After read­ing some of my arti­cles on how to find copy­writ­ing clients, one of my stu­dents, Jeff, asked me an inter­est­ing question.

He’s an aspir­ing copy­writer and wants to build his own free­lance copy­writ­ing busi­ness. When he read that I wrote copy for free when I started my career as a copy­writer, he told me he was think­ing about doing the same.

How­ever, he won­dered if he should ask for some­thing, any­thing, in return. In fact, here was his question…

“Mike, my friends have a very small busi­ness, and they have asked me to do copy for them. They say they can’t really pay me that much. I have told them I will do it for free as long as I get rights to the copy and can use it for a ref­er­ence and in my port­fo­lio. I think this is a won­der­ful oppor­tu­nity to get more expe­ri­ence, but my wife wants to see some money on the table.

“I value your opin­ion. Can you help?”

Here was my answer.

Ask­ing for a con­ces­sion in exchange for offer­ing one is always the way to do it. While I believe your trade-​​off is good in prin­ci­ple, it’s still mea­ger. I would con­sider some money — or some larger con­ces­sion on the part of the client. Here’s why…

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Scotty Stevens asked me an impor­tant ques­tion. So impor­tant that I’ve decided to reprint it here, with his permission:

“How far would you travel to meet a poten­tial client, if they had the deposit ready for your ser­vices? My girl­friend thinks the cus­tomer is pulling the strings if they don’t at least meet me halfway. Before, I’ve always trav­eled as far as it takes, even if it meant dri­ving all the way to the cus­tomer, but is that set­ting a weak precedent?”

Good ques­tion, but it’s the wrong one.

“How far would you travel” is irrel­e­vant. A bet­ter ques­tion is, do they value your time? Do they respect it enough that they are will­ing to pay for it? In other words, are they will­ing to cover your travel expenses and pay for you to go out of your way for them?

If so, then I’d be will­ing to travel anywhere.

I would always con­sider trav­el­ling to meet a prospect if the project was large enough, and pro­vided they paid for what is com­monly referred to in this indus­try as “TMI” (i.e., travel, meals, and inci­den­tals). And in some cases, for my time, too.

(By the way, travel includes lodg­ing, and inci­den­tals include pho­to­copy­ing, long-​​distance calls, Inter­net con­nec­tion in the hotel room, car rental, etc.)

Plus, I would ask them for an advance so I can take care of my own expenses. I would avoid get­ting them to han­dle my trip on their end. I would want to have full con­trol over the choice of air­line, hotel, restau­rants, etc.

If you were dri­ving to meet them, then the client — or, in this case, the prospect — should pay for your gas, nor­mal wear-​​and-​​tear on your car (such as $[X] per mile), your meals, and any inci­den­tals. And lodg­ing too, if you were stay­ing overnight.

There’s a very good rea­son for this.

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A mem­ber on my copy­writ­ers forum (now my blog) started a thread on what makes my forum so pop­u­lar. Every­one chimed in with some great answers, and I appre­ci­ate the feedback.

(The cool thing about it is, that very thread also reached an impor­tant mile­stone. It was the 10,000th one! Talk about a coin­ci­dence, eh?)

But then some­one asked:

“Michel, can I ask how you ini­tially got the word out about your forum?”

My answer revealed a bit more than what the mem­ber antic­i­pated. Instead of talk­ing about how my forum became so pop­u­lar, I went on a tan­gent and explained the step-​​by-​​step process I used to book copy­writ­ing projects.

The answer was so well received that I decided to reprint it here.

Now, you may be won­der­ing what pro­mot­ing a forum (or a blog, for that mat­ter) has to do with pro­mot­ing my copy­writ­ing ser­vices. Keep read­ing because you’ll soon under­stand why…

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Recently, a coach­ing client asked me about deal­ing with prospec­tive clients over the phone.

This copy­writer under­stood the impor­tance of com­mu­ni­cat­ing with prospects and answer­ing their pre-​​sale ques­tions. How­ever, like me, he pre­ferred to avoid the tele­phone and asked me if his strat­egy was sound.

Free con­sul­ta­tions are often a nec­es­sary step in secur­ing clients in your early days as a copy­writer before you’ve estab­lished your exper­tise and devel­oped a reputation.

It’s nat­ural that poten­tial clients want to get a feel for your style and stan­dards with a “get­ting to know you ses­sion.” Quite often, they will want to do this via a phone con­sul­ta­tion with you.

I’m a big believer in open­ing the lines of com­mu­ni­ca­tion, and I also like to pick up the phone to speak with a client when writ­ing copy.

But before a client hires me, I pre­fer to remain off the phone. Why? Because the tele­phone can be coun­ter­pro­duc­tive and even hurt your business.

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My last post, where a dis­grun­tled copy­writer demanded “the truth” about cre­at­ing wealth in copy­writ­ing, inspired copy­writer Andrew Cavanagh to share the story of his begin­nings on my forum:

“Here’s how I made my first ‘money’ in copywriting.”

Then one by one, other copy­writ­ers started adding their own. The responses were noth­ing short of amazing!

Many of the sto­ries show that there’s indeed hope. They also show that we were all strug­gling copy­writ­ers once, too. And we didn’t all become overnight mil­lion­aires with million-​​dollar clients, as “Chuck,” the dis­il­lu­sioned copy­writer, postulated.

I loved it so much that I posted my own story. I’ve decided to share it with you here. (By the way, the pic­ture at the top is of me, circa 1991. A lot thin­ner, with glasses, and a lot more hair!) Any­way, here is my story…

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