Subscriber JA writes, “I am finding clients who say they want a
copywriter, and then ask for additional services such as design
and web development, including programming. How do you sell them
on just the writing aspect that they need first and foremost?”

I do three simple things that solve the problem easily and
neatly.

First, I send them a link to my FAQ page where it states the
following:

“Q: What if I need graphics, not just the copy? Do you work with
an artist?”

“A: I work with the best direct-mail artists and web designers in
the world, but it’s not a package deal. After you hire me, I’ll
give you some recommendations on the right artist for your job
and you can come to terms with him or her on your own. I can also
work with your artist or web developer, if you prefer. Either way
is fine with me.”

I stole this language from Richard Armstrong. We are in essence
saying, “We can get you the other parts of the project you need,
but we don’t act as an ad agency or manage the project for you.”

Second, I make it easy for the client to find vendors who can
provide whatever they need that I don’t do — by posting a vendor
directory page on my site:

http://www.bly.com/newsite/Pages/vendors.php

When a client asks “What will a mailing list or design for my web
site cost?” I don’t go out and get a quote from the vendor. I
point the client to the vendor’s page link above — and tell them
they have to contact the vendor directly to get the pricing.

Third, after all this, there will still be a few clients who will
only hire you to write their copy if you also act as a full-service
agency and deliver the entire package.

In such situations, you can say one of two things: Yes. Or no.

If you are in such demand as a copywriter that you have many more
potential clients than you can handle, then sticking by your
guns, saying you write copy only, and refusing to provide full
agency services is easy.

That’s the option I have chosen: fill my lead pipeline to
overflowing so I only have to take the jobs I want. And projects
where the client wants me to “do the whole thing” are jobs I do
not want. So I turn them down.

On the other hand, if you are hungry and need the work, turning
away good assignments from clients who demand a turnkey service
is more difficult, and you may choose to give them what they
want. It’s up to you.

According to Duke University’s School of Business’s recent CMO
survey, 44.1% of marketers said they are unable to show the
impact of social media.

Another 35.6% say there is a quantitative impact but cannot
measure hard numbers for sales ROI and other key metrics.

Bottom line: about 8 out 10 marketers surveyed either haven’t
realized or can’t prove the ROI they expected from social media,
dampening their desire to invest more time and money in the channel.

Whenever I share this, I always get responses from people who
tell me they can measure social ROI and are crushing it on
social.

But 99 times out of 100, it turns out that they are talking about
boosted posts and paid advertising on Facebook.

One can argue — and I am that one — that FB ads are not really
“social media” or “social marketing.”

They are online advertising, same as pay-per-click ads on Google
or Bing, banner ads on web sites, and ads in e-zines.

When I question whether social media works or produces a decent
ROTI (return on time invested), I am not questioning the efficacy
of FB paid ads — because I already know they can work like
gangbusters.

What I’m questioning is whether endless blabbing and chatter on
Facebook, Snapchat, and other social networks generates a good
ROI.

Well, the Duke survey says 8 out of 10 CMOs cannot confirm a
positive ROI from their social media.

Now, whenever I say this, someone will blast me, pointing out
that Grant Cardone is “crushing it” on Snapchat and Gary
Vaynerchuk is doing likewise on multiple social networks — as if
this invalidates the Duke survey findings.

Well, it doesn’t. Because there are exceptions to everything, and
in social media ROI, Grant and Gary are two of a small minority
who are in fact making money with social.

But for the majority of marketers, social media remains an
unproven medium that often sucks time and funds that would be
better spent on other activities — such as e-mail marketing and
direct mail.

Yes, it doesn’t cost a lot of money, but I contend social
marketing has a poor ROTI — return on time invested. And since
time is so precious, blabbing on Snapchat or tweeting half a
dozen times a day without generating hard dollar revenues online
is to me a waste.

1–Short words are better than long words.

2–Old words are better than new words.

3–Simple ideas are better than complex ideas.

4–Ideas are a dime a dozen — everyone has them, all the time.

5–Ideas without action are worthless.

6–Action creates business success, yet 99% of people never act on their ideas.

7–If you create a base of 10,000 loyal fans who each spend a hundred dollars a year with you, you will gross a million dollars a year.

8–You do not need a lot of money to launch a successful business today: the low cost of doing business on the Internet reduces your risk to easily manageable levels.

9–If you do not have a lot of money to launch your business, then you must invest a lot of your time to make it happen. You cannot start and build a successful business with neither time nor money –you need one or the other.

10–Your customers may like you. But ultimately, they care about themselves, as they should — not about you and your business.

Are rich people who spend a lot of money with you often prima
donnas who are demanding and impossible to please?

From what I’ve seen, this is sometimes true in the world of
consumer marketing, whether at a luxury resort, 5-star gourmet
restaurant, or exclusive London men’s shop selling bespoke suits.

But in business, I have found quite the opposite to be true —
the more money a client spends with you, the more respectful,
polite, and easy to work with they will be … because the more
they value you.

The converse is also true: the client who talks you down in
price and gets you cheap turns out to be the most difficult,
demanding, hard to deal with, and impossible to please.

My theory as to why this should be so is as follows….

If the client with deep pockets is an entrepreneur, part of his
success is that he takes pains to treat people fairly and with
respect, so they in turn will like him and give him their best
work.

And if your client is with a big corporation with deep pockets,
then he is usually a full-time professional marketer, and he
knows how to deal with vendors in our field — and has the budget
to afford them without undue hardship.

On the other hand, some entrepreneurs with shallow pockets often
haggle over your price, not because they are jerks, but because
they are on shoestring budgets.

They also question what you do at every step. Not because they
want to be picky or difficult.

But because they desperately need their marketing campaign to
work, inexperienced clients may find it difficult to let go of their
own judgment in favor of an expert’s, like yours.

Therefore, the well-heeled clients with big budgets who pay
generous fees are so often the easiest and most cooperative to
work with … while the tiny accounts who have to watch every penny
can sometimes be difficult, demanding, and contentious.

Are there exceptions to all this? Of course. I write copy for a
number of small businesses whose owners I am incredibly fond of.

But overall, the generalizations I just made turn out to be true
more often than they are wrong.

Do you find they hold true in your business as well as mine?

RT, a potential copywriting client, recently asked me:

“Bob, if I hire you, do you farm out the work to a junior
copywriter, or do you write the copy yourself?”

I directed RT to my home page at www.bly.com and told him to
scroll to the bottom. There, it states:

“Unlike many top direct response copywriters today, Bob Bly does
not hire junior copywriters to work on your promotions. If you
hire Bob, he writes every word himself — an advantage available
from no other source.”

I didn’t used to have this on my home page years ago, because
back then the idea that the copywriter you hired would fob off
the job to someone else was unheard of.

But things have changed in recent years.

And now, among senior copywriters, it’s commonplace.

But I have never done it. And I never will.

I figure if a client pays my fees, which are not astronomical but
also not cheap, he should get me.

If you are a client and you are going to use a “cheap” newbie
copywriter, why not hire him directly?

I told RT what I tell all my clients and prospects:

“When you hire me, I write every word. And I never subcontract
your copy or any portion of it to other writers.”

I’m not saying it’s wrong to subcontract work out to other
vendors. It’s done all the time in many field.

I’m not even saying it’s inherently wrong in copywriting.

But I do know the clients who hire me very much care that the
copy is written by me, and not some junior copywriter.

And that’s what they get. Every project. Every time. Me. And no
one else.

I have always been a workaholic, putting in on average 12 hours a
day, 5 days a week, plus a few more on the weekend if the mood
strikes me.

As I rapidly approach my 60th birthday, some people ask how I am
able to keep up this level of productivity and hard work at my
advancing age.

There are 3 simple secrets that keep my reasonably respectable —
though not stellar — productivity intact:

FIRST, for it to be tenable, I have to love what I do — and I
always have.

If you hate your job, as so many 9 to 5 wage slaves do, then you
want to get out of the office or plant as soon as the five
o’clock whistle sounds, go home, pop open a cold one, and watch
the boob tube.

On the other hand, if your work is so fun that it feels like a
hobby rather than a job, as I do, you never want to leave your
desk!

SECOND, because of my waning energy, I can still go full steam
for 11 to 12 hours a day — BUT ….

… as soon as I am done for the day, I collapse into my favorite
easy chair in the living room where I read a ton of stuff —
business books, science books, history books, novels, the New
York Review of Books, and the Star Ledger.

Or, if I am so pooped I can’t concentrate on reading a book or
the paper, I mindlessly channel surf until I find a cheesy SF or
horror movie like Final Destination or Wrong Turn or one of their
endless sequels.

(I think they’re already up to Wrong Turn 8 — the Musical.)

THIRD, I do not go out on weeknights, as my father did at least
two nights a week — bowling, poker, B’nai B’rith — but stay in
and go to bed early every night.

I strongly believe Michael Masterson, Brian Tracy, and others who
say that many (not all) people who are dedicated to their work
need at least 8 hours of sleep a night.

I have quoted Noel Coward many times in these essays, who said,
“Work is more fun than fun.”

I could not agree more.

Leisure time was most precious to me years ago, when my kids were
younger and wanted to do things with us. But now they are in
their 20s and have their own lives. Sigh.

My advice to all parents: spend time with your kids when they are
still young and still want you. They will age out of that in a
blink of an eye.

On October 29, 2016 we purchased Samsung TV from the Best Buy in Riverdale, NJ, to be used for both cable TV and X-Box.

The salesman, Sam Giro, discouraged us from hiring the Geek Squad as we intended, saying it would be a snap for us to set up the TV and connect it to both cable and the game system ourselves.

I expressed concern because I am a technical idiot and said, “What if I can’t do it?”

Sam said, “Just call the store and we will send someone to take care of it for only $50.”

Well, we couldn’t do it. As Sam had suggested, we called back to set up Geek Squad service.

But instead of scheduling a service call over the phone as promised, Sam now he told me we had to drive back the 40 minutes to schedule the appointment in person.

When we got there, Manager Richard Parra said it would cost $100, not $50, for the service call, because there were 2 connections – cable and X-Box.

I said, “Richard, Sam told me Geek Squad would do the whole thing for $50 and we could just schedule it with a call to the store. Instead, he forced us to come back, wasting, between driving and dealing with you, over an hour of our time – and then you refused to honor your quote of $50 and charged us double.”

Richard shrugged, made no apology, and in essence told us, “Too bad for you; this is our policy.”

Are Best Buy store managers so little empowered that they cannot make things right with an unhappy customer who has been deceived by a dishonest salesman?

Do yourself a favor and avoid Best Buy.

I got a personal e-mail from www.rushessay.com, a service that writes essays for students, asking me to help them remove some blacklist comments posted by others on my site. I have always found term paper and essay ghostwriting services for students reprehensible. Students are there to learn, and you do not learn by having someone else write your papers and essays for you. I will do nothing to help this company and hope they go out of business soon. Do you agree with me on this one?