How to Grow A Business Organically...

[Cam Connor]

Growing a business organically is one of the most important things a Copywriter can do to ultimately achieve success in this business...

What do I mean by organically? No, I'm not talking about Search Engine organic traffic, I'm talking about having a limitless fountain of clients that come from repeat business and referrals.

Organic clients are a gold-mine, because, as I'll show you in this thread, they can keep your business flourishing, in good times and bad... and keep you in the money while everyone else is struggling to gain clients, like carrying around 100 pound weight on their back... they have to constantly keep trying to find new business, pay a fortune for marketing, make cold calls, visit networking events, and do everything they can to keep their meal ticket. They never know when their business will run out, so it leaves them with a constant feeling of uncertainty. A situation I've experienced in the past, and would advise you to avoid...

Here are 3 Ways You Can Do It:

1) Don't take "No" for answer when asking for referrals...

This is simply put, one of the most essential things to growing your business organically... Don't say "Hey do you have any you can refer to me?" Lame. What you have to do is talk to them about their connections, who they know and WHERE. If your a copywriter, you can rest assured that they have someone they can refer to you somewhere... That's the nature of the copywriting business... there are those who can write it, and those who can't. The ones who can't need a copywriter in order to sell any product or service anywhere, unless they're cold-calling or going door 2 door. So find out where they're hiding. These people they know in town, or across the world who are selling things, because they're there, you can bet they know people who need your services.


2) Always, always, always ask for more work from EVERY client.

Joe needs you to do a sales page? Give him a sales page... Does he have an auto-responder series? Did you ask him? Does Mr. Schmoe know the importance of an auto-responder series? Did you educate him on it? How is he going to be marketing his services? Oh, he's using PPC? How can you help him there? Oh, you can make banner ads for him? Great... You can make text ads to? Awesome. Can you also make him an opt-in offer? Do that for him to, and watch your bank account skyrocket. Why make 4 figures from every client, when you can make 5, by providing another digits worth of value to him?

Case in point... Always be asking yourself, "What else can I do for this client??" You'll almost always find that your clients need more than they think they do, in order to have the level of success you know they want.

3) Screen Your Prospects Ruthlessly.

How do you avoid NOT getting any referrals and repeat business? Well, as long as your providing insane results for your clients, you should be able to get referrals and repeat biz at the drop of a hat... Unless you make this one mistake. Don't take clients who won't succeed with your copy. Period.

Make sure your client will make his cash register ring ALL day with your copy... How do you do this? Become the Spanish Inquisition. Ask Joe if he is going to be sending organic or paid traffic to this page... if he says "only organic" ask him how well he knows SEO. If he says Paid, ask him what medium he's going to be using... PPV? PPC? Banner Ad Media Buys? Find out, because you want to make sure he's going to send the RIGHT traffic to your page and the right amount... If he doesn't know how to market his product or service, guess what? The best copy in the world isn't going to save his ass, and he's probably going to blame the copy first... that means you. NOT Good, if you're looking to get repeat business and referrals from this guy, so make sure, make damn sure that he knows what he's doing when it comes to marketing a product or service, and that he's on the ball... IF he has no clue how to market, and thinks that good copy will save him, that means he's a dead end... Don't take his money, unless he also plans to outsource his marketing to a responsible third party...

Think about it... The lifetime value of a customer constantly multiplies when that person is sending you his/her biz every six months, and on top of that, is sending you referrals, who are sending you referrals, who are also sending you referrals... it's a never-ending cycle.

It's like, if your hungry, and someone offers you a bag of seeds, you can either that bag of seeds to quell your hunger for an hour, or you can plant those seeds. When you plant those seeds, they'll grow into plants, the plants will produce fruit, the fruit will produce more seeds, which you can then plant to get more fruit, and so on and so forth... So screen your clients ruthlessly, and only take the ones who will bring you repeat and referral business.

[arfasaira]

You've raised some excellent points here, especially with point 3 - this makes a lot of sense since your best copy will totally fail if you can't get the right eyeballs looking at it.

When I first started out, I wrote a sales letter for a client with a tiny list size and he wasn't too sure about the way he was going to market. When I completed the copy, my coach thought the letter had the potential to pull some serious cash for the client...so when the copy didn't convert, I was worried.

It was my first client and being new to the whole thing, I hadn't a clue what I had done wrong. My coach reminded me that it was the client's job to market the copy adequately and that my job was to write it and advise how to market. That's it. If the client didn't follow through with my suggestions, then ultimately it was his fault.

Nowadays I like to check these things first so I don't get blamed (luckily the client was very good and didn't point fingers at me). I certainly wouldn't want to be in that situation again with a client who loves to throw blame around.

[The Copy Nazi]

Cam, for a copywriter, your grammar/spelling sucks. "Goldmine" is one word - not "gold-mine". "You're" should be used when you mean "you are" - not "your". "You can make text ads to" should be "...too".

You've also left out words here and there - no biggie - but the use of "your" for "you're" three times is not good - when you're a writer who should know better.

cheers,
TheGrammarNazi

p.s. best part about this post is Don't take clients who won't succeed with your copy.

As you say - it's the writer who cops it in the neck if the campaign flops.But the opposite can also be true - the writer is lauded after a successful campaign with lame copy but brilliant marketing. [insert "mooning" smiley here]

[Hugh Thyer]

I'm about to send out a monthly offline newsletter to all my clients, and people I work with who I see as influential, such as marketers who have a lot of people who need my services.

How old fashioned of me!

But how often do people get entertaining, informed information in their letterbox? Think it will be seen as valuable? Think it will build the relationship? Think it will keep me on top of their mind when they (or their colleagues) want copy done?

You bet it will.