In looking over a number of recent blog posts, I see that I appeared to be a curmudgeon (of sorts) in a tiny percentage of them.(Curmudgeon defined: ‘a bad-tempered or surly person’.)
That’s regrettable…but I won’t delete them. Like the late greats, Andy Rooney and Mark Twain, what’s in them needs telling, maybe even in a perfunctory, terse way, since many people don’t pay as careful attention to more diplomatic discourses.
Just so you know, telling it like it is, in a curmudgeonly way, isn’t my usual modus operandi; I resort to it only after repeated offenses occur: times when I sense prospective clients are picking my brain, expecting a whole lot of valuable information and tips without any intention of reciprocating by actually becoming a client (I call these miscreants ‘grab-and-go gleaners’), or when I see disinformation bandied about and suckers falling for every last word of it, or when a potential client (a doctor no less) wants something “yesterday” for less than half the price it should cost because he’s a good soul with mounting debt and a deadline he didn’t honor until just the day before it happened…and then goes to extreme lengths in multiple messages trying to cause me to feel guilty for not acquiescing to his needs immediately…for dimes on the dollar!
To be clear: I give free advice a lot. I’m far from stingy in this regard, as anyone knows who reads this blog or my copywriting-for-beginners and do-it-yourselfers blog at wordwhisperer.net.
But I also need to make a living, so these days I don’t “give away the farm” simply to prove I’m the full meal deal as a copywriter. (That’s what my website copy, portfolio, and client testimonials do.)
I’m all for the motto “givers gain”–but it must also be noted that far too many “takers take” (especially men when dealing with women providers–hence the reason women get 78 cents for every dollar a man makes doing the same–and frequently far better–work) without feeling obliged to offer more than a “thank you”–and sometimes not even that. It’s enough to chap my hide.
Mark Twain is famous for a lot of one liners, but one of my favorites (the older I grow) is the line, “People call me a pessimist in my old age, but I’m not. I am an optimist who did not arrive.”
I’m an optimist/idealist 98% of the time and a realist the other 2%. The realist in me recognizes that a certain percentage of people have zero interest in hiring me; what they’re looking for is free advice, tips and techniques. I believe I should already have satisfied these people adequately, having invested months setting down into two blogs a lot of what I know about marketing, copy writing, sales psychology, and other tidbits. If they want to talk to me on the phone after that, before we’ve reached a mutual agreement that involves working together, I’m going to charge consultancy fees for any copy writing, marketing or psychology wisdom they want me to provide. That’s fair! I’m in business, not show-and-tell. (There goes my curmudgeon again… hee hee hee)
The realist in me recognizes that my services are worth a whole lot more than I charge for them these days. So I’m wildly satisfied that the value I offer is far greater than the prices I charge.
The optimist/idealist in me simply assumes that legitimate clients (as opposed to ‘grab-and-go-gleaners’) will find me easily enough, since I take up so much real estate on Google and other search engines as the result of organic (not contrived or black hat) SEO, and that they will look over my credentials, read the testimonials, review my portfolio, and decide I’m the perfect person to do whatever they need to have done. If all of what they find appeals to them–and what they offer, who they are, and why they offer it appeal to me–it’s a match and away we go!
My schedule stays full enough but I never completely fill it. I can always serve another client or two. I keep enough room open so that when a new client finds me and we click–or an old client sends me a new project–I can jump in with both feet and knock it out of the ball park for them.
So if any of my posts come across as bad-tempered or surly, please know that that’s just a wee piece of me. I wrote them on days when my usually-diplomatic nature was briefly but boldly overruled by the Rooney and Twain in me.
Mostly–I’m sure my clients would agree with this–I’m fun, funny, easy to work with, and very, very good at what I do.
