One summer, through no real fault or merit of my own, I lucked into a job as a management consultant.
I was walking down the street and I saw a plaque on the wall with a company’s name.
“I wonder what they do,” I said to myself.
It turned out they built software for banks. So I sent an email to their public-facing email address, saying how I have a background in economics and software development (true enough), and maybe they could use me.
An email came back two minutes later. It was from the CEO of the company. “When could you come into the office to talk?”
He hired me a couple of days later, at what was then a royal sum of money for me, to do work I wasn’t really qualified to do.
Second story:
Last year, a call went out among subscribers to Ben Settle’s print newsletter. A publishing company in the real estate space was looking for “A-list copywriters” to write VSLs.
For more info, interested applicants were to write to the CEO of the company.
I really wanted this job, but it took me about a week to finally write to the guy.
During that week, I’m sure 50 to 100 other would-be “A-list” copywriters wrote in to apply the same job with their best-crafted pitches.
But that’s not what I did.
Instead, I spent that week researching this publishing company, and writing two new leads for their current hot promotion.
I heard back from the CEO as soon as I sent my leads in. He was impressed I’d done that up-front work, and he liked the copy I’d written.
A few days later, he hired me for a big project. He later hired me for a second project. And now, I just got some referrals from him, which resulted in new work.
I’m not telling you either of these stories as specific strategies for winning projects. When it comes to copywriting clients, I’ve never had success with cold emailing. And I don’t recommend just doing free work whenever somebody asks you for it.
The point I want to get across is simply this:
In any collection of 50 smart, hard working, gung-ho hares, I’m unlikely to stand out and win the prize. But in a race involving just me, a slow and lazy tortoise, my odds are much better.
Maybe your totem animal is equally uncompetitive. So instead of working to make yourself into a better competitor, look for ways to make the competition a non-issue.
One last tip:
A good way to make yo’ tortoise self stand out from the crowd is to put out a consistent daily message in your own voice.
For example, I have a daily email newsletter, in which I talk about copywriting, marketing, and Aesop’s fables applied to the business of freelancing. If you’d like to sign up for these emails, just click here and fill out the form that appears.