Aluminum Siding, Anyone?

Is There No Difference Between Us and Annoying Telemarketers?

By Peter Bowerman – www.wellfedwriter.com

I was in the middle of delivering one of my commercial writing seminars (I forget the city, not to sound like a rock star or anything…) and we’d just gotten to the section on cold calling. In the commercial writing field, when your market is corporations, ad agencies, graphic design firms, non-profits and many others, a solid way (though not the ONLY way) to land the business, in my humble opinion (AND based on many years of experience), is to pick up the phone and make the calls.

Needless to say, this strategy scares the bejeesus out of most creative types, who just want to, well, ”create,” and leave that “icky marketing selling thingy” to the car salesmen and telemarketers of the world.

Anyway, someone raised her hand and said, very earnestly, "I just hate the idea of cold calling because I don't appreciate getting telemarketing calls and I think most people are pretty much the same." Wow, I thought. If a bunch of people out there have equated prospecting to cheesy telemarketing, no wonder they’re dreading the process.

I gathered my thoughts, crossed my arms, looked at her and asked, “Is that who you think you are? Just an obnoxious telemarketer – no different from the people who cluelessly interrupt you during dinner peddling aluminum siding, long distance service, carpet cleaning, the fraternal order of police, debt consolidation, and a zillion other things you have no interest in?” (Incidentally, those police/fireman telemarketers are hired by those fine organizations and only about 10% of what they collect goes to the cause. Just so you know.)  

“Let me make this crystal clear,” I continued, “because grasping and truly internalizing this will mean nothing less than the difference between success and failure. Here goes: if you pursue this business, you will be a professional marketing a valuable and needed professional service to other professionals. Period. The people who you'll be calling may not have the need for your services or the time to talk to you but I swear to you, they will not be viewing you the same way they would an irritating telemarketer. So, don’t you.”

As writers, regardless of the genre, but especially in the commercial arena, we need to develop more pride in what we're doing. I think writers have been conditioned to not value what they do, but in the corporate world, it's a very different story. Just the fact that someone is willing to pay you $60-100+ an hour should tell you that they view you differently.

And as I'm very fond of reminding at every opportunity, these people are expecting your call. Maybe not at that precise moment that you phone, but on some fundamental level they expect to hear from copywriters. If you're new to this field, remember that you're stepping into a game that's already in progress – with its established arrangements, structures, processes, and players. And one key component of that arena is freelance copywriting. So, make your calls proudly. You’re an important part of the process and you have every right to be there. Got that?

Of course, that still doesn’t make the process completely easy or anxiety-free but maybe I can help a bit with that by dissecting the process. Why IS it harder in the beginning? There are all the basic reasons: Because you don’t have much success yet; because perhaps you’ve never done it before; because you’re nervous; etc. And I say, there’s another even more crucial reason why it’s harder when you’re starting out: on some fundamental level, you don’t really believe it will work. I can sit here all day long and tell you that it works or quote others who say the same thing, but until you do it yourself and are successful at it, you won’t believe it.

But the good news is this: it will only be really hard once. Why? Because once you’ve seen that it works, that you WILL drum up business by doing this, that you WILL add clips and samples to your portfolio, that your confidence and bank account WILL increase, the next time will be that much easier. You still may never love the process, but you won’t be hindered by your lack of faith that it works. More importantly, once you’re successful at it, it simply can’t loom as large, gnarly, and daunting as it did before.  Happy hunting.

Peter Bowerman is a successful commercial freelancer in Atlanta, Georgia and the author of both The Well-Fed Writer , an award-winning 2000 Book-of-the-Month Club selection and "how-to" guide to starting a lucrative freelance commercial writing business, and its companion volume (September 2004), The Well-Fed Writer: Back For Seconds . For more info and to subscribe to his free, critically acclaimed ezine, THE WELL-FED-E-PUB, visit www.wellfedwriter.com .