Advice In “Kick Starting” Your Copywriting Business Update

 

How To Jump-start Your Copywriting Business To Get Clients Fast.” Update

Welcome to an update with Mark, a copywriter that I previously did a consultation with to advise him about some of the best ways to kick start his new copywriting business.

You will hear how Mark had, indeed, implemented some of the strategies that I had recommended – specifically about how to obtain clients using Ebay. Here’s what Mark did:

• He researched Ebay for completed listings by category where the item did not sell. The categories that he has investigated thus far include cars, boats, real estate, trading cards, and some other big ticket items.
• He developed a sales letter that he sent to these Ebay sellers. A copy of Mark’s sales letter is included in the transcription below.
• He sent out between twenty and thirty of these sales letters to the unsuccessful Ebay sellers and received a 10% response (not bad for a start!).


He believes that he may be able to strike a deal to re-write one of his respondent’s Ebay ads with his copywriting skills.

The great part about Mark’s new venture is that it took him less than an hour to send out all of his sales letters! He admits that this type of sales approach is much easier than approaching businesses cold. He also admits that Ebay has so many auctions that he could never even scratch the surface of all of the closed, unsuccessful auctions that he could approach (Hint: Some copywriting competition wouldn’t hurt Mark!).

In our conversation, Mark says that he needs to develop more of a solid system to research and follow through with potential clients. You will hear me suggest that he look into implementing the HMA System’s Opportunity Analysis into his sales letter and follow through phases.

I send him links to specific interviews and consultations on my web site dealing with Opportunity Analyses. If used, the Opportunity Analysis would provide a proven methodology to help his potential clients to grow their businesses or sell their big ticket items. It might also open opportunities for Mark to do more marketing for his clients – not just copywriting – because it would entrench Mark in his potential clients’ businesses.

Stay tuned for more updates on Mark and his success with his new copywriting business!



Michael: Would you be willing to provide the site visitors with a sample of the email that you sent out through eBay to show them how you did it to generate the leads?

Mark: Yeah, I’d love to.

Music

Hi, it’s Michael Senoff with HardtoFindSeminars.com. Here is a follow-up part two from advice with a copywriter, his name is Mark, and he actually took my advice and went out onto eBay to try and go secure some copywriting clients. You’re going to hear all the details in this short recording. Enjoy!

Michael: Let’s just do a quick update. So, I got an email from you thanking me for the advice, and you also had mentioned that you implemented some of the strategies as far as getting some potential copywriting work by using eBay or PayPal. Can you tell me what you did to get that ball rolling after we had talked?

Mark: Sure, what I first did was I went through eBay and I checked out completed listings and I went by category. I started out in, I think it was automotive, and what I did was I just picked categories and looked for completed listings and then I went to those listings to see how many of them had not been relisted, and then I put together a short sales letter, if you will. It was only just a few lines saying, “Hello, my name is Mark. I help eBayers sell their items within ten days.” I don’t have my notes in front of me. So, bear with me.

Michael: That’s okay.

Mark: “I help them sell their items within ten days, guaranteed, and it only takes about 30-60 minutes over the phone or by email.” I just put the Unique Selling Proposition right in the message, and I hit “Contact the Member”, and I just pasted it in there, and boom I was done.

Michael: So, you sent that out. You were looking at completed auctions, and who were you sending them to, people who were trying to sell what, cars?

Mark: Yeah, one was actually a smart car – it’s a unique listing because what the guy’s trying to do is raise money on an expedition with one of these smart cars, the hybrid combustion engines, and trying to raise some money that his group can take these two cars on an expedition, and they’re selling ad space on the car. That was one of the leads that I got from this, and I’m still working on him right now.

Michael: And, how many of those little emails did you send out through the eBay thing?

Mark: I didn’t count them up, but I would estimate probably about twenty or thirty.

Michael: Now, did they let you send out twenty or thirty? Because I believe if you’re an eBay member, they will limit the amount of contacts you can make through their system.

Mark: Yeah, that’s right. They do, but overall I sent about twenty or thirty.

Michael: I think you’re allowed to send ten a day.

Mark: It’s actually eight.

Michael: Is it eight a day?

Mark: Yes.

Michael: So, you sent out twenty to thirty, and you looked for specific auctions that you felt like you could help them. You didn’t just send them out to anyone and everyone, did you?

Mark: No, not really. I looked in different categories like Sports Trading Cards, Real Estate. I sent one yesterday to a guy who’s selling a boat, a cruiseliner or some type of power boat, and to the smart car and somebody who was selling these memory servers for people who own tape libraries online.

Michael: Okay. So, tell me, out of the twenty or thirty you sent, what kind of response did you get?

Mark: Well, so far, I had just three or four inquiries.

Michael: So, about ten percent response, not bad at all.

Mark: Not bad at all.

Michael: Did they respond to you through eBay? Or did you have your phone number in there? How did you get them to respond?

Mark: Oh, I left my email in the message as well.

Michael: Now, you have their email address and you can communicate outside of the eBay thing.

Mark: That’s correct.

Michael: Okay, very good. So, have you talked to any of them on the phone?

Mark: Not on the phone yet because one of them lives in Canada. So far, we’ve been doing okay by email for one of them. The other lead I was working on, that turned out to be a no go, and I indicated that was likely in my last email to you.

Michael: Okay, great. Well, how long did it take you to send out those twenty to thirty, if you added up all the time?

Mark: It couldn’t have been more than an hour all together.

Michael: Do you think you’re going to get one paying client out of those three or four?

Mark: I think I might. This one that I’m working on with the expedition, this looks like the strongest candidate. I was trying to finalize some details, and I’m going to send him a written agreement and see what they really want to do to get some solid answers from him.

Michael: Okay, would you be willing to provide the site visitors with a sample of the email that you sent out through eBay to show them how you did it to generate the leads?

Mark: Yeah, I’d love to. Do you want me to send it to you?

Michael: Yes, just shoot it to me and I’ll PDF it and put it up there.

Mark: Okay.

Michael: Will you keep me posted as you progress on this thing?

Mark: Yes, definitely.

Michael: Is this a lot easier than approaching businesses cold?

Mark: I would say far easier.

Michael: Do you think you have still a few potential people to contact through eBay?

Mark: I believe that I will never even scratch the surface because there’s so many different categories, and believe it or not, there’s a lot of completed listings that many of them do not sell or even get a bid on their items. There’s a lot of them out there. I don’t think I would be hurt by a little competition.

Michael: No, I don’t think so either. Do you think you could, as long as you have Internet connection, you could do this from anywhere in the world?

Mark: Absolutely.

Michael: From any coffee shop or any computer terminal, right?

Mark: Yes, I believe so.

Michael: So, let me ask you this. Are you creating a process in place? You send out the emails. The emails come back. And, when you email them back, what are you saying? Do you have a process in place to line this up, get it systematized?

Mark: I’m still fine-tuning it as I go. I see that I’m going to have to be a little more structured.

Michael: Because I think that’s where the HMA system can help you, the opportunity analysis. Are you aware of that?

Mark: Vaguely.

Michael: I’m going to send you to a link and there’s some recordings on there. HMA System is a marketing consulting system where I teach people how to do marketing consulting, and you’re approaching a business where he’s trying to sell a product or service, but before you can really and truly help him as a copywriter, you need to understand some things about his business, where he wants to go. And, it gives you the ability to evaluate whether this is a good client you even want to mess with.

So, it’s a structured series of questions that you ask them. It’s called an opportunity analysis that allows you to really entrench yourself in the business and to build credibility on yourself. So, you’re not there just helping rewrite a letter. That’s how you got on the phone with him, but you’re really there to show him how to grow his business without spending much more money on advertising.

But, this would be perfect to take a potential client through not only to get him as a copywriting client, which is just one aspect of marketing, but possibly to get him on a fuller scale marketing plan where you can sell marketing services as well.

Mark: Yeah, actually, that’s what I’m hoping to do something a little long-term.

Michael: Have you listened to any of the recordings that’s in a section called “Consulting Secrets”? Does that ring a bell? It’s all these recordings with a guy named Richard? He was a Jay Abraham trained marketing consulting. Do you remember listening to anything on consulting?

Mark: Not on consulting by itself, no.

Michael: Okay. This is going to be perfect for you. I’m going to send you to a series of recordings, and there’s a lot of content on there, but look for case studies there. Before you listen to any of them, read through the descriptions and you’ll hear me doing these opportunity analysis consultations. There’s four of them up on this page - one with a mover, one with a guy who has a string cheese business, there’s another with an accountant in Australia. Listen to how I do this and this is what you should be doing with these potential clients, if you want to go for bigger money other than just copywriting fees.

Mark: I get you.

Michael: Okay.

Mark: Is that kind of what you’re doing with the guy with the Advanced Hosting?

Michael: That’s exactly it. He was a client of mine, and we did a trade for about $3,000 worth of hosting. I took him through the first step of the system which is creating the USP, but yes. Well, I didn’t actually go too much into opportunity analysis with him, but that was me creating and developing a USP for his business.

Mark: I’m listening to that one.

Michael: Now, do you see how if I was a copywriter I would still need to do this to find out what separates him from all his competition? So, when I write my copy for him, I’m really standing out and the copy is going to be more effective in selling against his competitors, but yeah, and that’s a step in the system that you should sell for $3,000.

In the string cheese, you’ll hear me sell a guy the first step for $1,500 just to develop his USP, and you can position yourself and say, “Look, I do copywriting. I can write you anything and everything, but if you really want the writing to be effective, let me develop a USP because this is what we should be doing before I write a word of copy for your business.”

Mark: Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.

Michael: And, then you can get a fee for that or negotiate that and say, “I’ll do the USP free and then the copywriting fee will be this.” They can get you entrenched into their business in a big week. All right, so I sent you that link. Take a look through those recordings and let’s keep in touch, okay?

Mark: Sure. There’s one question if you’ve got time.

Michael: Yeah, go.

Mark: About getting things upfront. I run into that with a couple of people, and a lot of people don’t want to do that.

Michael: Getting what upfront, what do you mean?

Mark: I mean fees.

Michael: Oh, getting fees upfront?

Mark: Yeah, a percentage upfront.

Michael: You know what? They’re not qualified. In one hour, you could get three or four calls. I would recommend that you don’t do anything unless you get at least some of your fee upfront. It just shows that they’re committed. Unless you really feel good about the guy and you keep some kind of control, I wouldn’t invest any time. I would just send out another thirty emails and wait until you find someone who really wants to grow, is committed, and is willing to pay something up front.

If you could use this opportunity analysis as a way to qualify yourself and really show them the money because you’ll hear how it shows them the money, they’ll be sold. You’ll be building your credibility, and if they can’t see the money they’re leaving on the table because their marketing or their copywriting or their eBay ad – and that all relates to other parts of their business – is week, then they’re not qualified.

So, I wouldn’t even waste the time on anyone who’s not willing to put anything up front. You’re willing to invest your time, your effort – you time is money, and you’re only willing to work with partners. You want to be seen as a partner. You come in as a partner, okay?

Mark: Sure, sounds good.

Michael: All right, and I’ve got the email here. Let me just read this, “My name is Mark. I help eBayers sell their products in ten days or less guaranteed by writing compelling sales letters for their listing and it only takes 30-60 minutes over the phone or through email. I will write a winning sales letter for your item that will sell within ten days or less. If it doesn’t sell within ten days, I’ll rewrite it until it does at no extra charge. If you have any questions, feel free to contact me.” That’s very good.

Now, when they call you, that 30-60 minutes, over the phone, could be that opportunity analysis. If they’re not willing to do the opportunity analysis, you could send them to this presentation which I’m going to email you, too, right now. It’s called Free Advertising Workshop. You could tell them you normally charge for this. This will do all your selling for you for your marketing services, okay?

Mark: Okay.

Michael: I’m sending that right now, and even my HMA consultants will be interested in this lead generating technique, and it’s very effective. All right Mark?

Mark: Okay, thanks a lot.

Michael: Thank you very much. I’ve emailed both of those. Let’s keep in touch.

Mark: You bet, bye.

Michael: Bye