It’s a strength to be a copywriter and small business owner with a unique name. My last name is memorable but not necessarily pronounceable.
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(Note — please let me know if you have trouble with the PowerPoint Show. I’m going to send this in the next newsletter. Thanks)
Last night I was sitting in the co-ed steam room at my gym, and a man struck up a conversation. His voice had the inflection of one who does not covet people of the opposite sex, so I wasn’t concerned about the
potential pervert factor of talking to a nearly naked man I couldn’t
see in a room full of steam.
"What do you do?" he asked.
"I’m a freelance copywriter," I replied.
"Oh. I see," he said before laughing. "I really have no idea what that is."
I’m never sure whether to answer questions like his with "I’m a writer" or "I’m a freelance copywriter." Most people I talk to aren’t sure what copywriting is. Merriam-Webster says the word dates back to 1911 and means "a writer of advertising or publicity copy."
If I say I’m a writer, I think people will think I write books or articles for magazines. I’d love to keep my hand in journalism (I got my master’s in journalism), but it’s tough to pay the bills that way. So I keep the article writing as a side job and focus on the writing that pays.
Since I started my business this summer, I’ve written several web pages, lots of Search Engine Optimization articles, a handful of brochures, a few eNewsletters and an email nurture campaign. I’m about to offer to write a press release for free for people who subscribe to my own eNewsletter.
This is the back of my new business card. Since so many people had trouble understanding what I wrote, I made a list that I usually include on postcards and the like.
Yesterday I spent most of the day inputting names and emails of local ad and graphics agencies from the San Diego Creative Directory to let them know that I’m a freelance copywriter they can count on. I printed labels for postcards and dropped them in the mail.
My first attempt to help my direct marketing go further was to send them an email letting them know the postcard with a list of my services was coming their way. I mentioned the “Scary Lady” on the front of the postcard was good timing for Halloween, hoping that would help the postcard catch their eye.
Some wrote me back and said, “Not now but maybe later.” And I simply responded, “I’m here when you need me.”
I just tried another little trick that may cause the person to toss my email and postcard. A guy wrote back saying there’s a new point of contact, and here’s how I replied:
Mark,
pass along the postcard with a small note like, “This chick is worth checking
out?” Just a thought.
Beth
I figure that someone may get a kick out of my approach, and perhaps I may come to mind the next time an opportunity comes up. I think Seth Godin would be proud.
(PS — everybody think positive Seth Godin thoughts, and maybe he’ll come back. I lost both his comments [here and here] with the demise of my original site.)
After I got out of Peace Corps, I spent 10 days in the US before freaking out about the excesses of American consumerism (Did you ever realize that grocery stores have a WALL of salad dressing choices?!). So I got a job as a housekeeper at a luxury dude ranch in Colorado. One day the head chef was sick, and the sous chef was out of town. A VIP was coming to the ranch, and the manager asked me if I would handle dinner that night.
I had always loved cooking, and several times at the ranch I had ventured into the kitchen to make a fun dessert for the guests. So I was excited about making an actual meal as a "chef" for the VIP.
The main chef left a very precise and fairly complicated menu for me to follow. And I HATED it. I hated the timing, the precision needed, the lack of creativity, the necessity of doing it or else, the pressure. I HATED it.
I decided that evening that if one really loves to do something, one should avoid doing that thing for a living because one would grow to hate it. I had the same experience with teaching when I was an adjunct English teacher for several colleges in the Denver area. I love to teach, but I was running around like a madwoman trying to make enough money to live, and it was making me hate teaching.
I was wrong. I love, love, love writing. And I love, love, love writing for a living. I was pretty worried that I’d get into this and start resenting writing. After years of working in sales and before that working as a manager of education programs for an environmental nonprofit, my writing skills were pretty rusty. I wrote some fiction stories, and they were all less than 1000 words. I thought my writing skills were stunted forever.
But now I can dash off 500 words before breakfast here on this blog (I know — my posts are too long). I can write 1000 words about the fires in San Diego on a plane between here and Reno, sitting on the floor of the layover airport and mooching the internet connection from the United Red Carpet Club to get the story in on time.
For years I counseled my own writing students NOT to go into writing if they had talent. "Go into any other field, and your writing skills will make you a standout. If you go into writing, you’ll be in the midst of a billion other good writers, and you won’t be able to make the living you want to make." I still believe that’s true — that good writers in other professions further their careers as their skills show through. But if you have a talent for writing and a passion for writing and it makes you happy — you’ll be happy making a living as a writer.
