Business Of Copy

On a rainy October evening, back in 2017…

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On a rainy October evening, back in 2017, a poor copywriter huddled in his small and drafty garret in Baltimore, MD.

“How will I ever get better at this?” he kept asking himself.

He got up and paced around the tiny room.

But it was cold, so he came back to his creaky wooden desk, where a solitary candle provided a little light and even less heat.

Suddenly, the copywriter tensed up.

His brow furrowed up and his eyes started to sparkle.

With a whoosh, he pulled out a thick stack of printed papers from a drawer, and got out a cheap Bic pen.

He sat down at his desk and started reading frantically.

“Magic bullet,” he said to himself, and circled a line of text halfway down the top page.

He kept reading.

“Making the chef eat his own pudding,” he said and circled another line.

And so he kept going, deep into the night.

He’d read a bit…

Mumble a strange phrase…

And then circle a line or two of text.

The copywriter in question was Kyle Milligan.

And though I made up the above scene, the gist of it is true.
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Kyle was in fact a green newbie just a few years ago, with very little understanding of what copywriting really is.

In spite of his lack of experience, he managed to somehow land a job at Agora Financial, one of the most competitive copywriting shops in the world.

And within a short while, he became one of the biggest stars at Agora. In fact, last year alone, his copy was responsible for bringing in $7.1 million in sales and over 51,000 new customers.

How did Kyle do it?

Well, according to an interview I listened to today, one big part of his success was a simple two-step process:

1) He read a lot of successful sales copy

2) He labeled the things he kept coming across over and over

In fact, Kyle even has a YouTube channel where he dissects successful promotions in this way for all the world to see.

If you’re a copywriter, it’s definitely worth checking out.

And it’s also worth keeping in mind how a simple process of self-improvement, applied day in and day out, is really all it takes to produce massive results over the course of a few years.

Anyways, if you wanna follow Kyle directly, you can get started at his site. Here’s the link:

https://kylethewriter.com/

The riddle of the fragmented Nobel prize

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Here’s a quick riddle for ya:

Back in 2016, the Nobel Prize in Medicine went to a biologist named Yoshinori Ohsumi.

In 2015, however, the Nobel Prize in Medicine was shared between two scientists who had worked together, William Campbell and Satoshi Omura. Actually, they only got half of the prize. The other half went to a third scientist, Tu Youyou, for her work on a completely unrelated problem.

I’ll give you the riddle in just a second. But first, here’s a potentially useful bit of info:

The 2016 prize was for Ohsumi’s discovery of how “autophagy” works in the body. This topic is interesting and important. But as far as I understand, it’s also rather theoretical and abstract, and unlikely to save lives any time soon.

On the other hand, one of the scientists who shared the 2015 prize discovered a drug to treat malaria. The other two recipients discovered a drug to stop blindness-causing parasites. In other words, their work is extremely practical and immediately useful. In fact, it has already been responsible for hundreds of millions of saved lives and prevented disfigurements.

So here’s the riddle I want you to ponder:

Why did the Nobel Prize committee award the whole prize to Ohsumi in 2016… but feel they should “pad out” the recipient list in 2015, and split it among two unrelated groups?

I don’t have the definitive answer to this riddle. And it’s probably just a coincidence.

But it reminded me of a book I’d read a while back called Disciplined Minds.

This book was written by Jeff Schmidt, a PhD physicist and the former editor of a reputable physics journal.

In one chapter of the book, Schmidt asks a variation of the riddle above:

Why do theoretical physicists get more respect than experimental physicists, even though both types of physics require the same intelligence, are equally well-paid, and are equally important?

Schmidt’s rather Marxist answer is that this is just a deeply ingrained copy of the power structures in our society.

The people at the top of any hierarchy just do the thinking, the abstract work, and the ordering about.

The people lower down in the hierarchy are tasked with the manual work of carrying out those orders from up high.

And that’s why any association with manual, practical work is likely to lead to less respect, less prestige, and perhaps, less Nobel Prize.

Do you think this might be relevant for copywriters, too?

It seems like a lot of copywriters believe it. They relish being being blissfully impractical.

“I just write the magic words, don’t ask me about anything else!”

But while this might work for physicists and Nobel Prize-winning biologists, I think it’s the wrong way to go in the field of direct response.

The deeper I get into this game, the more I learn that you should get your hands dirty.

This doesn’t mean you have to offer a one-stop shop where you do the copywriting and the design and the media buying too.

But if you can give clear and smart recommendations on design and media buying, your clients will appreciate it…

Your projects will be more likely to succeed…

And you will wind up with more money, more interesting future projects, and maybe even some respect and prestige. ​​And if you get all that, then who needs a Nobel prize, or a third of one anyways?

Minesweeping for copywriting clients

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I was talking to someone recently and I mentioned how I’d gotten off Upwork a few months ago.

“So how do you get clients now?” she asked.

I paused and thought. “I don’t really know.”

Well, I’ve thought about it a bit more. Here are the facts:

Since getting off Upwork, I’ve had some old clients get back in touch with new projects…

I’ve also had some referrals that turned into actual work…

And finally, I applied for and got one email writing job that was advertised within Ben Settle’s paid newsletter.

And while it’s been enough work (along with my ongoing clients) to keep me busy, I’d like to have a more steady drip-drip of new leads.

So I’ve taken the advice of several successful copywriters (Chris Orzechowski and Roy Furr), and I’ve started putting together a list of businesses I would like to write for.

The goal was to put together 50 such companies. I’ve been at it for about a month. And so far I have… 8.

In spite of the fact that good direct marketing companies should be easy to track down (they run ads, right?), I’m not finding it so easy to actually find them.

It’s kind of like that old game Minesweeper that used to come with Windows.

You click on one square, hoping it will open up a whole patch of the board that’s free of mines…

But it turns out to be just one stupid revealed square, with no extra information, and you’re back to where you started.

At least that’s how it feels for a while.

But if you keep it up (so I tell myself), the Minesweeper field starts to open up and you get a better idea of where those mines (ahem, clients) might be hiding.

(By the way, did you know that Minesweeper happens to be an NP-complete game? That’s a fancy computer science term that means Minesweeper is pretty damn complex. And that progress in the game probably won’t be linear, and might require going down some dead ends.)

Anyways, the point of all this is to inspire myself, and maybe you as well. Because if you keep putting in the work, eventually results will start to follow. Either that, or you land on a mine and blow off your foot. (Haha, nervously.)

Of course, maybe you’re not off Upwork. Maybe you’re just trying to get started there. (And why not? It’s a good place to get clients, and it worked well for me for years.) In that case, you might like this collection of the tricks and strategies I used while I was still on Upwork:

https://bejakovic.com/upwork-book

A legendary copywriter tells you where to shove your USP

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A few years back, I got hired to write a home page for an innovative company.

They were selling “European-style” windows to Americans.

These windows could be opened in all sorts of ways… they offered better sound and temperature insulation… and they looked hella European.

In other words, this was a superior product that would sell itself if described in detail.

So I wrote up the home page to explain the main advantages of these windows, and to back them up with facts.

“It’s ok,” the client said when I delivered the copy, “but I was hoping you could make the copy more like what I see in ads for Apple.”

This is one of my pet poofs.

I understand the temptation to want to imitate Apple. Apple products are everywhere, the company is hugely successful, and there’s a mystique to their marketing.

​​But none of those are reasons for a tiny business to try to ape Apple’s copywriting or advertising. ​​I think many of the arguments why are obvious, so I won’t drag on the point here.

I just wanted to bring this story up because of an interesting article I read recently.

The article was written by copywriting and marketing legend Mark Ford. Mark is one of the people responsible for making Agora the giant direct response business that it is today.

​​He’s also the author of many books on business and marketing and copywriting (including Great Leads, which I highly recommend).

Anyways, Mark was asked how copywriters should come up with a USP — a unique selling proposition — to help them position and market themselves.

After all, every business, even a one-man service business, needs a USP, right?

Maybe, and maybe not.

If you’re a copywriter — or you have any other kind of small business — then I think Mark’s article is worth a read.

It tells you where you can shove your USP, though of course Mark doesn’t use those words, because he’s a very classy man. Here’s the link to the article:

https://www.markford.net/2019/08/21/8720/

Email outreach that smells worse than a wet dog

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There’s a bitch who lives downstairs from me named Lisa.

Lisa is usually sitting in the yard when I go out of the house.

Each time I see her, I pet her and give her a dog treat (she’s some kind of GSD mix).

Today however, Lisa got wet.

I don’t know how, because there was no rain. ​​

But ​t​he poor thing smelled like sewage mixed with a kelpy ocean breeze.

I tried to pet her as usual. No go. Then I tried with just two fingers. But she was really too repulsive.

​​”I’m sorry baby,” I told her. “Maybe when you dry off.”

When I got back home, I sat down to write a cold email.

This is to a potential new copywriting client.

And the Lisa lesson stayed in my mind and in my nose.

Because when you’re writing cold emails, it’s easy to smell worse than a wet, puffy dog. All you have to do is to reek of need.

I can’t describe how need smells, but it’s a very unique, very recognizable, and very repulsive aroma.

Fortunately, it’s a pretty easy smell to eliminate.

Simply eliminate the need and the smell goes with it.

“Yea John,” you might complain, “easier said than done.”

No, no. It’s really not that hard to get rid of need. I’ll talk about how in my upcoming guide on negotiating for freelancers. This will be one of the free bonuses to my revamped Upwork book.

If you want to get notified when this book and the free bonuses become available, you can sign up with your email here:

https://bejakovic.com/upwork-book

Crying over spilled copywriting projects

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I recently started work on a project that was doomed from the start.

As soon as the client sent over the product, I realized it is, frankly, shit.

So I wrote the client to say I could see two ways to move forward:

1) He could find somebody else to write the sales letter, or

2) He could improve the product

He responded defending the product. And saying how it’s not the copywriter’s job to worry whether the product is any good or not.

I don’t agree. And if you like, I’ll tell you why.

Reason 1 is the time and effort I put in. If I’m working on this project, I will not be working on other, more promising projects. An hour or two promoting something hopeless might be ok. A week or a month is too much, at least in my book.

Reason 2 is the question of a success story in my portfolio vs. a burning barn filled with screaming cattle, which I think this project would have turned into.

Reason 3, if you need it, is simply the ethics of helping sell something that’s below a basic standard of quality.

But anyways, I’m not here to cry over spilled copywriting milk.

I just want to suggest that, as a copywriter, you have a stake in the outcome of a project, even if you’re not getting paid royalties or getting a share of the revenues.

That’s one thing.

The other thing is a bit about negotiation.

Because this client fell victim to one of the classic blunders, the most famous of which is, “Never get involved in a land war in Asia.”

But only slightly less well known is this, “Never double down when you’re trying to convince somebody who has serious doubts.”

So was there a better negotiation strategy that this client could have used?

I believe so.

In fact, I think he could have sucked me back into working on this project, without making many real changes to the product itself.

I’m gonna go over this strategy in my upcoming guide to negotiating for freelancers (yes, freelancers can also learn something from a client’s mistakes).

This guide will be one of the free bonuses to go with my  revamped book on succeeding on Upwork. If you want to get notified when I finish this up and publish it, you can sign up here:

https://bejakovic.com/upwork-book

“Hating freelancing right now”

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I’m still working on revamping my book about succeeding as a freelancer on Upwork. One part of what I’ll include is my answers to 64 high-level, “big obstacle” questions that freelancers, including those on Upwork, tend to run into regularly.

Such as the following question from Reddit:

“Back then when I started out to work online (Internet Marketing & SEO) I kinda enjoyed it a bit but nowadays after 3 years part-time and now 1 year full time I kinda hate it at all..

“What might be the reason for it? Just bcz I got some money on my bank account? I think that gives me some trust that I can just chill out.”

I’ve personally never hated freelancing. But I have hated myself as well as my life while freelancing.

I put this down to my bad tendency to blame myself rather than external factors. And if you think I’m humblebragging, I’m not. I genuinely think it’s good for your mental health in the long run if you can honestly say, “I would have been successful — if not for the damned rain.” If instead you say (like I do), “It’s my fault because I didn’t bring an umbrella, stupid stupid!” you will eat away at yourself too much, too soon.

Anyways, on to the question.

I don’t know what causes hate, whether of freelancing or of the freelancer and his life. But I do know what can work as a fix.

In my experience, it’s to keep experimenting with different techniques. Some ideas:

Work in tight routines.

Stop working in tight routines and allow yourself to work however much and whenever you want.

Take a change of scenery.

Take a break during the day and do something new to appreciate the fact that you have flexibility.

Keep looking to improve your skills and get more specialized and valuable.

Keep increasing your rates to make your life better and to challenge yourself.

Keep working on your own side projects that will both help you with freelancing and might have some value on their own.

None of these things is going to be THE ONE TRUE answer. But if you keep trying them all, and switching them up, you might just make your whole life better, in small but significant ways, in many different dimensions. And in time that will help you cope with tough times, because those will always come. But they don’t have to cause you to descend into spittle-ejecting hate.

So that’s my bit of pulpit beating for today.

If you have questions about freelancing or copywriting obstacles, you might like that book about Upwork I’m preparing. To get notified when I finish it up, you can sign up here:

https://bejakovic.com/150-dollar-per-hour-freelancer

10 fresh ways for freelancers to compete against cheaper rates

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A question comes via the Reddit copywriting group:

“How do you compete against people who can do the same work you can, but much cheaper because they live in a country where living is just cheaper (India for example)?”

I honestly don’t think it will matter much what I say.

Because most people who ask this question are too far gone.

Like R. Kelly, fighting against his evil urges but giving in inevitably…

These people are possessed by the evil urge to believe that freelancing won’t work out for them. And like R. Kelly, they will inevitably give in to this urge. They will prove themselves right and fail.
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Of course, it doesn’t have to be this way.

So in the interest of eternal glory and in the hope it might help someone somewhere, here are 10 fresh ways, which I’ve just baked up, to help you compete even against thousands of people who will charge much less than you:

#1. Have a track record of success. I just read that Stefan Georgi charges between $50k and $100k for a sales letter, plus royalties. His secret? The long track record of making his clients much more than he charges them.

#2. Be more likable. People will hire you just because they like you. Conversely, they will refuse to hire you just because they dislike you.

#3. Get there first. Be the first to apply for an opportunity. Or get in contact with clients that nobody else is approaching. Or that nobody else can reach.

#4. Offer a guarantee. Most freelancer copywriters don’t offer a guarantee. This includes me. I tell clients, “I guarantee I’ll work my ass off for you, and that’s it.” So if you are brave and smart and you offer a guarantee, you can stand out.

#5. Explain your service better. Like Claude Hopkins, who made Schlitz the #1 beer in America by saying it’s pasteurized after it’s sealed. Every other beer was pasteurized as well. But nobody else was explaining these facts.

#6. Explain why your service is better. Why do you deliver a better service than others — other than just trying hard?

#7. Be non-needy. There’s some magic in not worrying whether any particular client comes or goes. The best way to do this is by having other good options. You’ll be surprised how well clients will pay you when they realize you don’t need their money.

#8. Be famous. Start a blog. Get on a podcast. Get on a stage. Marry a Kardashian.

#9. Move into the profits column. Stop offering services that cost your clients money. Instead, start offering services that make your clients money, and take a share of the money they make.

#10. Let your clients sell themselves. I’ve talked about this before, but simply by asking your clients a few open-ended questions about their business, their problems, and their projects, you can often get them to sell themselves — without you saying much or anything at all.

Will these 10 tips help you? I hope so.

And if you have some more questions about the business of copy and how to make it work for you, you might like the following:

https://bejakovic.com/150-dollar-per-hour-freelancer

The Warren Beatty strategy for seducing copywriting clients

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“Women are like a jar of olives. You can eat one, close it up. Or you can eat them all.”
— Warren Beatty

I recently read some statistics about the sex life of Warren Beatty.

The man lost his virginity at age 20.

And then, he became a Hollywood star.

Over the next 35 years, he supposedly slept with almost 13,000 women, according to the best estimates of his biographer, Peter Biskind.

That averages to a new woman every day.

Almost certainly not true. Even Beatty himself has denied the claim.

However, he has over the decades been associated with a lot of famous women, including Melanie Griffith, Darryl Hannah, Jane Fonda, Vivien Leigh, Madonna, Carly Simon, Goldie Hawn, Barbara Streisand…

Oh, and Joan Collins, who said Beatty was “so pretty but just TOO exhausting in the bedroom.”

Mind you, all those women knew about each other. In other words, Beatty’s playboy background didn’t hurt. It helped. ​​

Anyways, now that you have that in mind, I want to tell you something related that might help your copywriting career.

I am currently negotiating a project with a client that I’ve done some smaller work for.

If this comes through, it will be the biggest single project I have had to date.

But the interesting thing is how I got this client.

About a year ago, I wrote him a cold email to introduce myself.

“Sounds interesting,” he replied. “I will keep you in mind.”

And he did.

He first hired me for a single project around December, then again for something in April, then a few small things earlier this summer. And now, here we are.

And here’s the thing.

I’ve sent the same cold email to several other leads.

They haven’t hired me yet. But they have all gotten back to me very quickly, with an almost identical response.

“Sounds interesting. I will keep you in mind.”

So what was the cold email? Well, if you’d like to find that out, you can get it inside my shamelessly promiscuous A-List Zone. For more information:

https://bejakovic.com/alist-zone

When freelancer copywriters should lower their rates

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I saw a question a few days ago from a freelancer who NEEDS some money coming in.

Trouble is, she’s thinking of applying for a job, but the client’s budget for this job is less than the freelancer’s normal hourly rate.

(This whole story is happening on Upwork, but I think it applies just as well even if you’re dealing with clients in any other situation.)

And so the freelancer is wondering whether she should apply for the job at her preferred rate…

Or whether she should drop her rate and apply so she’s within the client’s budget.

In the first case, she might not be considered for the job.

In the second case, she might be selling herself short.

So what to do?

Personally, I would take the great white shark approach.

I read somewhere that most shark bites come down to curiosity.

Sharks don’t have hands or any other good way of interacting with random objects they come across in the sea.

Their only real way to figure out what that floating thing is, is to take a bite.

If it’s not according to the shark’s taste, the shark will simply spit it out and move on.

But if it fits the shark’s current appetite, the shark will go to town.

And so with lowering your freelance rates.

My advice is to stick your rates, even when applying for a job that clearly has a lower budget.

Depending on the client, you might get the job, even at your higher asking price.

Or maybe you won’t. Maybe the client will say, “Boy you’re great! And we would love to hire you, but you’re just out of our budget.”

At that point, you can decide, based on your own principles, whether this makes sense for you or not.

Do you want to spit this client out?

Or does it make sense to bite into this job — because you really need the money, or you want the experience, or you want that client relationship?

If you do, then, then go to town, just like a great white shark that’s found a tasty seal.

But don’t just jump in and start making compromises right up front because a client put an arbitrary number as their preferred budget.

That’s my public service announcement for freelance copywriters for the day. In case you have more questions about the business of copy, you might be able to find some answers here:

https://bejakovic.com/upwork-book-notification-list/