Should a copywriter be ever  asking for help seeling his services?

Isn’t this a contradiction of sort?  How can you be hlping people to sell theri wares but cannot sell your own?

Even though I agree with the general logic of this argument, in practice
this doesn’t hold true.

Doctors don’t live any longer than the rest of the population.

A copywriter should know how to sell but he doesn’t write
to sell other copywriting services. I doubt Tiger Woods’
coach can beat Tiger at golf.

I’m often asked by my coaching students how to get clients.
This is a fair question. I could say, “Physician heal thyself”,
but selling your services as a copywriter is different to helping
other people sell their wares.

How? For the very same reason you ask the business owner
to employ you–you have a perspective that they don’t have.
You (they) are sometimes too close to the trees to see the forest.

Also a copywriter can get so caught up in writing copy that he
forgets to market his own services. A balance has to be
struck between helping other people market their wares
and marketing your own wares.

Selling personal services can be tricky because YOU, your
personality (real or assumed), ethnicity, beliefs … all
come into the mix and it’s difficult to be separated from your
work. Clients don’t only want to know that your copy
works but that YOU BELIEVE SO!

Dan Kennedy like to say that there are a ton of people
walking around with a cord tied to their belly looking
for a place to plug it in. Confident business people want
to know that they are dealing with confident copywriters.
You must believe in your value to the client before they
pay you your value.

I don’t need anyone to tell me that I write powerful copy
because my copy has already told me so–it has raked
in millions on dollars. It’s with that mindset that you
sell your services, not with clever words and selling
strategies.

Early in my copywriting career a prospect phoned to
inquire about my services. I thought I would be funny
(big mistake) and so replied that I thought he was a
bill collector! The conversation went on to tell me what
he wanted done etc., but I never heard from him again.

Why?  He must have though, “If this guy is getting bill collector calls then _____” .

Especially when you are new to copywriting (and even old)
there would be dry spells. (Some copywriters fake busi-ness
because it sells, but that’s for another post.) The point
is that if you devalue your work during those dry spells then
you are sowing inferior seeds that would yield a poor harvest
when the rain starts to fall. Clients have a way of remembering
what you charged before.

The bottom line is that simply because you are a good copywriter
doesn’t mean that you can sell YOUR copywriting services. You
may need outside help (a mentor) to get you
accustomed to calling the high fees without flinching your face
or your voice.

Perhaps copywriters need their own copywriters.

Filed under: Marketing Ideas

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