Booth Photo

My lovely business expo booth:

Business Expo Booth

The Fairfield, Ohio Chamber of Commerce’s business expo was held today. I had my own booth, #76. This booth happened to be right across from Universal Transportation Systems, a company that took the expo’s “carnival” theme seriously. These folks dressed up as circus ringleaders, the bearded lady, a lion, a tiger, a weight lifter, and jugglers. They had a popcorn machine, gave out cotton candy, animal crackers and peanuts, and won the “best costume” booth prize. It was fun watching them all afternoon, but a little annoying because I had to fight twice as hard to get visitors to turn around to see my own booth.

One of the guys at the UTS booth came over for a little chat. He said that the first year he’d participated, he “felt the same way” as he figured I felt, that his booth wasn’t dressed up enough to get much notice, that he sat there and watched people pass by.

Humph. I didn’t feel that way at all, really. I liked my booth a great deal – it had a nice banner with my logo, ten colorful inflatable monkeys (my theme…), and I had plenty of flyers and business card magnets. And I wasn’t sitting there watching people pass by, I was standing in front of the table passing out my flyer. It was a very respectable booth. Not nearly on par with the prizewinners, but fine for a sole proprietorship.

I don’t think the man meant to insult me. If anything, he probably felt sorry for me and saw himself as a sort of mentor. But I got to thinking about the whole competition vs. size thing. I couldn’t do what they did. I barely managed what I had, in terms of budget and staffing. There’s a limit to what one person can do at a trade show. But does that mean my exhibit wasn’t as effective?

I watched a lot of people pass by the UTS booth, smile, and take the snacks. But did the booth convey UTS’s message? How about the other over-the-top displays? Will potential customers remember the company behind the display?

I’d like to think my monkeys got a little bit of attention. My flyer also had a monkey, and my event tagline “don’t monkey around with your copywriting.” I played upon the infinite monkeys theory – you know, monkeys typing. It fit. I was comfortable with it. And as far as I can tell, it worked. It’s early yet to gauge results, but I’m optimistic.

Sometimes simple is better, even if simple doesn’t win prizes. I’d rather win clients.

Addendum:

Someone at my booth pointed out that the monkey thing had been part of a stand-up routine by comedian Bob Newhart. A lab tech monitoring the monkeys’ production noticed one promising piece: “To be or not to be, that is the gezortnplatt.”

I love Newhart. I giggled for about a half hour while I continued passing out flyers, so happy to see that someone “got it.”

The Puppy

Our family has a new bundle of joy – a 7-month-old black lab mix we named Rocky. He’s been here for just under a week, and the similarities to adding a new baby to the family are unmistakable.

We’re happy to have him; he’s added a new dimension to our lives, and we’re learning along with him, eager to see the world from a puppy’s point of view. We can envision many years together, and are considering all of the fun things we’re going to do.

On the other hand, he’s certainly cost us a lot of money for a “free” puppy. Food, bedding, bowls, treats and toys were purchased before we even brought him home. He needed a vet exam, shots, de-worming, and flea treatment and will need to visit the vet again in two days, and eight more times in the next four months. We bought him a cage, which is HUGE and takes up a great deal of space in my home office. He likes it, though, and it’s necessary to successful dog ownership.

Friends of ours recently reported adopting a Coonhound puppy that tore their couch apart while they were at work. The cage/crate is for everyone’s protection. I’m home most of the time, though I do leave for social appointments, business meetings, errands, and family outings. Rocky has a safe spot to take naps and to sleep overnight while nobody’s watching him. And while we’re away, he can’t get in trouble or do anything that might hurt him. When we come home, he’ll get plenty of exercise and affection. What more could any pup want?

I’m learning as I go. I admit, up till recently I didn’t like dogs. The dog we had when I was a kid was a mean ol’ gal. She was a miniature poodle, but was never trained properly and had a lot of bad habits. She bit my toes and stole my toys, and only really liked my grandma. I am determined not to have another “Tinkerbell.”

My goal for Rocky is to teach him every common command – heel, sit, stay, down. I also want to teach him fun commands, like fetch and shake. There’s a “Good Canine Citizen” test – I want him to pass. Labs are supposed to be very smart and easy to train, so I want to take full advantage of that trait. I’ve already taught him “sit.”

Of course, Rocky is not a purebred lab. He may be part Boxer, or part “Village Dog” – who knows? All I know right now is this – he’s good natured, mostly housebroken at 7 weeks of age, and pretty smart. It’s looking good so far.

Specializing

Barry Morris commented on my last entry, making me a liar for saying nobody commented. Thanks, Barry! I like comments.

Barry said that freelancers often find more success by specializing in a niche rather than being generalists. I believe he's right, too! When you specialize in a field or a particular product, say newsletters or annual reports, the learning curve is much shorter and it's easier to prove your worth.

Those who know me know that I love metaphors. So here's another one: specializing is like playing poker (or rummy, I guess). You can either have three of a kind, or a series in a suit. You can specialize in brochures, for example, or write many things for one industry, such as finance.

Either way, when a new client asks for your portfolio items, the chances you can pull out something similar to what he needs increase exponentially when you specialize. If you don't, that vocational school marketing guy may have to use some imagination to see that you can do for him what you did for a bed & breakfast.

But at some point during your card game, you might want to change strategy, so it's not a good idea to get attached to your royal flush in-the-making. Your industry may take a nose dive, or a new technology could make your service outdated. And if you're foolish enough to "specialize" in one company, well, any number of awful things could happen.

Mostly, I don't specialize because it's BORING. I like to do brochures one day, newsletter articles and ad copy the next. I like having assignments in lots of different industries because it's fun to keep learning. And really, all of these things have a lot of common ground. So here's what I really specialize in:

1. Really listening to clients
2. Doing comprehensive research
3. Focusing on the end goal, not the process.
4. Having a great time doing it, which means I get to maintain enthusiasm!

What's YOUR specialty?

The Funnel

I haven’t blogged in a while. I apologize for that. Though nobody has left comments, I know people do read this. When I write an entry, I want to make sure it’s relevant – and inspired.

Tonight I was working on some sales materials for an upcoming business expo. I bought a booth, and it’s going to be an adventure just preparing for the thing. I need new brochures! Pens! Taglines! Gimmicks!

While brainstorming, I thought about the last few meetings I’ve had with prospects and clients. One of them, a graphic designer, asked me to name my specialty. On the spot, I had to decide what it was I did best – brochures? Articles? Advertising copy? I knew that whatever I named would be how he remembered me. He’d think of me as “the newsletter writer” or “the brochure writer” and I didn’t want to be pigeonholed.

Sometimes specializing is a good thing, mind you. But there is such a thing as being too specific. I don’t do graphic design, photography, telemarketing, grant writing, or any number of tasks marginally related to copywriting. I can subcontract them and manage them, but I don’t do them myself. When it comes to copywriting jobs, though, why can’t I “specialize” in more than one field? Clients need more than one thing written, usually, and it gets boring just doing press releases or sales letters all the time.

So what I told her was that I specialize in “distillery.”

When we were in high school and college, we were told to write a 2,000-word essay on the topic of choice. In order to minimize our research and maximize our grade, we learned to be verbose. We were proud of it, in fact. We threw in $100 words to impress the professors, plus lots of extra modifiers and adverbs. As we progressed through our degrees, we learned the “educated” writing style, which approaches excruciating detail.

I did it too.

But the real world works differently. People don’t read unless they’re hooked into doing it.

In the marketing world, you’re not “graded” on how many words you write, but how few. If your message is 20 words long, can you say it in 10? Condense that to 5 words, and you’ve got a chance of being noticed. A message that’s more complex, such as a news article, has to conform to available space. Before you get too comfortable with brevity, though, consider that the small size doesn’t mean it’s short on information. A good article, brochure, tagline, or any other real-world marketing piece is like a can of sardines or a good cigar – packed with substance.

Most of the time, the substance isn’t a problem – it’s the packing. One marketing employee can come up with pages of stuff, and five give you more. Smart people have a lot to say. I’m the funnel that you pour it into – and the condensed message comes out.

The message isn’t just condensed, but customized, optimized, and targeted. It’s about crushing a pound of carbon into a tiny diamond.

Tagline: Words That Work As Hard As You Do.

Ignorance is Bliss

I’ve heard it said a million times, in various situations: “technology is wonderful…when it works.” Usually this phrase is in response to some kind of glitch, such as a cash register not doing what it’s expected to do or a slow computer system on a customer service line.

Blaming the machine is a popular pastime, but nine times out of ten it’s operator error.

I’m not exactly an early adopter, nor am I up to date on the cutting edge of technology. I’m one of those “if it works, it’s good enough” people. But if there’s a new gadget, application, or utility that does something truly helpful, I’m right on it. Generally speaking, I don’t need elaborate tutorials. I learn as I go. And in my world on the Internet, by definition, most people are familiar with the tools I use most: e-mail, web pages, file transfers.

In the real world, it’s not the same. But it’s getting better. Just a year ago, you couldn’t count on the average business contact to use e-mail regularly. He might have an e-mail account, usually with some freebie provider, but would only check it once a month or so. Today, it’s not surprising to find that same businessperson toting a Blackberry and checking e-mail hourly.

He might not completely understand how to use it, but he has one. Which presents an interesting dilemma for those of us who conduct a good 75 percent of our daily lives via the Internet. These people see the value in these technologies, want to use them, and don’t want to look stupid while they do it. But on the other hand, trying to do a simple thing like get them to open a file attachment for an invoice can make you bang your head on the desk and reach for the old fax machine.

Sometimes it’s easier just to pick up the phone. Or put a stamp on an envelope.

The proficient users – and I categorize myself as one of these, only marginally – spend a good part of their time trying to make these transactions foolproof. Instead of sending a file attachment, we might put the file on the Web and just send a link for the client to click. Or paste relevant info into the e-mail body.

I have a suspicion, however, that “I can’t figure out this newfangled stuff” is really just an excuse. When someone says that he never got your e-mail, you worry that you typed his address in wrong. Asking for an item to be sent in the “snail mail” adds another two days or so to the schedule. It’s always convenient to blame it on the machine.

I recently overheard a conversation between a mom and a young teenager in the electronics department of a store. The kid wanted an iPod; mom said no. The kid asked why, and mom explained that to use it, they’d need to get on the Internet and download stuff, and that was just asking for trouble. “I don’t believe in the Internet,” she said, as though it was a ghost or fairy that may or may not actually exist.

The kid rolled her eyes, but mom’s ignorance saved her a good $200. Bliss, indeed.

Negotiating Rates

Figuring out rates for a service like mine isn’t easy. It’s hard to play fair, no matter how much I want to. One project may take me 40 minutes to write because it’s a simple topic, I’m feeling rested and inspired, and the words just flow. Another project of the same length may take me five tortured hours and involve much moaning and many short walks to stretch. Should I bill accordingly? Nope.

Billing per word is another ineffective method, because length doesn’t always equal effort. Ask me to write a 1,500-word article and, given the proper information, I might knock it out in two hours. Hire me for a 50-word mini press release, and it may very well also take me two hours, one of which is spent whittling it down from 150 while attempting to save the piece’s integrity.

At one point I considered charging set fees for individual “products”, and to some extent that is the strategy I currently use. Say, you want a one-page press release? I know that on average that’ll take me two hours, unless I have to attend multiple meetings and do research. For newsletters I state “newsletter article 250-500 words” and give a price in my estimates for that, and a different price for “filler, 100-150 words.” But that’s problematic as well, because every project is different.

That is why I can’t put together a rate sheet, unless it offers a range, which is nearly as useless as no rate sheet at all.

There’s also the issue of meetings and revisions to consider. Do I charge for them?

Initially, I offer one face-to-face consultation meeting (if local) and two revisions. If clients want to chat via phone or e-mail as the project progresses, I don’t charge for that contact. But if they want me to get in my car and drive somewhere, after the first meeting, I have to tack on a charge. Why? Gas. Childcare. Inconvenience. Time I could spend working on another client’s project. Fair? I think so. I’ve been generous, though, and have only been charging for the time I’m actually in the meeting. And as for the revisions, well, I figure that two rounds is plenty to decide if I’m entirely off track or if there are just a few words that need tweaking.
Don’t get me wrong – I’m in it for the money. But it’s skill, not greed, which ultimately makes it happen. My estimates are 100% guilt free, and so they shall remain.