Posted by: Clayton Makepeace
August 1, 2005

How I Get Rich;
How I Make My Clients Richer

8 Ways Business Owners,
Marketing Execs and Copywriters
Can Produce Bigger Winners More Often

Dear Business Builder,

A lot has been said recently about the fact that I make five to ten times more money than most copywriters and even copywriting coaches.

The American Writers and Artists Institute is blasting out thousands of letters bearing a headline announcing that I make more than $1 million a year. The great direct response guru Bob Bly tells his readers that I earn more than any copywriter alive.

Frankly, I wince when people say stuff like that. For one thing, who knows if it’s true? Unless every copywriter in America submitted his or her tax returns for comparison, there’s no way to be sure.

What worries me most is that when some people hear this, they figure I must be the most expensive copywriter out there. Baloney. The truth is, my fees are only a measly eight to ten percent of what I earn for my clients.

That said, it is true that I do pretty well in the royalty department. My best year so far was 2003 – nearly $3 million. Next best? Nearly $2 million in 2002. My best month? July of 2003: $650,000 in royalties. In all, I’ve only had two years under $1 million in the last ten, and in both of those years, I only missed it by an eyelash.

So what’s the deal here? Do I make up to 1,000% more because I write ten times more direct response ads and mail packages? Is it because I’m ten times smarter or ten times the writer everyone else is?

Absolutely, unequivocally NO on all counts!

But I do have a secret – a secret that will multiply any good copywriter’s income and send his client’s profits through the roof.

So if you’re a copywriter looking to make millions …

Or if you’re a business owner or marketing exec looking to help your copywriters earn you tens of millions, even hundreds of millions more than they do now …

… Snag a cup of Starbucks and have a seat. This will take a little while, but when we’re done, you’ll have the keys to the kingdom.

I’m about to pull another one
of my famous disappearing acts.

Don’t get me wrong – I’m not welching on my promise to help you get bigger winners more often in The Total Package. And if you’re a client who has already reserved some of my time between now and Christmas, rest assured: You’ll get your copy.

But that’s probably going to be all the freelance copywriting I do for a long while.

Taking myself off of the freelance market is not unusual for me. I know: I’ve seen me do it four times before …

• The first time was in 1982, when I spent a year focused exclusively on Security Rare Coin in Minneapolis (120,000 new customers; sales jumped from $360,000 to $16 million a month in one year).
• In 1983, I disappeared again, then showed up in New Orleans, working exclusively with Blanchard & Company (quadrupled sales to $120 million a year; helped the owner sell the company for $45 million).
• In 1992, I took myself off the market to focus exclusively on Phillips Publishing (2 million new subscribers for Health & Healing plus many more for other letters).
• And in 1999, I did it again to give my undivided attention to Weiss Research (more than quadrupled subscriber files, made Safe Money Report the largest $99 investment letter in the world, helped quadruple profits on the house file).

Each time I vanished, former clients began to wonder, “Why isn’t Clayton calling for a new assignment?”

Then, they noticed something funny on the data cards they use to select mailing lists: A small competitor’s customer file was suddenly growing like crazy – doubling …
tripling … quadrupling, or even more.

The marketing people got curious. They called a meeting to examine the up-and-comer’s direct mail and try to figure out why it’s working so well. And they put out feelers to see who’s writing the copy, hoping to get on the hot new writer’s schedule.

Each time the answer has been the same: “It’s nobody new – just Clayton.”

Now, I’m about to go underground yet again. Here’s why …

My best years ever began yesterday.

Early this year, a dear friend and former accomplice of mine called to say “Hi.” My buddy and I worked together on a variety of projects since the early 1980s – and he now owns a successful company that handles the nuts-and-bolts end of things for small-ish direct marketers: Promotion and media planning, printing, mailing, response analysis, IT, that kind of stuff.

Actually, my old pal was calling to say more than just “Hi.” He wanted to know if I’d consider accepting a freelance assignment from one of his clients: A small direct response company I’d never heard of. (Sorry – confidentiality agreements prohibit me from disclosing proprietary information about clients I’m currently working with – including in this case, the client’s name).

I declined, saying I was giving up the freelance writing racket. I was looking for one good client in whom I could fully invest myself.

Ideally, I was looking for a client who would benefit from “The Total Package:” Not just copy, but everything I have to offer – consulting on corporate structure and marketing procedures … product development … new customer acquisition campaign strategies … customer lifetime value optimization … and of course, copywriting, graphic design, response analysis and roll-out strategy.

In short, a client who would give me the freedom to take him to the moon, thus making us both millions.

My friend got excited: “This could be the guy!” he said. “This guy is a dream client. He’s smart, honest, hard-working, has a kick-butt product line. He’s already growing his company by leaps and bounds, gives copywriters their heads, and pays promptly. What more could you possibly want?”

I dunno – Angelina Jolie in a compromising position?

I accepted one assignment on a trial basis – a “first date” – to see if there was chemistry between us, with both parties agreeing that the goal was a long-term, in-depth relationship.

Long story short:

The client was a dream to work with.
The work went quickly.
My copy beat his control by three to one.
We drew up a long-term contract and got hitched.

Before the ink dried on our new contract, I asked the client and my friend to meet me in Atlanta for an intensive weekend of review, brainstorming and strategy – three days to rethink the client’s company, products and promotions – and get us all ready for the explosive growth we were about to create.

The cast of characters

There would be five of us, I figured: The client, my friend, The Redhead, Carline and myself.

Introductions are in order:

The Redhead (A.K.A. “Wendy”) isn’t called that just because she has red hair (which she does). We call her that because she is a redhead in every sense of the word: Fiery, spontaneous, fast-talking, fast-walking, pert and impertinent, impish and impudent, and smart as hell. Killer smile. Cute can.

The Redhead is a former Director of Marketing for Phillips Publishing – the giant publishing company on the Potomac. She started in customer service at the ripe old age of 18 and worked her way up over a decade – learning and improving every facet of that direct response business.

She counted the money in the mail room … cheerfully handled cranky subscribers in customer service … designed budgets and response reports for the marketing departments she served … fought printers for every nickel and sweated over hot press checks at 2:00 AM … created reams of successful mail plans … built and managed a crackerjack marketing staff … hired copywriters and critiqued their copy … and built Health & Healing into the single most successful health newsletter in the history of health newsletters.

Then one day, some unprincipled bastard stole her away from Phillips, married her, and made her the mother of my kids.

So The Redhead was going to be there. So was Carline.

Carline Anglade-Cole is, well, a force of Nature. She’s got more energy than Three Mile Island: Lights up every room she walks into. Makes you laugh until your sides ache. Makes Robin Williams seem like an insufferable bore. I adore her.

When The Redhead was Marketing Director at Phillips, Carline was her wingman – doing list plans, ordering lists, taking care of all the details. A few years ago, Carline called to ask if I’d make her a copywriter. “OK,” I said. We wrote a bunch of direct mail promotions together, then she took off on her own.

She did good. Carline has more controls under her belt than you have fingers on your hands. Her royalties are huge, and she’s living the dream: A custom swimming pool for the family … a new Corvette for her hubby … a lavish new home for her mom … college educations for all four kids … and most recently, Carline’s royalties allowed her family to move into a brand-spanking new Tara-style mansion in Atlanta.

So that was my part of the team.

On my client’s side, I expected him to bring himself – a brilliant, creative, detail-oriented, and determined young man who has done pretty much everything right. He doubled sales revenues every year for the first several years. Last year, revenues grew by 50%, and this year, they’re on track for 30% growth.

And of course, I expected my client to bring my old friend – a marketing organizer, implementer, expediter and analyzer extraordinaire.

But to my surprise, my client brought a much bigger team: His brilliant, vivacious beauty queen of a wife, his four amazing kids, his winsome sister-in-law and her son, and his business-savvy dad and mom!

When’s the last time a “copywriter” did all
this for you?

Then we had the three most intense days I have ever had. We put every aspect of my client’s company under the microscope.

At the end of each day, I was completely spent. My head hurt, my body ached, and I collapsed unconscious into the bed.

I loved every minute of it.

Just a few of the high points …

• We gave our new client powerful tools to maximize the lifetime value of each of his customers …
• We showed him how to attract tens of thousands of additional new customers each year …
• We showed him how to consistently create blockbuster products with fewer misfires …
• We showed him how to multiply the number of sales he’ll make to new customers in their first 60 days with him …
• We ramped up the selling power of his existing promotion packages with great new headlines and test ideas …
• We helped him get more from his list brokers and copywriters …
• We handed him a complete web strategy that will bring him tens of thousands of new customers … ramp up sales among existing customers … and even lower the average age of his customers – all for less than $10,000 in start-up fees.
• We gave him a dozen hot new product ideas …
• And we gave him a 90-day plan for quadrupling his new-to-file customers.

My fee for all of this: $0

It was the best money I never earned.

My guess is that the tools, strategies, new products and the new promotions we’ll be doing will more than double the size of my client’s active customer file in the next 12 months.

I’m also predicting that beginning in September, each new customer will spend an absolute minimum of five times more money with him in their first 60 days on his file.

And I’ll bet dollars to donuts that the combination of these hot new products, more efficient marketing strategies and more powerful sales copy will have him at $200 million in two years – a 1,000% increase – and at $300 million in three.

Of course, the royalties my team will earn on all of this will be well into the millions of dollars each and every year – and still be about half the “tip” you give to a good waiter: Only about 10% of his vastly increased net sales.

Any way you look at it, that’s a LOT better than freelancing – BOTH for my client and for me!

Don’t get me wrong: Freelancing has been very good to me. If you’re a freelancer, you accept assignments to create direct response ads and mail packages for many different clients and for many different products. It’s a great way to get started in this business.

But frankly, a lot about it really sucks.

First, there’s the whole “selling yourself” thing. You have to bang the phone and pound the pavement to get assignments. You have to spend valuable time scheduling your writing time – and then juggling your schedule to accommodate your clients.

Not fun. Worse than that, not productive. Nobody pays you to do this stuff. They pay you to write. Period.

Then, there’s the learning curve on each new job. You have to spend days, even weeks of each new project learning about the market … learning about the client … wrapping your mind around the product.

Even if you write for the same client three, four or more times a year, you still have to shift gears each time you return to him. And more often than not, you’ll have to learn about a product you’ve never promoted before each time.

This, too, is dead time for copywriters. When we’re not producing copy, we’re not earning money. When we’re not earning money, we’re spending it.

Next, there’s the chemistry thing. Some clients you’re going to love, and they’re going to love you back. But sometimes, the chemistry is just all wrong. The client doesn’t “get” you, or vice-versa. Or maybe you find yourself working with a newbie who is intent on systematically destroying your copy. Big bummer.

Finally, there’s the competition. It’s one thing to take aim at a control and beat the living daylights out of it. That’s good fun. But more often than not, the client throws your package up against two or three new packages by other, equally gifted writers.

No matter how well you do your job, there’s a significant probability the theme or premium or offer you’ve been assigned won’t resonate as well as those given to your competitors. If so, you’re going to get creamed. No royalties for you!

All that goes away when you choose to focus on a single client. There’s no selling. No dead spots. No scheduling nightmares. No problems with chemistry; you had it or you wouldn’t have the relationship. And you never have to worry about the competition. You’re free to put 110% of your energy into every project with no distractions whatsoever.

Is it any wonder that copywriters who pursue these kinds of relationships wind up with bigger winners, more often, and greater income?

If you’re a copywriter, here’s my advice …

1. Expand your skills. OK, so you’re a creative pro. Maybe it’s time to immerse yourself in the science of direct response. Take courses. Read books. Attend seminars. Do whatever it takes to get a solid grasp of the nuts-and-bolts side of the business.

Why? Because as you better understand the challenges your clients face, you’ll be able to create packages that better fill their needs.

Few copywriters give much thought to anything but the copy. You’ll be miles ahead if you also consider …

• What are your clients looking for? Maximum response at break-even (produces the most new customers)? Or maximum return on investment (produces the greatest profit per piece mailed)?
• How does your client track response and read results? Is there a way to help your clients get back out into the mail faster, therefore doing more mailings per year? Roll out with bigger numbers sooner, sending annual mail quantities and your royalties into the stratosphere?
• Which kinds of test panels should you recommend to give you a better chance of winning? What headline, guarantee, offer, response device and other test ideas hasn’t the client thought of?
• How does the cost of the format you’ve chosen for your package affect your odds of winning? Should you stick with something cheap – say a two-color report-style piece? Or will a big, tabloid-sized piece give you enough of a lift to more than offset the added cost?
• Go to school on web-based marketing. Get a grasp on how to launch and promote an e-zine and a website. Study the differences between writing for the web and writing for print. Then, offer your services for web-based promotions as well as direct mail and print.

  Having a mastery of the “other side” of the business can not only give you bigger winners more often; but it also makes you a more valuable contributor to your clients’ success.

2. Be more selective. Seek assignments from clients who have the resources to help you to big winners. Avoid clients who drag their feet, demand scores of unnecessary drafts or insist on treating you as “just a copywriter.”

Covet clients who are eager to have you participate in a wider range of marketing activities, and who welcome ideas for sharpening their company and product positioning and their offers.

3. Seek long-term relationships. When you’ve found a client you work well with and with whom you are able to produce strong controls, start a conversation about how you might improve your relationship with them. Consider innovative compensation strategies that work better for both of you, up to and including a multi-year exclusive with that client.

Knowing the client’s company, market and products inside-out will save you time on each job, enable you to produce more jobs per year, and get bigger winners, more often!

If you hire writers, here's how to get their best …

I’ve spent a lot of time on both sides of this equation. And if you’re a business owner or marketing exec who hires writers, I feel your pain.

Copywriters can be a pain in the ass: Quirky, preening, self-willed, creative weirdos who require careful handling to protect their fragile egos.

They’re almost never available when you need them and hound you for assignments when you don’t. They constantly stray from the themes they’ve been assigned … demand that you produce piles of costly new premiums … write way too long or way too short … fail to substantiate crucial facts they’ve presented in the copy … buck like hell against your compliance guidelines … and pout like 3-year-olds when you critique their “brilliant” first drafts.

And of course, to a copywriter, your deadline is important only because it indicates how many weeks late your job is going to be. After all – you’re just one of their clients. If you get mad, they’ll just move on.

On the other hand, you have copywriters you love. And deepening your relationship with the best of the best can only pay huge dividends for you.

So if you’re a business owner or marketing exec, why not …

1. Get closer to your best writers: Look for opportunities to meet face to face and bond with writers who give you winners. Fly them in. Fly out to see them. Invite them on the company picnic. Send them the company newsletter. Have the prez send a balloon bouquet with every new control. A strong personal relationship transcends everything – including money – in keeping your writers motivated.

2. Think outside the box: It’s hard, I know; the freelance copywriter model has been around so long, doing things differently feels risky. And unless you’re the owner, you may have to fight some internal battles to break the mold.

But why not identify the one, two or even three writers who consistently produce winners for you and lock them up? Consider incentivizing them with retainer deals or a small override on back-end sales made to the new customers they produce for you. Sweeten the pot, and you’ll get the best more often than your competitors will.

And why not ask your superstar writers to mentor and/or copy chief a junior writer on a few projects? You’ll get more packages per year and maybe even a great new writer!

3. Encourage your copywriters to give you more: Challenge your writers to get more involved in the marketing process. Offer rewards to writers who find ways to improve your offer, premiums or guarantee.

4. Engage writers to write back-to-back packages for the same product: The one time a writer is most immersed in your product is when he’s just finished writing a promotion for it. A second package right away requires no learning curve whatsoever – and he’s got tons of ideas he couldn’t use in the package he just finished.

Try it: It works like a charm!

5. If a great writer makes an offer to focus exclusively on your company’s products, jump on it!

Unorthodox? Yes. But aren’t all breakthrough ideas?

Remember: I’ve tried it four times. So far, I’m batting a thousand. Each time, the client’s sales exploded. Each time, I made a mint. Any way you look at it, that’s a big win-win for everybody.

Why wouldn’t it work for you?

Yours for Bigger Winners, More Often,

Clayton Makepeace
Publisher & Editor
THE TOTAL PACKAGE

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4 Comments »

1. Comment by Brian Bailey — June 6, 2008 @ 10:15 pm

   Hi, very interesting thus far. Have you got any ‘magic’ advice you can supply me so I can grow an incredibly viable marketing business, currently only off-line (will become on-line too when I can afford to). I own an entirely unique marketing product (a new way for businesses to advertise) where we can produce results over 80% (norm is 0.02% response) with a results guarantee. It operates as a ‘promotions network’ with a closed-loop referral system, so generates client loyalty and a buyer data-base too. So efficient and effective a new client costs around 70cents only.

   My trouble? I’m a manufacturing systems developer(lean, continuous improvement etc) so have no idea how to get it to market. Nor can afford to throw any cash at it now, having wasted my small capital trying to launch.  So, where do I find somebody like you that will join me, get us to market, grow us brilliantly and take a solid contracted permanent percentage? I would love to know where the genius I need is hiding. everything is ready to go in Australia, NZ and actually anywhere else. It is a patent-pending business system too.

2. Comment by Nancy Hyden Woodward — June 6, 2008 @ 10:26 pm

   Clayton,Can hardly wait for a year to pass just to hear what you did for your new client during that time. It’s pointless to wish you good luck. Redundant to remark "Fabulous". Ridiculous to ask, "Nervous about Number 5?"So, I just smile and say, I’ll keep learning from you.Thank you.

3. Comment by Markus Trauernicht — June 9, 2008 @ 1:36 pm

   Gets my own thinking-cogwheels turning faster ….
   Best wishes!

   Markus Trauernicht

4. Comment by Ron Redner — October 17, 2008 @ 7:52 am

   Clayton, you’re a very down to earth person.
   I appreciate your style.

   Sincerely,

   Ron Redner