It’s hard catering to international spies.
For example, back in the early days of my freelancing career, when I was a barely hatched duckling fresh out of the freelancing egg, I got a job writing for a woman who called herself “The Agent.”
She was basically a personal assistant, but she aimed to cater to high-powered businessmen, so she positioned herself with a bit of 007 mystique.
Need connections to Fortune 500 CFOs and CEOs? Or a party on a chartered plane flying around the world? Or a seat in a VIP box at the Monaco Grand Prix?
No problem. Talk to The Agent, and she’ll take care of you.
Anyways, The Agent hired me to write a sequence of emails, telling her story and explaining her unconventional services to a list of potential clients.
So I interviewed her.
Looked over her website.
Made an avatar of her ideal customer.
And then I wrote a series of emails in the Andre Chaperon SOS style, really selling her as a female James Bond who gets problems solved, doors opened, and connections made.
I honestly thought I did a good job.
Until I delivered the copy.
The Agent didn’t have any specific complaints. But she thought the emails weren’t really what she was looking for. And honestly, I can’t blame her.
Not because i didn’t do a good job.
But because I failed to do something important.
Something that’s become a pillar of the way I deal with clients these days.
And also something that almost guarantees that clients always wind up happy with the copy I write.
I’m talking about setting expectations. Expectations of what the copy will look like. How long it will take the client to get it. What kinds of results they can expect from it.
I make sure all these things are perfectly clear to a potential client before I choose to accept the dangerous mission of writing copy for them.
The thing is, this is just one part of a 4-step process for making sure clients get what they want. And important as it is, it’s not even the most important of these 4 steps.
For the remaining 3 pillars of continuing client satisfaction, you might want to look inside my upcoming book. It deals with becoming a successful sales copywriter on Upwork.
I’ll be launching it soon on Amazon. And if you want to get notified when it’s out (and when it will be on free promotion, for a short while), then sign up below: