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…

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 »

“Strong lives are moti­vated by dynamic pur­poses.“
– Ken­neth Hildebrand

While sta­tis­tics prove that 90% of heart attacks hap­pen on Mon­day morn­ings, it goes to show that moti­va­tion doesn’t come from work. In real­ity, most peo­ple find them­selves work­ing in jobs they hate.

Some wake up in the morn­ing feel­ing lethar­gic and hit the snooze but­ton one too many times. Some work only “for the week­end” and take more time to pre­pare their vaca­tions than they do their own lives. And some who become “worka­holics” end up work­ing them­selves either out of a job or into a grave. In short, get­ting moti­vated by one’s work is impos­si­ble. In fact, get­ting moti­vated by any­thing out­side of one­self is impossible.

Read the rest of this post or share it »

My apolo­gies for the webi­nar being cut inad­ver­tently short. I was giv­ing out so much con­tent that I lost track of time. The soft­ware mer­ci­lessly booted me out in the mid­dle of my presentation.

This pre­sen­ta­tion was “off the cuff” and meant purely as a way to give you as much great con­tent as I pos­si­bly could. I wasn’t look­ing at my watch. (Judg­ing from the emails I received, you weren’t, either. And I’m glad!)

But I want to stick to my promise.

Read the rest of this post or share it »