I was recently inter­viewed by a print mag­a­zine about how I started my busi­ness. In it, I offered sev­eral tips and ideas on how to carve a niche in the mar­ket­place that I per­son­ally applied.

I real­ized some of these tips were par­tic­u­larly pow­er­ful. So I wanted to reprint some of my answers here for you.

If you know my per­sonal story, you know how niche mar­ket­ing played an impor­tant role in my career.

Long story short, as the child of an alco­holic I feared rejec­tion immensely, which led to a reclu­sive child­hood. We all fear rejec­tion to some degree. But for me, it was debilitating.

I wanted to over­come my fears and decided to dive into the world of sales in order to fight them head-​​on. Years passed and many fail­ures ensued until I finally became the top pro­duc­ing sales­per­son in Canada for a major For­tune 500 company.

How did I accom­plish that?

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I wrote this arti­cle way back in 1998. It seems to have made a resur­gence, espe­cially with today’s econ­omy. So I said to myself, “Why not repub­lish it?” So here it is. Enjoy!

If there is some­thing about which I’m pretty adamant, it’s the idea of attract­ing qual­i­fied prospects who are will­ing to do busi­ness with you. And this involves many dif­fer­ent things.

Posi­tion­ing is one of them. In fact, it has been one of my favorite mar­ket­ing con­cepts for this very reason.

How­ever, this fun­da­men­tal mag­net­ism is not only based on pure mar­ket­ing prac­tices or strate­gies. It also involves some­thing at a much deeper level that is far more effec­tive than any other mar­ket­ing tool or process in existence.

This “thing” to which I am refer­ring is, I believe, the most impor­tant mar­ket­ing secret I can ever teach you — and it’s far from being a secret at all. It is con­sid­ered as one sim­ply because it is often neglected or ignored by many mar­keters and businesspeople.

What is this “secret” that’s so elusive?

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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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The 10 Com­mand­ments of Power Posi­tion­ing: Mag­i­cal Mar­ket­ing Strate­gies for Cre­at­ing an End­less Stream of New, Repeat, and Refer­ral Busi­ness is Michel Fortin’s ebook that brings together the art of posi­tion­ing with the sci­ence of direct response.

This ver­sion is the 3rd edi­tion with over 140,000 copies dis­trib­uted to date! This is includes third party dis­tri­b­u­tion since peo­ple are invited to freely pass the ebook around. In fact, the esti­mate is in excess of 140,000 copies in all. (It’s prob­a­bly closer to 300,000 copies if not more.)

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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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The other day I was asked a ques­tion I hear all too often: “How do I dis­tin­guish myself from other copywriters?”

To find the answer, look to one of the most effec­tive and fre­quently used copy­writ­ing and mar­ket­ing tools. It’s your “Unique Sell­ing Propo­si­tion,” or USP.

(I pre­fer to call it a “Unique Sell­ing Posi­tion.” If you’ve read my book, “Power Posi­tion­ing,” then you’d know that I’m a big fan of posi­tion­ing rather than prospecting.)

Your USP is also your “hook.”

Time and time again, I’ve told many aspir­ing copy­writ­ers and mar­keters that a USP is what dis­tin­guishes you from the pack. It increases per­ceived value, exper­tise, and cred­i­bil­ity — with­out need­ing to state it outright.

But since I hear this ques­tion often, par­tic­u­larly from copy­writ­ers just enter­ing the field, I sense that it’s because peo­ple need a lit­tle help in defin­ing their USP.

So to help you, here’s a tip.

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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?

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