A stu­dent, who is an upcom­ing copy­writer, recently asked where he could find clients will­ing to pay higher rates for his skills.

Hav­ing built a client base through net­work­ing on Inter­net forums geared towards start-​​up busi­ness own­ers, he now wanted to find oppor­tu­ni­ties that would allow for upward mobil­ity within his craft.

This is a com­mon sce­nario, because local and espe­cially start-​​up busi­nesses are easy to find, and pro­vide plenty of oppor­tu­ni­ties to prac­tice your emerg­ing copy­writ­ing skills.

In a pre­vi­ous arti­cle, I talked about three tips for aspir­ing copy­writ­ers. I rec­om­mend any new copy­writer to fol­low these three tips to start build­ing a track record and get to a level that makes them appeal­ing to higher-​​paying clients.

But after your copy­writ­ing skills are devel­oped, how­ever, it becomes desir­able if not nec­es­sary to seek out clients — bet­ter, more lucra­tive clients — who are estab­lished enough to pay a fair wage for your skills and, above all, your results.

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Need help with your sales copy or mar­ket­ing strat­egy? About to launch a prod­uct or pro­mo­tion, but unsure if it will work? Or sim­ply wish you could pick my brains for an hour?

(And want to pitch in for a great cause at the same time?)

Well, for a lim­ited time, you can.

As a free­lance copy­writer and con­sul­tant for the bet­ter part of 20 years, I’ve had the won­der­ful oppor­tu­nity to cri­tique, review, con­sult, and coach thou­sands of peo­ple and projects.

At first, I did it because it was my liveli­hood. But today, my wife and I own sev­eral, prof­itable busi­nesses, and so I out­source much of it to our per­son­ally trained staff.

For this rea­son, I don’t do hourly con­sults any­more. When I do coach­ing or con­sult­ing, I give pri­or­ity to my mem­bers and rarely take on new clients. If I hap­pen to work with a new client, I do it mostly for fun. (But I also charge a min­i­mum of $3,000 for it, too.)

Well, if you ever wanted to “rent my brains” for an hour, and for a frac­tion of that price on top of that, then here’s your chance. Plus, you’ll be help­ing an impor­tant cause.

One that’s par­tic­u­larly mean­ing­ful to me and my fam­ily.

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Dan Kennedy often says clunky copy out­sells clean copy. I some­what agree with him, but not all the time. In fact, clunk­i­ness can work against you. And a recent uni­ver­sity study proves this.

Peo­ple have a ten­dency to forge not only a last­ing opin­ion based on first impres­sions but also a blan­ket opin­ion that per­vades all other areas as well.

The adage, “a first impres­sion is a last­ing one,” is not only tem­po­ral (i.e., the ini­tial opin­ion remains con­sis­tent and nearly imper­me­able for a long time) but also spa­tial. That is, a first impres­sion is also a uni­ver­sal one. It per­me­ates other areas, even unre­lated ones, as well.

Illog­i­cal? Yes. But it’s human nature.

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Most of the copy peo­ple ask me to rewrite seem to offer great prod­ucts and ser­vices. In fact, some offers are so good, prospects would be crazy to turn them down.

But they do.

And these sales pieces end up falling on my lap because they’re des­per­ately unpro­duc­tive. When clients ask me to cri­tique or rewrite copy, one of the biggest prob­lems I see is the fact that the copy is stale, limp, and anemic.

Copy so down­right dull, the only response it gets are yawns.

You’ve heard the adage, “copy­writ­ing is sales­man­ship in print.” This is noth­ing new. It comes from the age­less teach­ings of the mas­ters, like Hop­kins, Bar­ton, Col­lier, and oth­ers, which still ring true today. Includ­ing the Internet.

But peo­ple tend to for­get this axiom. Here’s why…

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The dif­fer­ence between good copy and great copy are in the results achieved. In direct response specif­i­cally, results are based on the num­ber of actions the copy generates.

The more actions the copy dri­ves, the greater the copy is.

My friend John Reese, a mas­ter at sim­pli­fy­ing what we often tend to unnec­es­sar­ily com­pli­cate, says it best. He says the only met­ric you should ever really count on is this:

How many said “Yes” or “No.” And that’s it.

Sounds sim­plis­tic, I know. But here’s the key point: your copy may get read­ers and it may get great feed­back. It may enter­tain and it may edu­cate. It may inform and even inspire.

But if it doesn’t sell, it doesn’t matter.

Now, what makes copy nudge peo­ple into action requires a vari­ety of dif­fer­ent things. So let me share with you three pow­er­ful ele­ments that can help you turn your not-​​so-​​good copy into good copy, and your good copy into out­stand­ing copy.

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A dis­grun­tled, aspir­ing copy­writer wrote me demand­ing clar­i­fi­ca­tions. He believes most copy­writ­ers lie and exag­ger­ate their claims of wealth. Let’s call him “Chuck.”

I under­stand where Chuck is com­ing from. Because I’ve been where he is. So I responded, not because I wanted to acqui­esce to his demands but because I wanted to give him hope, ideas, and, dare I say it, a million-​​dollar education.

He says he will be ask­ing other copy­writ­ers the same ques­tion, and even threat­ened (although, that may be too harsh of a word) to pub­lish my reply. I’ve decided to take the lead myself, and pub­lish it here.

For all I know, this copy­writer may be gath­er­ing infor­ma­tion to cre­ate his own prod­uct. Who knows? If he is, I must say that his strat­egy is bril­liant. A tad decep­tive, but bril­liant. Regard­less, if he does cre­ate a prod­uct out of this, good for him!

But I’m reprint­ing the con­ver­sa­tion here not just to take the lead but also because I believe it will help a lot of other strug­gling copy­writ­ers out there. Also, I’m open­ing myself a lit­tle more than usual. I guess you can say that I’m expos­ing the real “Michel Fortin.”

My answer might sur­prise you…

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I once took a media com­mu­ni­ca­tions course in which I dis­cov­ered an inter­est­ing exam­ple of the way the mind works. I soon real­ized how this applies to copy­writ­ing as well.

As part of a given les­son, they showed a video­tape of a tele­vised news­cast dur­ing which a jour­nal­ist was about to give a live report on a for­est fire dev­as­tat­ing the mid-​​west.

The news anchor said: “We now take you to Sally Smith, report­ing live from above the scene of the fire…”

He then turned around to face the back­ground screen, which gave a live bird’s-eye view of the rag­ing fire, and asked: “Sally, tell us, how big is the fire?” In a voice par­tially drowned by the whizzing sound of heli­copter blades, Sally reported:

“John, it’s so big, it’s cov­er­ing well over 140 acres of land… that’s about 200 foot­ball fields back-​​to-​​back for you and me.”

What is this telling you? A lot more than you think…

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