Today, a client has requested, out of the blue, a refund for copy­writ­ing work per­formed last year. Yes, last year!

Can you believe it?

Over seven months have passed and this one client is ask­ing for his money back. His excuse? “I need the money.” Of course, I refused. But he sounded des­per­ate, so I pre­sume he won’t be happy with my decision.

Likely, he will pull tooth and nail to make his case, likely by high­light­ing all the neg­a­tives, warts, and things he doesn’t like as to jus­tify his case.

The thing is, while the client did not hide the fact that he’s strapped for cash, we had an agree­ment. I can sym­pa­thize, but why should that be my responsibility?

As Larry Winget often says, “A deal is a deal.”

I ask for 100% of the fee upfront. No excep­tions. I work hard enough as it is to mar­ket my ser­vices, find clients, and then write copy for my clients. Why would I want to work twice or three times as much just to get and/​or keep my money?

Even though there’s an agree­ment in place, which states that I give no refunds but do offer a 30-​​day revi­sion period for rewrites, it still irks me on a num­ber of levels.

Read the rest of this post or share it »

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.

Read the rest of this post or share it »

Many copy­writ­ers, both new and expe­ri­enced, strug­gle with how much to charge their clients. In fact, it is a prob­lem that many in the ser­vice indus­try face.

The dilemma?

Charge too lit­tle and you risk los­ing cred­i­bil­ity in the eyes of your cus­tomers and poten­tial clients. Addi­tion­ally, the qual­ity of your work, even if it is worth 100 times what they paid for it, will be seen as hav­ing dimin­ished value.

Worst of all, when you charge too lit­tle, you may begin to resent the project, the client, or even your cho­sen profession.

In short, charg­ing too lit­tle doesn’t do any­one any good, least of all you.

On the other hand, if you charge too much you run the risk of los­ing a poten­tial client. You may lose out on oppor­tu­ni­ties to work with clients who could open doors and pro­vide you and your busi­ness with an abun­dance of work.

The solu­tion?

Read the rest of this post or share it »

An inter­est­ing thread appeared on my copy­writ­ers forum. A mem­ber asked who, be it men or women, are bet­ter at writ­ing copy for cer­tain prod­ucts than others.

Albeit a lit­tle close-​​minded in my esti­ma­tion, the ques­tion seemed like a legit­i­mate one and with­out any ill-​​intent. So I wel­comed it. But while the thread started out grace­fully and on-​​topic, it quickly took a few turns.

The dis­cus­sion turned out to be none­thet­less quite enlightening.

For exam­ple, one tan­gent went into the role of women in copy­writ­ing, as copy has been long touted as “the boys club.” This is where one proud board mem­ber offered some great nuggets that I wanted to share with you.

Read the rest of this post or share it »

Ryan Healy, a tal­ented copy­writer whose blog I love read­ing, recently said that copy­writ­ers shouldn’t be cheap, espe­cially when they start out.

It’s a pow­er­ful notion, because many begin­ning copy­writ­ers believe that being cheap will get them more busi­ness. (There are other ways around this, of course. Know­ing how to mar­ket your­self is one thing. Focus­ing on a spe­cialty, a niche, is another. But more on that at another time.)

The bot­tom line is, if you low­ball your rates, you will not get as much busi­ness as you think you’ll get. Sure, you will prob­a­bly get some. But it’s the kind of busi­ness you don’t want.

Read the rest of this post or share it »

Gary: Your wife has triplets. Now some­body comes up to you and explains, tells you your wife has triplets. Is there any way that that piece of infor­ma­tion could be trans­mit­ted to you in a way that wouldn’t be of inter­est to you? I mean, if they use bro­ken Eng­lish, bad gram­mar, if they use sign language.

How­ever it was, if it was, if your wife had unex­pect­edly had triplets I think you’d be inter­ested in the mes­sage. And, and, and that, that’s a point, uh, I think it’s really important ****.

Read the rest of this post or share it »