Ed Gandia explains why copywriters and business writers struggle to sell their services: they don't believe in their own value first. You have to sell yourself before you can sell anything else.
Welcome to the High Income Business Writing Podcast, helping you propel your writing business to a whole new level. And now, here's your host, Ed Gandia.
Hey there. Welcome to the High Income Business Writing Podcast. I am your host Ed Gandia and this is the podcast for business writers and copywriters who want to earn more and less time doing work they love More Better Client this episode is a little different and much shorter than usual rather than my typical 45 minute format. Today I'm sharing a quick tip with you and this is part of the regular audio insights that I publish for my private coaching clients. I just thought you'd find it helpful, so here we go. I hope you enjoy it. Over the past few weeks, I've heard several writers say that they don't feel right reaching out to prospects and clients about helping them with their writing projects. Their fear is that doing this will make them come across as greedy, insensitive, or out of touch with the current reality. I'm not going to address the how of how to do this today. I've covered that a few times already. Instead, I'd like to address the mindset element of this fear. When I hear someone say this, my first reaction is, honestly, admiration. I admire them for being honest about how they feel. I know that admitting something like this can feel weird and intimidating, especially in a group of peers. So the fact that they're asking me or some of their colleagues about the issue tells me that they're courageous enough to ask and risk being preached to or ridiculed in terms of what to do when you feel this fear or this concern, I'll say this. It's very important that you have an honest conversation with yourself about your value, the value you add to your clients. Because the first person you have to sell is yourself. If you can't sell yourself about how you make your clients lives and their businesses better, you won't be able to sell them on the idea of doing some work for them or additional work for them, depending on who it is. I've spent the majority of my life in sales. I sold fire hydrants, sewer pipe, professional IT services, software, you name it. I've sold quite a few things. Before I went to professional sales out of college I sold computers in a retail store, electronics, and before that I sold water filters, air filters. As a kid I had newspaper routes, a candy store out of my garage. I also sold snow cones and popcorn to neighborhood kids. I sold greeting cards door to door, and of course the mandatory candy bars and other similar items for my school's fundraising campaign. So yeah, it's like I've never been able to get out of sales. And here's what I've learned through this process. You have to believe in what you're selling. I haven't believed in everything I've sold for a living. And you know what? The difference in my performance has been night and day. When I wasn't completely sold internally, it showed. It showed clearly in my results. And when I was a thousand percent sold and convinced, I mean, to the point where it was like it'd be crazy for someone not to buy this, it also showed in my results in a much more positive way. As a writer and marketer, you offer more value to your clients than you give yourself credit. I know you do. You just don't realize it all the time. Because you're so close to your own stuff. You have blind spots, and it often comes so easy to you that it's very common. It's very normal to discount your work as ah, that's nothing. How do you break out of this belief cycle? Well, here's one simple way. Take some time today or tomorrow, to do a quick inventory of all the clients you've worked with over the years. Think about what you did for them and how you helped. Think back to all the accolades you received, all the praise, the testimonials, the client affirmations about your value manifested in hiring you back for more. And then for some more after that, maybe for a retainer agreement. By the way, I save all my notes and emails of praise in a file called Love Notes, and I sometimes come back to these for this very same reason. And while you're at this, take a couple of minutes to think about how far you've come in your business. When you're climbing a mountain, it's so easy to stay focused on the summit that you lose sight of how much you've already climbed. So take a moment to look down and see how high up you've climbed. Enjoy that moment. Let it sink in. Rejoice in the fact that at one point you never thought you'd be where you are today. Sell yourself first. Only then can you confidently approach prospects and clients and stand a chance of earning more of their business.
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