competitors, consider moving “developing new pages” from the back burner to the front burner.
Yes, from my experience with clients, it’s a big job. But once a website is stocked with good content that covers the basics of a company, it’s not so hard to keep it up by adding new pages as new information develops.
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IV. DESSERT: COMBO SUCCESS STORY & TIP
FLCW Sees Article on “Loyalty Locks,” Then Creates One of His Own!
A great combination success story and tip. Back in June, I posted an article on LinkedIn about what I called “Loyalty Locks”—those above-and-beyond actions that end up locking in your loyalty to a company, and I offered several examples from my own personal experience.
As commercial freelancers, we should always be looking for opportunities to lock in our clients’ loyalty. I’m not talking about a normal (high) level of solid customer service, but rather, something out of the ordinary.
One of my readers, who’s asked to remain anonymous (since the client he discusses below is a new one), saw my article, then found himself in just such a situation, and capitalized on it.
Sometimes a little extra effort in the short term, is all it takes to have a client say, “Wow – we want to work with someone like her,” and you’ve secured an ongoing income stream. Enjoy!
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I was contacted on LinkedIn on a Monday recently, by a former client, for whom I’d written blog posts and B2B publication content. He was with a new firm, and they needed a white paper done in eight days, for a specific industry opportunity, which they’d overlooked.
Though I was extremely busy at the time, I gave them a fair price (with a bit of a premium), and told them I'd need everybody's cooperation to "barely" meet the timeline. They gladly scheduled a call with me the next day: 7 days to deadline.
From the call, I provided them a white-paper outline in 24 hours, and told them, that given my workload, I'd likely be writing the paper over the weekend. I emailed them questions I needed answers to, in order to complete the project.
On Friday, after not yet receiving those answers, another company VP got on the phone with me at 5 p.m. (first free minute I had) for a one-hour session to clear up all open issues. He seemed pleased and impressed that I was working on the weekend, gave me his cell number, and told me to call him any time over the weekend if necessary.
I delivered a draft for internal review Monday morning at 10 a.m., and three people signed off on it after changing just one sentence in a 1500-word paper (yes, short for a white paper, but longer than we'd agreed on, given the deadline; so another case of going above and beyond).
I sent them the final copy at 10 a.m. on Tuesday, ready for branding and sending to the industry source at 2:00 that afternoon. We’re discussing additional projects and budgets in a long-term context, and my initial effort seems to have created good momentum. Bottom line, I’m pretty sure I'm their dedicated writer now!
PB: Got this update from the writer—"After the initial project, I rewrote their web copy as part of a complete site redesign. They used 100% of what I provided except for where their SEO firm changed a few things. The next phase will be to help them with ongoing content including blog posts, etc. So, this one is inching its way forward!”
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V. COFFEE, MINTS AND TOOTHPICKS
- MORE WORK WITH LESS EFFORT? Ebook Serves Up "How-To"!
- I NEED ALL COURSES FOR THE WELL-FED E-PUB! PLEASE SHARE!
- The WELL-FED WRITER BLOG is Rockin'!
- AWAI Copywriting (& Other) Courses: Register HERE, Get Bonus CD!
- How Can My Mentoring Service Serve You?
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MORE WORK WITH LESS EFFORT? Ebook Serves Up "How-To"!!
That's not hype. It's how my business has worked for the better part of 18 years, thanks to some juicy partnerships with graphic designers.
The result? 1-2 jobs nearly every month with little or no effort on my part. And all the how-to details are in my "Profitable - By Design!" ebook. Details HERE. Contact ME for a 25% OFF promo code (only 5 codes available, & they go fast!)
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I'M STILL SERIOUSLY LOW ON ALL WELL-FED E-PUB COURSES!
Got a great strategy, approach or specific expertise you're willing to share? Turn it into a Feature (MAIN COURSE; 500-600 words; query first). ALSO, send your GREENS (300-400 words), TIPS (100-300) and SUCCESS STORIES (200-400) to ME. Archived issues HERE.
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HOW CAN MY MENTORING PROGRAMS SERVE YOU?
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