Would you work for free or cheap for your first client?

Claude and ThePromotionGuy,

INDEED.
It's not unusual. Starting a new venture is easy. It's a thrill. The hunt. The chase.

It's the sticking with it part, where I find the skeletons of those who gave up searching for the next client..

Online, and especially here at WF, where the whole idea is about making money with Internet Marketing and the appeal of doing it...

well it floats many a boat. The so-called grind is often about self-discovery. And I think Claude may be able to testify to this: many in home or door to door salespeople give up early on because it is a grind and they discover they just can't handle the rejection.

Those who keep with it, and this is just my OPINION, seem to be in a self discovery mode...what can I do differently to make a sale, what am I doing wrong, what have I learned and can build on for next time.

In almost all fields where there is direct face to face selling, those who get good at it and make the highest dollars, aren't motivated by the grind, but by being thrilled with every sale, every close, every success which gets easier and easier to do.

And it is true across the board too, those doing difficult or challenging work will often get an EMOTIONAL reward from a job well done, and a monetary reward too.

NOW, here is the flip side. Sometimes the grind becomes just that, a difficult chore to do.

I have discovered my own way of not getting ground down. First, the reason WHY I am doing something. If making money is the ONLY answer I get, then my choice is a quick, short term, "set it and forget" type project which could be an income stream, albeit maybe a trickle with time...for decades. I have two 20+ year reports which are still being sold today. And I haven't talked to a customer in over a decade.

So, the WHY at the beginning, which seldom gets asked, will often lead to the HOW.

WHY did you (or in self discover, I) choose to become a copywriter?

And I'd bet today, the majority answer would be, I can write so why not get paid big bux to do it, just need to learn a few techniques then I'll be all set. Which is the exact promotional strategy used by those selling copywriting training.

A few will make good. The ones that make it a career, stick with it through the grinding times, because they have the desire to BEAT THEMSELVES, to prove to themselves that they can do it. They are internally motivated, and I think we can find many examples here of those chasing MONEY, or in this case Copywriting and have not identified a deeper connection to the craft. .

Well, the question I would ask is WHY? What do you want and why?

If NOT having clients is one answer, (like I discovered I didn't want anymore) then you ask the HOW.

All the techniques, methods, knowledge in the world can't overcome the grind, unless there is the internal desire to improve and one way that manifests in the world is by how much people are willing to pay you.

OK, rant over for now. Good day.

GordonJ