Show and Tell

Posted on September 30, 2008
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Okay, in keeping with the theme of the site, and because I enjoy being in the great outdoors (and hope you do too), I just wanted to share a few shots from the places I’ve been over the last three months:

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Water - My latest secret weapon

Posted on September 30, 2008
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I know, I know…I sort of disappeared there for about three months. The reasons are varied, some good, some not so good…a little fun, a little not so fun. But if there’s one thing I’ve been it’s busy. And in penance for going silent, I’m going to reveal what’s kept me busy.

When I first moved back to Birmingham, I’d signed up with all of the job search sites, thinking I’d find a “real” job soon and get back to the 8-to-5 grind. And even though freelancing kicked that plan to the curb, I kept receiving the prompts for jobs I’d signed up for. Part of me thought that maybe something would come along that would entice me back to regular employment.

Then, one morning a few months ago, it dawned on me: these people are looking for copywriter.

They know what a copywriter is. They understand the value a copywriter provides. they’re looking for good copy!

So, rather than deleting the emails, I picked up the phone…and got three gigs in seven calls! the first thing that happened was I felt a little sick over the 100+ weeks of qualified leads I’d just been deleting without even a thought.

Then I sat down and got to work…because I had new clients to impress.

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Do a little “rain dance”

Posted on June 22, 2008
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One thing that continues to amaze me is the seemingly karmic value of doing your cold calls. And I’m not alone. Join up a freelance writer’s discussion group, and the subject rears its head every now and then.

What do I mean? Well, if you put the effort in, you get results…but not always the results you’re expecting.

Last week, I decided to set aside Monday to make a few (25) calls. Some were cold calls; a few were touching base with people I’d already spoken to. All were short, and not very sales-y. “Hi, I’m Danny Thompson, and I’m a freelance writer specializing in [industry]. I just wanted to introduce myself and find out if you guys ever use freelancers to help with marketing or corporate communications.”

That’s it…that’s my script! Whether I get a yes or no, the calls seldom last more than 3 or 4 minutes.

Now, here’s the freaky part: while I occasionally get a few bites that might lead to paying work. But invariably, whenever I set time aside to make a few calls, I end up getting two or three gigs come in entirely unrelated to my calls.

I can’t explain it…but it happens too often for me to ignore. So here’s a strategy: forget the results of your calling. Make your calls expecting that every one will land you a “no,” if you want. For some reason, it will still end up getting you work, simply because the universe rewards focused effort.

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The Power of Simple Systems

Posted on June 10, 2008
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Systems work to make your life and your work run more smoothly. I believed that long before I really focused on implementing it (I’m a writer and, thus, a procrastinator by nature). Once I did, though, I was astounded by how much simply my life actually became.

I started prompts similar to the FREElance Survival Training to help make those systems habitual…ten calls a day, get the big stuff done early, plan for tomorrow before I “clock out,” send out invoices, check on payments, etc.

Then I put systems in place that took things to a whole new level. I started in order to automate the things I didn’t like, like invoicing, record keeping and collections, giving me time to focus on the work I did like. Then I took it a step further. I noticed that when I batch like tasks, I completed them much faster.

So I declared Tuesday and Thursday my “writing days.” Yes, I only write on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Think about that for a moment. I’m a writer. That is my work. I work on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

I know what’s going through your mind. “That would never work! I’ve got too much to do! My clients want stuff when they want it!”

I felt the same way, until I took a closer look. More often than not, clients asked for a specific date…but then followed it with “let me know if this won’t work for you.” I also realized that I could structure my time just a bit and improve my productivity. Write more in less time…since I charge by the project and not the our, it worked out to a tremendous increase in my hourly rate!

Not only that, but I now plan my jobs and decide how much I can handle by simple checking my schedule for Tuesday and Thursday!

Of course…the Tues/Thurs thing IS a bit of an over simplification. First, I noticed I had a lot of wasted time in the car…taking the kids to school…driving to meet clients…driving out to my favorite hiking and camping spots. So, I’d work in the car, using the Jott.com service to dictate the ideas and basic structure for what I’ll write on Tues and Thurs. Second, because of this prep work…I typically write between 10 am and 3 pm on Tuesday and Thursday. Minus lunch from 12-1, of course.

If it’s a new client, I’ll typically spend a little time doing a little research on Mondays. Occasionally, I’ll take a client out for a nice lunch (can you say write-off?).

What does this mean, exactly? It means I took what was a decent life with a 27-hour work week, and turned it into an unbelievable 8-hour (plus stolen moments that would otherwise be wasted time) work week. Actually, it’s less than that now.

I tell you all of this not simply to show off. But to get you thinking about where you’re wasting time. Where you’re duplicating efforts. Where you’re banging your head against the wall, while there’s a door if you’d just take two steps to the left.

But don’t do it so you can simply goof off (or drag in more work to fill the time). The real benefits of simplifying things isn’t so you can get even more done…but so that you can DO more. My oldest son is out of school for the summer. I’ve been spending a lot of time with him doing all sorts of things. It was looking like the start to a great summer.

Then, this last week my mother’s internist found a malignant tumor. The surgery and recovery went smoothly, and luckily I got to spend almost all of about five days there at the hospital with her. It wasn’t how I planned on using my free time. But I am certainly glad I had the time to spend however I needed it.

I still wrote on Thursday…but I did it from the hospital. And in the car.

Don’t get so caught up in the “how” of being a success that you forget what the whole point is. It’s not liberating hours so you can squeeze more work in. It’s making the work easy, so you can spend quality time…however you define it, whether that’s in the woods, at home reading a book to a five year old, or simply being there at the hospital.

Here’s to YOUR success…whatever that entails (and I hope it’s more than a number).

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How Long is This Gonna Take?

Posted on May 22, 2008
Filed Under Procrastination | 2 Comments

I got these question from a 4HWWW subscriber [http://4hww.copywritersurvivalguide.com]:

“Two quick questions for you.   About how long do the section one income streams take to get up and running? Then, about how long to get to that $10-$20/week level…can you give me a ballpark number?”

Great question, and one I’m sure others are wondering about as well. Well, here is my answer:

“Well, I’ll be giving you several different ways to create those income streams…there’s “something for everyone” as they say. Some can start paying off in a matter of days, others might take two or three weeks to get up to snuff. But I’ll do my best to give you the tips and techniques to start seeing results in a week or less.

Reaching the $10-$20 per week level depends on how fast you take to the methods, as well as a little trial and error. We’ll be working with how to make real money with adsense at one point, for instance. And after a little trial an error (and some pointers from me), you’ll be able to find the keywords that draw ads that have a high PPC value—the more the PPC cost for the advertiser, the larger your cut per-click…my personal high thus far is a site that consistently gets me $1.85 per click (I can’t imagine what those advertisers are actually paying Google!).

You can believe I still actively promote that site, even with the other stuff I’ve got going on. In twenty minutes I can drive enough traffic to regularly generate twenty to thirty clicks per week, for five or six weeks. I’ll let you do the math on what the “hourly rate” on that 20 minutes works out to be.

The idea with this first section is to help make your down time (when you don’t have actively paying projects to work on) work for YOU. And, of course, it gives you a working knowledge of some of the things we’ll be working on as we move through sections 2 and 3″

Right now, I know a lot of writers are struggling with a lot of downtime. The point here is, you don’t have to sit idle and wonder where the next paycheck is coming from. You always have a client waiting in the wings…and that client is you. The same skills your clients will pay so well for, can just as easily make money for YOU. The whole purpose of 4HWWW is to show you how, and get you started quickly…that’s why I made sure the first lesson gives you the information you need to make the course pay for itself in 1 hour per month, WHILE you learn a few skills that are going to make the rest of the course pay off in big dividends.

So, if you’re tired of waiting around for the phone to ring, spend a bit of that idle time here: http://4hww.copywritersurvivalguide.com

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What happens when the perfect life becomes a grind?

Posted on May 19, 2008
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I’ll admit it. I wasn’t all that content.

Oh, I was been successful. And I’ve done my best to help you guys be successful, as well. And then I read this book…

This book made my 27-hour-per-week “career” seem like an 80-hour week scrubbing bathrooms at grand central station. My life, which had seemed so pie-in-the-sky perfect was suddenly exposed as something that was just half a step above life in a cubicle farm.

That book? 4-Hour Work Week by Tim Ferriss.

Wow! 4-hour work week? And it all seemed so simple…so logical.

…and even better, it worked like a charm. Much better than I ever anticipated. So much so that all that stuff I mentioned about my first six-figure year? Well, let’s just say that concern is no longer an issue.

Now, I plan on continuing this site for those of you who are finding the info helpful. But now there’s a whole new game in town…a little something I’m calling The 4-Hour Work Week for Writers. [http://4hww.copywritersurvivalguide.com]

This one is a weekly e-course with step-by-step lessons that show you exactly how I did it. It takes the principles Ferriss lays out in his book and gives you potent tactics that writers can use to put those principles into practice.

In fact, the very first lesson gives you a no-fail method that makes the course pay for itself, month after month.

And as if that weren’t enough, it also includes free web hosting and design tools, powered by HostGator. That’s right, free—with enough storage and bandwidth to cover anything you’ll need as we go through the lessons (and probably anything else you’ll need).

The course is $24.95 a month, with four lessons per month (one each week), each showing you how to make more money while spending less time on it, with the ultimate goal of having a thriving successful business that requires almost no time on your part to run—and YES, you can do this as a writer.

To find out more, just visit the site http://4hww.copywritersurvivalguide.com

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FIRE: Become an Expert

Posted on May 13, 2008
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Everyone loves a specialist.
As a copywriter, if you specialize in a specific industry or market, then you can command a higher fee and stand apart form the competition. We just saw how to start getting work in a particular industry. Now, how do you build on that and really take command of your expert status?

First off, the one thing that separated most recognized experts isn’t that they are the best in their field. It is simply that they are the most recognized. They publish. They speak. They market themselves as experts in their field. As long as they actually know what they’re talking about, they can create long-lived careers simply being experts.

What Do You Know?
So, the first thing you have to have is knowledge. Thanks to the big-box bookstores, the Net, and college bookstores, that knowledge is easy to come by. The simple truth is, if you read two or three books on the industry, you’ll know more about it than 95% of the copywriters out there (and the general population, for that matter). Read each book, and write a two page summary.

Once you’ve done this, let the information cool for a bit, come up with an angle you can call your own, and then write a 5-10 page special report based on the information you’ve read so far, and offer it for free on your site to subscribers of your free monthly newsletter. Keep reading a new book on the industry each month, along with half an hour or so of research online, and use this information as the basis for your newsletter. At the same time, you’re talking regularly with your clients and learning as much as you can about the various aspects of the business that affect them on a day-to-day basis.

Act Like The Expert You Are!
Next, contact you local university annex or community center and offer to teach a free seminar on some aspect of the subject at hand. Once you’ve taught it two or three times, contact the local trade association, and offer to speak to the industry about effective marketing. Record these seminars and offer them as free videos to your newsletter subscribers.

Once the members of the industry see you speaking authoritatively, they will see you as an credible expert…because you will be one. At this point, you can start charging fees for speaking, and you’ll have enough first-hand knowledge to start writing your own books on the subject. Not to mention the fees you can command as a Specialist Copywriter in the industry.

All from a few extra hours work each month.

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SHELTER: Step Away From The Computer

Posted on May 10, 2008
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The computer is an amazing tool. It simplifies work, makes research and communication a breeze and even provides much needed diversion from time to time. But as amazing as it is, it can come at a bit of a price. While it can be a helpful tool to use in the day-to-day aspects of work, it can also hurt you productivity by monopolizing your focus AND by causing you to lose your focus at the same time.

Familiarity Breeds Contempt
Sitting at the computer hour after hour can rob you of the very thing that makes freelancing such a great thing: freedom to work when and where you want. If you’re always at the computer, then you could be at your kitchen table, in a corner office, or in a tiny gray-walled cubicle. What’s the difference when your entire world is encompassed by a 10″ by 12″ piece of class and plastic? Being busy it great, but make sure you’re actually BUSY, and not simply keeping busy.

No Distance= No Perspective
Creative work is best done in short, intense bursts. So, too, is analytical work. Since the majority of a writer’s time is spent concepting and writing (creative) or editing (analytical), your workday should be comprised of several short, intense periods of work, broken up by longer periods of, say, research and business management tasks.

Otherwise, you’ll get locked into one creative/analytical task and stay stuck in it for hours…and end up wasting half a day on something that could have been done more productively in thee separate 15-minute blocks. Write or edit until it starts feeling like you’re forcing it, then stop and take a break. Look at your to-do list and make sure you’re staying on-track.

Take a Break, Take a Breath, Go Low Tech for a Sec
You don’t even have to do all of your writing at the computer. Grab a pen and paper, and go sit out in the front yard and enjoy the day while you work. Or go sit in a museum, surrounded by creative masterpieces. Or out in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by nature.

You’re a freelancer, by god. Don’t forget to act like it! You’ll find yourself being more productive and enjoying the job a whole lot more, because of it.

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FOOD: Instant Muse

Posted on May 7, 2008
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Stuck? Quick, grab something. Anything!
Seriously, anything with words on it. Take a pen, and underline every noun, verb, adjective and adverb you see. Transpose this word list to your notebook or computer. (A few days ago, I’d reached a bit of an impasse where it seemed like I was just recycling the same ideas over and over. I found the packaging from a pair of slant-tip tweezers my wife bough a few days ago, and got this word list: Tweeze, slant, grip, easy, point, simple, quick, make, work.)

Take these words and see if you can work them into your copy. Even if you can’t, the process of trying, of bringing in new concepts will jump start your brain, and you’ll end up finding something that works.

The Principle of Inertia
Here’s why this works; it’s simple physics, really. The Principle of Inertia states that an object in motion will stay in motion and an object at rest will stay at rest, until acted upon by an outside force. In this case, the object is your current project…and it will stay within the status quo unless something upsets the equilibrium.

The outside force is the word list that you found (that someone else wrote). Most of these words will have nothing to do with your project—and that’s a good thing. The brain looks for patterns to see how things fit together. When you introduce these new words, you brain will expand its frame of reference trying to figure out how all of this sorts out. New neurons start firing, and suddenly…magic!

The Creative Catalyst
The new words act as a catalyst to get your mind over the equilibrium. They provide just enough of a nudge to get all the ideas bouncing around again, until something sticks. And then your project is off and running at full speed again.

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Shelter: Google Apps New Feature—Google Sites

Posted on May 4, 2008
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Google recently added a new feature to Google Apps, simply called “Sites,” that showed up on the dashboard with little fanfare. The stated purpose of Sites is to provide easy-to-use collaboration tools for people within your organization. It lets you set up customized, editable pages where you can set up messages, to-do lists, file storage, simple lists, and other such areas. You can even import data from Google Docs and Google Calendar.

Combined with Google Calendar, makes for a pretty good project management system. I have been using Basecamp from 43 signals to handle my project management, but after experimenting with Sites for about two weeks, I think I’m about to cancel that account. I like it that much. Sites lets me easily access all of the information about a project in one simple location.

Pros


Cons


Still, overall I’m very pleased with the application, and–as I said–I’ve been using it with great results about two weeks now. It’s definitely worth looking into.

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