Posted by: Bob Bly
July 1, 2008
Issue #449

The Worst Self-Marketing Strategy
Ever Devised …
and Why It Fails So Spectacularly

"Any fool can criticize, condemn, and complain and most fools do."
Benjamin Franklin

Many years ago, I taught a class at the Learning Annex in New York City on how to make a six-figure income as a freelancer. One student, JR, wanted to break into writing TV commercials for Madison Avenue, and he had devised what was (according to him) a brilliant self-marketing strategy for getting hired.

In actuality, it was the second-worst self-marketing idea I’d ever heard in my life.

JR told the class that he had written some "brilliant" TV commercials.

The Super Bowl was only a few weeks away at the time. JR’s strategy was to show up at the offices of Madison Avenue’s biggest ad agency and show the copy for his commercials to the creative director.

The creative director, he reasoned, was under tremendous pressure to produce great Super Bowl commercials for the agency’s clients. By bringing those great commercials with him, JR would save the day - and be hired at an enormous salary.

This was a terrible idea for all the obvious reasons:

• All the commercials for the Super Bowl had been written and shot months earlier.
• The creative director had never heard of JR. She didn’t know who JR was or whether he had any qualifications or talent. So the chances of her agreeing to see him were miniscule to none.
• JR had no idea which of the agency’s clients were going to be running Super Bowl spots. Even if he did know, he hadn’t been briefed on the product positioning or the campaign strategy … so how could he possibly write commercials that achieved the clients’ marketing objectives?

I gently told JR - and the rest of the class - that doing work on spec for a client who hasn’t asked you to do so is an absolute waste of time. However, stupid as it is, there is a self-marketing strategy that’s even worse: giving an unsolicited critique of something a potential client has done - a new product design, an ad campaign, a website - in the hopes of being hired to fix it.

Why is giving an unsolicited critique even worse than doing unsolicited work on spec? Well, think about it.

You send a letter to a business telling them their website stinks … or their customer service people are idiots … or their product is lousy. There’s a good chance that the recipient of your letter is the person responsible for approving that website, training the customer service staff, or designing the product.

So right away, you have begun the relationship by insulting them - saying, in effect, "You don’t know what you are doing."

They probably don’t agree that they’ve done a bad job … or else they wouldn’t have produced the site, training, or product in the first place. You come along and give a contrary opinion - highly critical and negative. They think, "Who the heck are YOU, bub? Why should I listen to what YOU say?"

As they see it, your opinion is self-serving: You are a vendor, so your objective in reaching out to them is to get them to hire you. Worse, here you are, spending your time reviewing websites, calling companies that aren’t your clients, and telling them how bad their sites are - without being paid to do so.

This causes them to think that if you were really any good at what you do, you’d be swamped with projects - and not cold calling strangers trying to rustle up work.

I’ve frequently been on the receiving end of this "You’re doing it all wrong and I can help you fix it" strategy - especially from Web designers. And speaking as a prospect, I can tell you it not only doesn’t work with me, it’s also annoying and offensive.

Just last week, I got yet another such call from a Web designer.

"I was looking at your site and it really is poorly designed," TN, the Web designer, told me. "I would love to help you improve its performance."

"Do you know my marketing objective for my website?" I asked TN.

"Uh, no," he admitted.

"Well, TN," I said. "If you don’t know what I want the site to do for my business … and you don’t know its current performance metrics … how can you possibly know that you can improve it?"

I let him stutter and stammer for a few seconds, before politely ending the call.

My friend RA, who once ran a mail-order business selling information products for gamblers, was also a victim of the "You’re doing it all wrong and I can help you fix it" gambit.

SH, a newbie freelance copywriter, wrote RA an unsolicited two-page critique of his latest direct-marketing package. SH closed his letter by suggesting to RA that his marketing results would be greatly improved by letting a "professional copywriter" (like SH) work his magic on it.

RA and I both had a good laugh over this … because RA is universally acknowledged (except by SH, who didn’t recognize his name) as one of today’s top direct-response copywriters.

Irritated, RA sent SH a testy letter pointing out this fact … and noting that the package SH thought was so terrible was, in fact, a blockbuster control. Which made SH look stupid and silly.

Conclusion: Doing a critique OR work on spec for a potential client who has not asked for it seems, on the surface, a sensible approach to marketing your professional or technical services. But it is not.

My advice:

• Never give unsolicited advice or criticism.
• Don’t offer solutions until you really know what the problem is - and the only way you can really understand the problem is for the potential client to tell you.
• If you want to show the potential client how smart you are, stop pontificating. Instead, ask intelligent questions and listen to the answers.

Robert W. Bly
Guest Contributor
THE TOTAL PACKAGE

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17 Comments »

1. Comment by Paul Simister — July 1, 2008 @ 11:38 am

   This is a great blog posting which makes some very important points.
   I suspect that it is a trap that people find very easy to fall into.

   You see something and immediately you know that it is not as good as it could be (by your values) and you see the opportunity.

   Sell your services - let the prospect feel some pain and understand how you can bring them all these benefits (by your values).

   Unfortunately as you point out it is a) insulting b) not subtle, their is no romance, just a "employee me" plea and c) often wrong because you don’t understand the purpose and objectives so you can’t measure whether it is a success or not.

2. Comment by Chad — July 1, 2008 @ 12:13 pm

   Awesome post! I’ve always felt it was one of the stupidest marketing strategies out there…now I have the list of reasons why. Thanks!

3. Comment by Juliet Easton — July 1, 2008 @ 12:51 pm

   Great post!  If you are soliciting business from a site that "appears" to be a mess,  it only makes sense to 1) make sure you are contacting the person in charge of marketing & not their webmaster or customer service personnel, 2) say something positive about the site or product, 3) find out how well the site is doing for them, 4) see if there is anything that you can do to improve their situation, 5) and you better have a website that showcases your skills and has testimonials.  Just my two cents - for what it is worth.

4. Comment by Dale — July 1, 2008 @ 2:25 pm

   Great advice, Bob. The last thing you want your prospect to do is yell "Shields up!" like Captain Kirk. That’s how I react when someone puts me on the defensive.

5. Comment by Larry Owen — July 1, 2008 @ 2:40 pm

   In no city stands the statue of a critic.

6. Comment by Copywriting Kid — July 1, 2008 @ 2:42 pm

   haha, I was actually thinking of doing that.
   Good think I read this first - you saved me some wasted hours. Thanks, Bob!

7. Comment by Lara — July 1, 2008 @ 4:24 pm

   Thanks Bob - terrific post. I’m about to call an acquiantance and chat with him about his web site so this was perfect for me.

8. Comment by Vincenzo — July 1, 2008 @ 4:28 pm

   Excellent advice, Mr Bly.

   Many moons ago, I worked for various ad agencies (in Montreal); each time any one of them, unsollicited, decided to «go after an account»  the agency came a cropper. What a waste of energy (human and financial).

   As a personal comment, I also disagree with the client sollocited yet non-remunerated «pitches»; or if remunaretd, it is a pittance compared to the energies involved in analyzing, developing, testing and putting together one’s best ideas.

   And in the end, the decision-making is left to mostly un-savvy «marketing» directors.

   I’m curious, Mr Bly, what event prompted you to write this recent post of yours?

9. Comment by Jacob Bear — July 1, 2008 @ 9:51 pm

   Great article, but I wonder if there’s a way to use a slight variation on this approach and get results.

   I know another copywriter whose entire marketing plan is based on a free report telling people about the flaws they have in their websites, and then she presumably gets hired to fix everything, or at least rewrite the copy.

   Last I heard (about 2 months ago), she had more work than she could handle. I guess the difference is that she hints that the prospect’s  website might suck, and then goes after the ones who acknowledge that she’s right.

   By the way, Bob, I believe you misused a comma in the third paragraph from the top. Your article could be more effective if you hired a professional writer to polish up some of the finer points. I’ve got five years of experience, and (Just Kidding!!!)

10. Comment by Philip — July 1, 2008 @ 10:51 pm

    This doesn’t make sense Bly.

    Clayton promoted some of the strategies you just damned in his How To Build A Six Figure Copywriting Business. Isnt it a little freaking strange that you guys promote a method in your paid products but damn it on the blog post???

    Clayton specifically went over a strategy that involved writing a package and sending it to a major newsletter publisher and get them to at least test the package out. Purely spec.

    Furthermore Clayton specifically said in his own words that he personally called up a mailer whos packages he had been watching for months - told them that he thought their copy stinked and could write a far better package, after which he was immediately hired.

    I find it a little strange that you were right on that call with Clayton, listening to him say those exact things and yet now in this article you are going in the exact opposite direction.

    This post makes absolutely no sense and makes me wonder what is going on.

11. Comment by Deanna Blanchard — July 2, 2008 @ 7:36 am

    Philip,

    Bob is saying that you shouldn’t approach a company that you know next to nothing about and offer to "fix" things for them. You’re in a much better position to be hired by them if you know their marketing plan, their performance metrics, etc. before writing something on spec or giving them advice. Otherwise, you tend to look like a fool.

    As for Clayton, I wasn’t working for him at the time he called up the mailer he had been watching for months, but I’d be willing to bet the farm that he did his research BEFORE contacting them. You said it yourself - he watched their packages for months. When he called them, he already had a good sense of their marketing plan. That’s the difference.

    I hope that helps.

    Deanna Blanchard
    Copywriter
    Response Ink

12. Comment by Heidi — July 2, 2008 @ 9:39 am

    Hi,
    thaks for this great advice.In a minor situation it is too late for me….and it seems I have upset someone allready.
    On the other side: my first customer was a coach who had lots of spelling mistakes in her copy. I sent her an e-mail and she asked me, what it cost her if I fixed it. I traded it for a refference. She now asked me to write a salespage and a newsletter. It might be the tone of voice you use- I told this lady thad I liked what she offers and that I cared for her bussines..
    So it might work. It still is important to keep in mind: nobody wants neg. critiqe- not even for free.
    greetings from Good Old Germany

13. Comment by Marcelino Latorre — July 2, 2008 @ 2:18 pm

    Dag what a mug shot Bob!! I thought mine looked crazy.. lol

14. Comment by Chris McMorrow — July 2, 2008 @ 7:59 pm

    Hey Phil,Whether Mr. Bly is 100% right, 100% wrong, or only 50% right (personally, I hope he’s only half-right), Bob’s a gentleman, and deserves a proper salutation - Bob or Mr. Bly. Plus, it seems to me that that there’s a lot of wisdom contained in this rant - a lot of food for thought. Yeah, giving an unsolicited critique may be a bad strategy… but… on the other hand… nothing ventured, nothing gained! I’m glad Bob wrote this, even though I don’t agree with him 100%. I think the lesson here is that you always need to be considerate of the feelings of others who’ve given something their best shot, even if it doesn’t measure up. A basic selling rule to keep in mind is that nobody wants to buy something from someone they don’t like. True, you may have to be critical of someone else’s work, but be considerate and constructive in the critique. Possibly look to highlight some of the ad elements that are good.  Bob’s is a valuable insight that always needs to be kept in mind. 

15. Comment by Wordpress SEO — July 4, 2008 @ 12:28 pm

    I think Philip has a good point: how can you promote one attitude in paid product and another in your weblog?Jacob had a good point - there are a lot of people running flourishing businesses on free critique come-ons. The difference though is that those free critiques are unsolicited: the client has to apply for them. At that point, many client are already prepared for change.And I quite liked Philip’s heated address of Bob Bly. It certainly was a nice wake-up call from the insinuating thank-you’s which litter sales weblogs.Thanks Philip! Oh and the original article sounds right to me.

16. Comment by Marcelino Latorre — July 4, 2008 @ 11:18 pm

    I AM A FIRM BELIEVER THAT A CLOSED MOUTH NEVER GETS FED: THERE ARE DIFFERENT LEVELS IN THE GAME. 

17. Comment by Paul Black — July 7, 2008 @ 7:01 pm

    Outside my copywriting life I’m a radio engineer.  I sometimes get asked by a friend who has just bought, or is buying a station to "look it over and tell me what you think". 

    I never say that the place is a pile of junk (which it usually is) or that it looks like it was wired up by a drunken monkey (which is usually does).  I come back with, "You’ve got a lot of potential here.  The market is ready for you to come in and make this the best station around.  I’d really like to help you get it ready for your plans and goals." 

    Works every time.  I’m always remembered as "that guy that helped me get started" instead of "that idiot who told me my station was a dump".

    Paul