- Kenny Rogers, The Gambler

Do you hate to haggle? Do you find it insulting when someone asks you to lower your rates? How do you feel when someone says they can’t quite afford you and would you consider taking the job anyways?

I know people who light up on fire at the first sign of haggling. They feel personally offended. Does this client not know who they are? How dare he ask for a discount! Clearly, he’s just some cheap, unethical bargain-scraper looking to get the most for the least! The nerve!

That’s the wrong attitude to have. A client who haggles isn’t being disrespectful. He’s trying his luck and hoping to save a bit of money. There’s nothing wrong with that. The worst you can say is no, after all. And at best? He saves a bit of money, you get a gig, and you both get to work with each other.

Or, maybe the client doesn’t want to save a buck – maybe he just really, really wants to work with you and is just trying to find a way to hire you without blowing his budget. Nothing wrong with that either. How does he know you might not be willing to work out a deal? He has to ask…

Then there are people who feel that working out a deal is just a game, and they pony up to the betting table. There are lots of people who love to haggle – they grin like kids during negotiations, and there’s no harm, no foul if they lose. And because these people enjoy haggling, they often assume you do too. What’s the harm in having a little fun?

For others, it isn’t a game – it’s standard operating procedure. Maybe they were taught that this is how business is done. Or maybe they were raised with the philosophy that if you never ask, you never get. They might feel that negotiating lower rates is just a natural part of hammering out an agreement.

Or maybe they feel they have to ask for a lower rate. Some people have funny ideas about making sure they don’t show anyone they’re a pushover. They might be afraid that if they don’t ask for a discount, they’re showing you that you can walk all over them. They’re not trying to insult you; they’re trying to protect themselves in an attempt to command respect.

Who knows? More importantly, who cares?

Haggling isn’t bad. Asking for cut rate isn’t evil. It doesn’t mean the client is out to get you. (And truthfully, it says more about you than it does him if that’s what you think!) It’s not a “cheap customer” red flag or a sure sign of an impending problem client.

It just is what it is: a person asking whether you’ll lower your rate. That’s all.

In fact, the ball’s in your court. Play the game if you want to. Make a counter-offer and negotiate. Ask for something in return. Offer extended terms of payment. Modify your proposal so that it fits in with the client’s budget.

Or just say no. Politely decline and gently tell the client those are your rates, and you can’t lower them. Sorry. You might be surprised to find that you get the job anyways when the client shrugs and says, “Okay. Let’s do it anyways. Can’t blame a guy for trying.”

No, you sure can’t. So why get offended?

Your turn: Have you ever been offended by a client and realized after that no one meant any harm? Do you lower your rates or try to negotiate with clients who want a discount? And what’s happened when you have brought your price down?

What To Do When Clients Haggle Another rockin' post from the Men With Pens! Copyright 2006 - 2010 30 Sous Zero Inc - All Rights Reserved

There are two different types of entrepreneurs. Some become wildly successful because they’ve learned from and adapted to their mistakes, while others suffer in mediocrity because they’ve simply ignored and repeated their mistakes over and over again.

Let’s look at an example of each:

The Potential Client

A potential client called me over a year ago because he wasn’t getting the results he needed from his website. In a nutshell, his business collected and sold leads for a particular industry. Only, he wasn’t selling. The traffic he received didn’t convert, so he didn’t generate any leads that he could sell.

We talked over several options, including redesigning his website to improve conversions, an SEO campaign to drive targeted traffic to his site, and developing methods that would enable him to continue marketing to his visitors long after they’d left. Unfortunately, he didn’t have the budget for any of the strategies.

In a last-ditch effort to help, I offered a consulting session, which would give him the information he needed to improve his conversions. You would think that for a modest fee, he’d be more than happy to learn how to make improvements so he could start generating revenue.

Instead, he wanted to wait until his website began making money before he invested any into it.

In other words, this potential client had invested time, money and energy into a website that produced absolutely no results, and rather than fixing the problem, he wanted to wait until the site magically began producing the results he wanted.

That’s sort of like waiting until a broken-down car starts working before spending any money on repairs.

This potential client waited for that magic to happen for over a year. Can you imagine your business not making any money for a year and not doing anything about it?

The Real Client

Another potential client came to me with the same problem: a website that wasn’t producing the results the company needed.

We talked over several options, including an extensive redesign, an SEO campaign, and a variety of print marketing solutions. Just like the first potential client, this one didn’t have the budget for the proposed strategies…

But he understood that nothing would change until the company changed how it was responding to the situation.

So rather than waiting for something magical to happen, the company scraped together what it could afford, then went out and raised the rest of the necessary investment. They didn’t jump right into every solution I proposed, but they did move forward aggressively enough that the website began producing results, which increased the budget.

Over the next year, the company’s traffic, leads and revenue increased dramatically and even created an opportunity to work with a well-known Fortune 500 company, bringing revenue to a completely new level.

The first potential client wanted results, but he wasn’t willing to do anything to create them. He wanted to benefit before he made any commitments or took any risks.

The second potential client wanted results too, but his company was willing to find ways to help create them. They pulled together the funds they could, negotiated with investors, started small and built on the success.

Realistically, most companies probably won’t land a multimillion dollar contract with a Fortune 500 company, but that’s not the point. The point is that tremendous success is certainly attainable by anyone… but only if you take massive action and risks.

And most people won’t take risks, because that means moving well outside of their comfort zone.

Easy Ways You Can Start Taking Small Risks

You don’t have to rush out and invest thousands of dollars in a new website or an aggressive marketing campaign, but you do have to make continuous forward progress. You need to constantly improve your business so it achieves results.

Here are a few small, easy changes you can make to bring yourself the leverage you need to create positive results. The best part? They’re affordable:

• When you want better results from your existing website or are planning on launching a new site, a website checklist helps make sure you have everything you need so your website generates more revenue.
• Most businesses have a blog, but few use them effectively to market their company. That’s where Beyond Bricks and Mortar comes in, providing tons of practical advice on using your blog to promote your business.
• Most of the challenges you face in business are mental ones, and Peter Shallard’s Demystify Your Fear is exactly what the doctor ordered to overcome those limitations and achieve the success you want.
• You’re probably wasting a lot of time on unproductive tasks, which limits the available time you haveto spend making real money doing the things you love. That’s why I highly recommend the 4-Hour Workweek by Timothy Ferriss (and I know James enjoyed 168 Hours).

Now it’s time to really get to work.

• Start writing every day. It doesn’t have to always be a blog post; you could write a white paper, work on developing an info product or even start writing a book. The idea is to put your thoughts down on paper (or screen) so you can improve your communication skills, help inform and educate your prospects and even help you launch info products that you sell.
• Advertise small, test each one, refine the message, increase volume and repeat.
• Connect with other peers in your industry. You may be great at what you do, but you can always learn from others. Plus, the more connections you have, the more quickly you can accomplish your goals. And you can probably teach these peers something in return. Remember, it’s not always about you.
• Use social media properly. Connect with people. Discuss, share and contribute. Don’t be the guy that posts, “Check out my website www.xyz.com,” thirty-five consecutive times on Facebook or who always tweets links on Twitter.
• Measure performance. Taking action can lead to great things, but if you don’t measure results as you go along, you’re probably leaving a lot of money on the table.
• Do some digging and find your competitors’ weak points. That was one of the ways we helped the client I mentioned earlier. We saw some amazing opportunities that the competition was ignoring – leveraging that ignorance produced nearly $100,000 in additional monthly revenue for the company. If multimillion dollar companies miss opportunities like that, you can be damn sure your competitors have missed some already – find out which ones!
• Invest some time in guest blogging each month. If you can spare a little more time, try for each week. No matter how influential your own site might be, there’s always an opportunity to reach new prospects. Plus, it helps build your brand recognition while you hone your writing skills.

Take Action, Learn, Adjust, Repeat

As a veteran Marine, I know that even the best of plans change drastically once the first round is fired. Business is much the same, though there is a lot less danger involved!

You may have the best plan in the world, but it won’t produce any results until you’re willing to put your fear aside, take a risk and act. You also need to be prepared to adjust on the fly, because business is complex and dynamic. Learn from your successes and failures, and use that new knowledge to develop better plans in the future.

Finally, keep moving forward towards the future, because yesterday’s accomplishment is just that.

Jeremy L. Knauff is a serial entrepreneur, an author and has been called many other things that we won’t repeat here. You can learn more about him by following Wildfire Marketing Group on Twitter.

Which Type of Entrepreneur Are You? Another rockin' post from the Men With Pens! Copyright 2006 - 2010 30 Sous Zero Inc - All Rights Reserved

Sly fox that he is, Glenn warned me the post was controversial, knowing full well I’d rise to the challenge of debate. He was chuckling over my impending comments, and I hadn’t even made any yet!

Of course, comment I did. I had 500 words banged out in three minutes. Then I came to my senses and decided to write a post about it all. It’s much more fun that way.

Now, to be fair, comparing bloggers to copywriters is a little like comparing masterful wizards to sword-in-the-stone apprentices. They don’t perform the same job, have completely different goals and career motivations and have very different skills sets.

They do have one common trait: they write. They have a second common trait: they use copywriting techniques to get results. They have a third common trait, which is listening to Brian Clark’s wisdom on the subject, always a smart choice.

There are possibly other common traits, such as alcohol consumption, but for the sake of this post, none of that applies. (One should never drink before 5pm, after all, and my clock says it’s noon.)

But I digress. The matter at hand is Glenn’s conclusive statement that bloggers do it better.

Have I ever mentioned that one of my favorite classes in university was Critical Thinking? For a year I studied the art of argument, and it was a great deal of fun. You take an argument and then pick it apart to determine its validity of premises (supporting statements) and conclusion (the ultimate “therefore” claim at the end). It goes something like this:

Bloggers know what they’re writing about: That’s quite the sweeping statement, there. Some bloggers don’t have a clue what they’re writing about. Some rewrite other people’s posts. Some scrape. Some run to Wikipedia. Just because they call themselves a blogger doesn’t mean they’re an expert. Some are, though, so let’s give Glenn a half-point start from the gate. (I like to be generous.)

Bloggers have a more immediate and real incentive: Another sweeping statement? More immediate? More real Tsk, Glenn, really. How do you know this? Do you have proof? I didn’t think so. Moving on…

Bloggers know their audience: Ah, Glenn, it’s been a while since you’ve been in the real world, yes? Some bloggers know their audience, but truthfully, some have just launched their site, have no clue who they’re talking to or have been paid to ghostwrite and have never even come close to knowing their audience. I wish I could give you points for this one, but you missed the net by a mile.

Bloggers aren’t writing for clients: Only if you define client as “person with cash in hand”. I consider my readers clients – I provide them with material they like to read, and they provide me with their loyalty and friendship, or maybe a comment. There’s an unspoken agreement in place with blogging, which does indeed create a client-provider relationship. Oh, and by the way, this premise does nothing to support the conclusion, which is that bloggers do it better than copywriters. Out it goes!

Bloggers get immediate and real feedback: True, but copywriters also get immediate and real feedback, though just in a different form from bloggers – cash form. Copywriters can pen a page of good copy, publish it, tweet the link and watch sales occur before their very eyes. Sorry, Glenn, but this premise ends up in the black hole of doom.

Bloggers aren’t writing for themselves: Well, if they’re not writing for themselves, who they’re writing for? No one’s put a gun to their head, and they have to have some sort of direct motivation to begin blogging in the first place. Were bloggers not writing for themselves, thousands of blogs would shut down – you can’t carry out an activity you don’t enjoy for very long, and bloggers always counsel each other to write for themselves first.

Bloggers aren’t writing for their teachers: No, they’re not. True. And last time I checked, neither are copywriters. Do I smell the beginnings of a red herring? (And is there anything Glenn said that actually upheld his conclusion? I’m beginning to wonder…)

Bloggers follow best practices: I’m sorry, I think I missed something here. Which best practices? What kind of best practices? Whose best practices? What are these best practices that Glenn speaks of? A mystery! (And one more premise for the black hole of doom).

So without even needing to defend the consort of copywriters, Glenn’s argument crumbles and withers away. Which does indeed prove a point: that maybe some bloggers should consider making solid arguments with supportive statements we can all applaud.

You know, like copywriters do.

Bloggers versus Copywriters: The Rhetoric Debate Another rockin' post from the Men With Pens! Copyright 2006 - 2010 30 Sous Zero Inc - All Rights Reserved

It’s a lie.

The truth is that most freelancers only believe they’re driven toward wealth and success. But dig deep down, and you discover that the opposite is the actual reality.

Where does it all go wrong? What makes freelancers say they’re gung-ho about wealth and freedom when they’re actually not?

Read on. You’ll learn the mental makeup of the freelancer that pinpoints the problem.

How Motivated Are You to Gain Wealth?

Imagine you’re lying on the couch. You’re exhausted. You have the flu, your head feels like cotton wool and your body aches from head to toe. You’re having one of those days where you just can’t work – and for freelancers, reaching that point often means being nearly on death’s door.

The next thing you know, I burst into your house. “Hey! Come with me right now! I have a client who wants to hire you. Land this contract and you’ll make $10,000! It’ll be great. You’ll rock, I know it – it’ll be as easy as pie! Now get up and let’s go, he’s waiting!”

What would you do?

Remember, you’re pretty sick – death’s door. You were taking the whole day off to recoup your strength and get over this flu you’ve been fighting.

Freelancers who answer this question honestly usually say they’d actually be skeptical of me and my enthusiasm.

You’d have questions, even if I were a trusted friend with a reputation for clever ideas. You’d want to gauge the opportunity before you dragged yourself out of your flu-induced stupor. Even if I had you utterly convinced, your first question would be, “Can I see him tomorrow? I’m pretty sick.”

How Motivated Are You to Protect Wealth?

I want you to imagine a different scenario. You’re still on the couch, feeling as sick and miserable as before, only this time you have $10,000 hidden away in your underwear drawer. It’s your hard-earned cash, tucked away Mafioso-style for safekeeping.

Suddenly you hear shattering glass from your bedroom. There’s a thump, and you hear your drawer being opened. I’ve broken into your home – and I’m after your money.

What would you do?

No matter how sick or miserable you feel, you’d probably leap up like lightning! Your heart would pound and adrenaline would zing through you, making your mind and body crackle with energy as you grab a baseball bat and come after me.

The Freelancer Feast or Famine (Finally) Explained

Freelancers are notoriously known for yo-yoing bank balances and that oh-so-common feast or famine cycle. You’ll find posts about it all over the internet – but very few tap into the truth about why it exists, and what to do about it.

And most freelancers just accept the poor-to-rich-to-poor cycle as an inescapable reality of the self-employed lifestyle.

It doesn’t have to be that way. In fact, the only thing that causes your freelancer feast or famine is the psychology that drives your motivation.

The good news? Psychology can be changed!

The exercise you completed earlier tells you a lot about your personal motives for action and the psychological forces that drive your behavior. Most people are far more motivated to avoid losing money than to actually pursue riches and success.

They mentally focus on avoiding poverty. Not on creating wealth.

That’s why most freelancers are highly motivated to find ways to bring in money when they’re near disaster but often lack the necessary drive to build a business that takes them to the big times.

3 Quick-fire Yips to Turn Yo-yos into Rockets

Get your bearings. Yo-yo motivation (and feast-or-famine finances) are primarily caused by a lack of direction and vision. Richard Branson doesn’t yo-yo because he always knows there’s another level of success to reach. Now he sends people to the stars. Figure out your long-term direction and business goals. When you’ve done “enough” of them, you’ll be hungry for more.

Raise your standards. Donald Trump won’t buy a suit that costs less than $3,000 – so it makes sense that he doesn’t consider it a good day unless he makes millions. Up the quality of your living and simultaneously up the expectations for your business performance. Did you get into business to struggle month after month or to succeed?

Line up the rewards. Set rewards worth salivating over. Go beyond merely raising your living standards and decide on some captivating rewards for specific business milestones. Grab a mentor or a friend and get some accountability, then set a target and stick to it. When you reach it, celebrate big and then return to work with a fire lit under you.

Of course, none of these tips work unless you deal with the psychological core of the problem, which is…

Overcoming Your Fear of Loss

Even if you’ve been reading about personal development for years and believe that you’re a positively motivated person, it’s time to take an honest look at what drives your behavior.

If the imaginative experiment of earlier had you leaping up to prevent me from stealing your money, you’ve successfully identified some mental conditioning you need to change. Spotting the problem is the first step.

Let’s keep it real, though. Working to avoid financial loss and stay away from poverty is a good motivation. You never want to lose that.

But imagine if you could channel that same lightning-fast, zero-hesitation energy into the pursuit of business growth.

Instead of reaching that point where your unconscious decides you’ve done enough for the month, you’d be furiously working, capitalizing on any success so you could take your business (and your life) to a whole new level.

Twitter, your RSS reader, YouTube, watching TV… None of that would look very tempting. Wild horses couldn’t drag you away from your business.

All this is possible and easily achievable, but you have to overcome your fear of loss. As long as you hold onto that fear, your unconscious keeps the bulk of your motivation juice in reserve to save it for a possible financial apocalypse.

Ironically, the only way to guarantee such an apocalypse never happens is to get motivated enough that you build the kind of kickass business that can survive anything.

Reconnect with what it is you really want – not what you don’t want. Expose your business fears and look at them. Do whatever it takes to remove them from your consciousness.

Forget what you’re driven away from. Set goals that pull you toward what you want.

And when you do? You tap into the same psychological, motivational state that the world’s business rockstars use to win wealth, freedom and game-changing impact.

For business psychology strategies that help you achieve more wealth, freedom, AND sanity (all at the same time!), click here to visit the home base of Peter Shallard, the Shrink for Entrepreneurs, or follow Peter on Twitter for mini Jedi mind tricks that get you ahead in the game.

Is Your Freelancing Psychology Broken? Another rockin' post from the Men With Pens! Copyright 2006 - 2010 30 Sous Zero Inc - All Rights Reserved

Short because I’m doing something I never, EVER do – I’m writing this post less than 12 hours before it goes live. That means it’s currently Sunday, which means it’s family day, which means I don’t really have the time to make this as great as I want it to be.

But I’m sure you’ll forgive me. You might even be thankful to get a short post, for once! (And if you don’t forgive me, then I didn’t really want you as a reader anyways.)

So. Short – and sweet.

Sweet because this week, we launched Fresh Coat, our new high-end design that’s perfect for freelancers, small business owners or bloggers on tight budgets.

Fresh Coat gives your site a look that makes jaws drop – at a price you can afford, and with the premium design that helps you succeed.

Which is why we created this venture in the first place. See, a lot of people on shoestring budgets wish they could hire us for a site that launches them into success – but they just can’t afford it.

And we feel bad when we hear the disappointment in their voices. (Trust me; you can hear it right through email). We feel bad because we know some of these people really have what it takes to make it – they just don’t have the money to get there.

So we decided to do something about it.

Fresh coat is an ultra-premium, ultra-affordable and ultra-easy solution. It’s only $699, and you get everything you need to launch your site – including us, because we made sure you never have to touch a thing. Just hit the button to place your order, and in as little as 24 hours, you’ll wake up to a brand new site ready to go to work for you.

Zero to hero in no time flat.

Click here to visit Fresh Coat now.

Sundays, Short Posts and Fresh Coats Another rockin' post from the Men With Pens! Copyright 2006 - 2010 30 Sous Zero Inc - All Rights Reserved

Success, as defined by the Cambridge Advanced Learners dictionary, is “the achieving of the results wanted or hoped for”. Freelancers make all sorts of mistakes just to achieve success. Most of the time, these mistakes create lots of problems: financial, health, reputation, and more.

The problem is that many freelancers don’t even know they’re making mistakes with their business – and most of them are avoidable.

Here are ten freelancer mistakes that damage success:

• They can’t fire bad clients: Trying to please a client who seems insatiable is a big mistake. Some clients want the world, but they don’t have the budget for it. Some clients try to dictate, and they don’t listen to advice. If you think a client is giving you trouble (or is going to), fire him politely and quickly. It’s the only way you can focus on other clients who bring you smiles and success.
• They accept more work than they can handle: So you’re working on two projects and five are pending… Why do you need to accept more? When you have several projects on your plate, turn new ones down or let clients know when you’ll be available. Most will wait because they know your potential.
• They work long hours: When you work long hours, you end up creating stress for yourself. You might also be working in haste to get the project complete, which means you deliver less than your best. Know yourself and your schedules. Make a to-do list to help you manage your time. Also, work with your calendar when projects come knocking at your door – don’t just say yes. Plan!
• They don’t upgrade their skills: Freelancers who don’t upgrade their skills get left behind when technology changes. You always need to learn. You can either learn the free way through blogs and online tutorials or pay for courses to upgrade your skills. Check out Education Portal for a selection of writing courses, or if you’re a web developer/designer, check out the Tutsplus network and Lynda.
• They don’t have basic business knowledge: If you’re a freelancer and you don’t know anything about how to run a business, market your services, or manage your finances and client projects, get some basic education. Visit blogs related to small business and freelancing, and soak up everything you can to succeed.
• They don’t get enough rest: Sleep deficit is nearly a disease. It makes freelancers very unproductive, but so many freelancers don’t know this. You don’t have to stay up late to work on projects and it isn’t a badge of honor to shortchange your rest. If you do this regularly, you’ll experience burn-out, lose creativity, make bad decisions and not be able to deliver your best work. Set project deadlines and time-tables that make sure you get rest.
• They can’t take criticism: Drop your ego when it comes to working with other people. People will praise your work, but they’ll also criticize it, so be ready. Many freelancers prepare for praise when they deliver, but when the client isn’t satisfied, they start defending their work. That’ll cost you referrals and new clients. If you can’t accept negative feedback and criticism with a smile, don’t be a freelancer.
• They charge too low for high-end jobs: Most clients want to pay less, not more. If you want to make it as a freelancer, avoid falling into the trap of low wages or letting them haggle you down – unless you only want to add to your experience and money doesn’t matter. If you have excellent set of skills, look at what other premium freelancers charge and set your prices accordingly.
• They accept work they are not qualified to accept:

Sometimes, freelancers accept work in areas in which they aren’t qualified. Your finished work sucks if you do this, and you’re fooling clients who trust you know what you’re doing. Make sure you have the skills the project requires. When you’re offered a project that needs top skills but yours are only amateur, pass. It’s best to work on projects that fit within the skill set you have.

• They don’t measure their business: Freelancing is a business, and like every business, you need to measure whether your efforts are effective or not. Find out whether your marketing is getting results. Look over your finances for the year – are you breaking even? Measuring your business allows you to make changes that help your business grow. If you don’t measure frequently, you may lose cash through poor marketing, faulty pricing or too many expenses.

Here’s a last mistake freelancers often make: they don’t develop relationships with their clients. Clients are the best marketing resource you could ever have, so develop excellent relationships with each of them.

You can do this by performing diligently on your first job and communicating well before, during and after the project is complete. Listen well to what the client wants, and communicate with him each time you complete a step of the project, just to keep him updated.

After projects are complete, follow up with clients and ask how everything turned out in regards to the work you did. Tell them you’ll be at their service if they should need you again. Friend them on Facebook, follow them on Twitter, and engage them in conversation once in a while.

What’s the biggest freelancing mistake you ever made? Which mistake are you making right now? What other mistakes have you noticed happening in the freelancing world?

About the Author: Kwame Boame is a marketing consultant who helps small businesses achieve success. He blogs about brand communication at Sociatic.

10 Freelancer Mistakes that Damage Your Success Another rockin' post from the Men With Pens! Copyright 2006 - 2010 30 Sous Zero Inc - All Rights Reserved

Six figures would be nice.

But six figures isn’t really that important. And in fact, focusing on making six figures is often a path that leads to financial loss. Surprised? You shouldn’t be. Impressive numbers are nice, but there’s only one number in the business world that counts:

It’s not about what you make. It’s about what you keep in your pocket.

Think about this for a minute. Success isn’t really that successful if you’re just shifting money around and using income to pay bills. That’s not what you’re in business for, is it? Most likely not. Paying the bills is nice, but those who start businesses want more than just that.

We’re in this to build income that lets us have a lifestyle we enjoy.

But what good is big income if most of it goes to pay expenses and the government takes a chunk on the rest? What if a small income with less expenses and less tax to pay actually ends up creating more money in your pocket?

Which would you prefer? Six figures with five of them going out and paying taxes on the rest, or five figures, and you get to keep three-quarters of it?

Hey, here’s a thought: You might actually be more financially successful than some pretty big guns out there. The problem is that most people don’t realize it. Why?

Because we focus on making money. And we forget to focus on keeping it.

What Success Can Look Like

The difference between making money and keeping money can sometimes be hard to grasp. But there’s a very distinct difference between a life full of income and a life full of disposable income.

In the first, money comes in and goes back out. There’s a bit left for you to enjoy. In the second, the money that comes in is all yours to keep and spend where you please.

Success is often just an illusion, and what you think you see isn’t always the reality. When you hear about six figure incomes? That doesn’t always mean the person is romping in riches.

If you’re sighing with envy wishing you could bring in six figures, remember that the few thousands you earn now could actually be a mark of better success – because you get to keep more of it.

At least… if you’re focusing on keeping it, that is.

It’s Easy to Focus On the Wrong Figures

Sometimes you don’t even realize that you’re setting yourself up for financial disaster. You hit on a great idea, and that project might look fantastically lucrative. But when you sit down and work out all the details, you realize that you’re fast-tracking yourself to some serious loss.

Take me, for example. I was recently discussing a new project with one of my consultants. Here’s what he said:

“You did what? Are you insane?! Do you even realize how much this is going to cost you?!!!!”

“Uh… Well, yeah. It cost me $212,” I stammered back awkwardly, a little surprised my corporate decisions hadn’t been met with wholehearted approval. “That’s all. It’s a great idea! I’m going to make…”

“NO!! NO!!” Clearly, my consultant didn’t agree at all. “This is crazy!”

The consultant and I talked some more. He asked me to list all the related expenses I could think of, and he really forced me to stretch myself into the future. I found some, sure. There are always costs to every project.

But when I was done listing the expenses I could think of, he listed about $4,000 more in additional long-term and hidden expenses I hadn’t even considered. Not just one-time expenses, but recurring ones, too. They were sneaky administration costs and extra accounting fees that added up sweetly over time.

I hadn’t considered them because I was focusing on how much income the project would make. I wasn’t thinking about how much I would keep. The income I’d make off my $212 investment? It’d be eaten up quickly, and it would bring my beautiful project to a major loss.

And I’d pay tax on the rest.

How to Shift Your Focus for Success

No matter what level of success we enjoy, no matter what kind of business we have, no matter who we are, we all get excited making money – and that’s when we miscalculate long-term costs badly, whether in time or money. That’s normal, too. Most people in business aren’t financial advisors and accountants.

But you don’t have to be a financial advisor to start reaching better success. You can find easy ways to keep more money in your pocket and make decisions that help you figure out which projects get you ahead.

All you need to do is shift your focus – it’s not that hard. Stop thinking about how much money you’ll make.

Start thinking about how much money you’ll keep.

Look at everything you’re doing right now – every single project on the go and every single service or product you sell. For each one, ask yourself, “How much money does this help me keep?”

To find the answer, make a list. Write down direct expenses, because those are pretty easy to spot. Then dig deep to find all the hidden expenses and indirect costs that aren’t so easy to see.

There’s start-up cost, there’s time, there’s maintenance, there’s production costs, launch costs, distribution fees, commissions, subscriptions, administration fees, software renewals, upgrades, year-end accounting, taxes, licenses…List every single possible expense this project might cost your business for a full 12 months.

You might be surprised to discover that what you thought would be profitable was really just a disguised loss.

And if it is? Fantastic! You found out now before you lost your money! Invest your time, energy and resources into projects that let you keep more… even if they bring in less.

Because remember – it’s not about what you make. It’s about what you keep.

Why a Six-Figure Income Doesn’t Count Another rockin' post from the Men With Pens! Copyright 2006 - 2010 30 Sous Zero Inc - All Rights Reserved

To date, I’ve had my work published twice by Forbes.com. As a freelance journalist, seeing my name in print was nothing new. But each time I announced the Forbes posts on my Facebook page, friends and colleagues reacted with awe.

“How’d you do that?” some asked, as if I was privy to a secret formula that let me create bylines with the wave of my magic wand.

You don’t need a magic wand to have your articles and blog posts published by top media outlets. All you need are a couple of great ideas, a decent command of the English language and the determination to keep working after the rejection letters roll in.

Here’s how I did it:

Know your publication

There’s no faster way to ruin your credibility than to pitch editors a topic that’s completely irrelevant. Prevent this by checking the publication to see:

• What topics it covers
• Who writes the articles
• What style articles are written in
• How long articles are

I knew Forbes accepted blog posts from freelance writers, so I figured my odds were good. I also noticed that list posts were popular, so editors would probably be open to accepting one.

Craft your query

At the heart of most freelance writers’ professions is the query letter: a one-page document describing the proposed article, how long it will be, what sources it will reference and the writer’s past experience.
If you’re pitching a guest blog post, editors may want to see the finished document before they accept. But be careful – sending a finished article to a magazine publisher is a sure sign of a newbie.

Because Forbes also has a print version, I decided to go the more formal route and pitch the blog post with a traditional query letter instead of sending the whole thing (which hadn’t been written yet anyway).

Send the pitch

Nobody likes getting letters addressed “to whom it may concern.” Do your homework to find out the name of the editor of the publication. If you’re pitching to a magazine, look at the masthead in the front pages of a recent issue. If you’re pitching a website, look for “Editorial Guidelines” or “Contributor information”.

If you can’t find the right information or you’re still not sure who to contact, call the publication and ask.

Never send a pitch to more than one publication at a time. You don’t want to risk getting two acceptance letters and having to turn one down. Editors hate this, and they won’t look kindly upon your future queries.

Follow up

Getting no response could mean that editors didn’t like your idea, but more likely it means that your query was lost in the shuffle.

If you don’t hear back within two or three weeks, follow up with a brief email or telephone call reminding editors of the query and asking them to respond within two weeks’ time. Attach a copy of the original query to the email. If you still don’t hear back, you can either follow up a second time or pitch the article elsewhere.

Review the contract

If editors accept your query, they’ll probably ask you to sign a contract. This contract specifies what rights the publication has to your work and how much money (if any) you’ll receive.

I try to hold publishers to first publication rights – that means they have the right to publish my article first, but I can then sell the content again or post it on my blog. Avoid work-for-hire contracts that take all rights to your work (unless they pay well).

Write the article

Once you’ve signed the contract, you’ll need to write the article. Don’t get lazy – stick to the agreed-upon word count and meet all deadlines. Also, read the article aloud at least once to catch any hidden typos. The less editing you make others do, the more likely you are to land repeat assignments.

If possible, send your article in a few days early. Don’t send it more than a week in advance, however, or it might get filed and forgotten about. I give most editors a call when sending the article to let them know it’s on the way. That way they expect it and can let me know if it doesn’t appear in their inbox that day.

Promote, promote, promote

Once the article has published, do your part to promote it. This builds your credibility and makes editors more likely to hire you in the future. (After all, they benefit from your promotional efforts, too!)

If your article is posted online, link to it from Facebook, Twitter and other social media accounts. Leave comments if possible and encourage others to do the same.

If you feel the experience went smoothly, you can ask the editor for a short testimonial. I do this often, and include the responses under the published articles on my website. This way, other editors can see that I’m an experienced writer who always meets her deadlines.

Kelly Watson is a freelance journalist and copywriter who blogs about small business marketing. Check out her site today.

How I Got Published on Forbes.com – and How You Can Too Another rockin' post from the Men With Pens! Copyright 2006 - 2010 30 Sous Zero Inc - All Rights Reserved

Because they’re so powerful, stories are very useful for copywriters. Good stories can move people to action. They can encourage sympathy and instigate donations. They can cause an uprising or a revolution. They can provoke a response or influence readers. They can sell.

Storytelling works.

Except, of course, when it doesn’t.

You can pen the most gripping tale that hooks readers, tosses them about in a tempest of emotion and makes them live all their feelings until they’re left breathless, panting and desperate for more by the time they reach the end.

But if you haven’t used storytelling properly, readers won’t do what you want them to do. They got a good story. You got a captivated audience. And there are no new clients calling you. No emails. No sales. Just people saying, “Wow, what a great story.”

Your storytelling strategy fell flat.

Using storytelling to influence readers isn’t as easy as it looks. When you’re trying to influence people and get them to take action, you need a few powerful tactics to get the technique right.

Make the Story Relevant and Supportive

Some writers have a hard time picking the right story for their ultimate goal. The story has no particular relevance, no supportive examples, and no specific relation that readers can clearly see. The result is that while readers get an entertaining story, they aren’t sure what it has to do with the title of the post or the action you’re asking them to take at the end.

Unless your goal is just to entertain, select a story that’s clearly relevant to the message, action or lesson you want to get across. A single obscure point within the story isn’t enough to create proper support – find a story that’s clearly relational from beginning to end, and make sure that it connects to the goal you want to achieve.

If you have to explain how the whole thing ties together at the end, go back and try again. It’s not quite right yet.

Maintain the Interest

There are some really boring stories out there. No, seriously. They lack conflict, or the characters are dull, or the writing doesn’t provide good mental imagery, or dialogue sounds stilted, or it’s unemotional and plain. It’s just… a boring story.

Storytelling uses a few basic elements: a beginning, a conflict, a climax, an end. If one of those is missing, it isn’t a story – it’s just the description of an event.

There are also basic ingredients you need to use to write a good story. You need to set the scene, introduce the characters, show the conflict, build anticipation, and create a theme, for example. Learn about the elements of a good story, and practice writing creative fiction as much as you practice copywriting to develop and blend your skills together.

You’ll be able to make magic in no time.

Watch the Length

Too short a story and readers aren’t sure what just happened. Too long a story, and they get impatient or bored, or they get drawn into the story and led down a path so long they forget there was a point to all this in the first place.

Avoid overlong descriptions, going into too much detail, getting off track on tangents that don’t hold up the main goal or skimping on the good parts. Learn to find the right balance that lets you hook readers in and know what to cut because it isn’t necessary to hold their interest.

A good rule of thumb for blending storytelling with copywriting? No more than 50% story; otherwise the tale dilutes your main purpose and detracts from your goals.

Stick to What’s Important

Interest, support, relevance, purpose… all these are critical to using storytelling in your copywriting in an effective, efficient manner. It comes down to this:

Keep what you need. Everything else? Cut.

That’s the hardest part of storytelling – knowing what to keep that helps contributes to your goal and figuring out what’s just fluff and filler that bogs down the purpose. A good yarn can tie everything together beautifully, but too much yarn and you just have one big, tangled knot.

So with each paragraph you write, ask yourself, “Does this contribute to the message? Does this help me achieve my goal?” If the answer is yes, then great. Go for it. But if you could remove that sentence, that paragraph, or that section and still maintain the integrity and emotional impact of the piece, take it out.

You’d be surprised how much more effective your story becomes in helping you reach your copywriting goals when the whole piece is nice and tight.

How about you? Do you use storytelling techniques in your business copywriting? Which stories get you the best results and reactions? Or do you struggle with using storytelling, or think you have no stories to tell?

How to Write Great Copy using Storytelling Techniques Another rockin' post from the Men With Pens! Copyright 2006 - 2010 30 Sous Zero Inc - All Rights Reserved

“Good idea,” I’ll write back, wrapping my “No way in hell I’m accepting this post,” inside friendly suggestions on how to clean it up. And every single time, Fitjerk goes to work. “Okay, okay, I got it, right,” he replies absently, and I know he’s already working on it and doesn’t even realize I’m there anymore. All his focus goes into making the post better, cleaner, tighter. There’s no room for anything else.

Then the post comes back. “There. Done.” It’s clean, tight, concise, logical. And Fitjerk knows it’s good. He doesn’t need me to say so. That kind of determination and self-confidence? I love it – it makes me laugh every time, just because it’s so great to see.

But I digress. Go read today’s post. Enjoy.

If there’s one thing I love, it’s the concept of brands. A brand just makes life so much easier. I love how I can quickly determine the quality of a product, the experience I’ll have if I buy it, or the knowledge that it’ll be garbage just by looking at its brand logo.

We preach not to be superficial, yet in business school, we’re taught the importance of brands and how to make customers expect the expected just by looking at a certain image, word or color.

Pfft, what a ridiculous contradiction. It’s no wonder so many people are confused in this day and age.

But the truth is that we need brands. There are way too many products out there, and we sure as hell can’t be bothered to remember them all. We need a quick, efficient system that allows us to make an accurate buying decision – and branding is where it’s at!

It should be common sense that building, maintaining and protecting your brand or image should be of ultimate importance if you want your blog or business to thrive. The problem is that not many people track their branding power online – or worse, they don’t push their branding efforts far enough.

But what is far enough? Apple certainly doesn’t need to try to build their brand anymore; they just need to maintain leadership by not doing stupid stuff *cough* iphone4 *cough*.

When is it okay to pull back on branding efforts and spend more time on building products? I’ll tell you when: when your online brand becomes a major keyword… or as I like to call it, a BrandWord!

Now, not every blog or online business can claim that they are a BrandWord, oh no. You can only say you have a BrandWord when people type in the name of your product or company into Google or the URL address bar of a browser to visit your site. In other words, a BrandWord should bring you traffic because you are just that well known.

A few examples: When I want to find reviews on a certain cell phones and tech gadgets, I don’t go to Google. I go directly to engadget.com, because they most likely have what I need. If I want SEO or marketing advice, I go to Sphinn.com, not some funny-looking  blog that fuses three random keywords together to end up with a horrific creation.

Mind you, some of them have good content, but if it’s good, it’ll end up on Sphinn anyways, and that’s where I go.

If I want copywriting or writing tips I come here, go to Copyblogger or bother James. Think about it. What’s more appealing as a brand, MenWithPens or thewritersforhire? Both provide the same service, but one is easily forgettable, while the other is… well, we’re all here, aren’t we?

And to prove my point further, it seems that when people are looking for a really handsome young man to whip their ass into shape, they throw my BrandWord into Google. Because my site is so relevant to what people are looking for, the average stickiness rate of unique hits – people who’ve never been to my site before – is 3 minutes and 45 seconds.

That’s right, I am loved. You may feel jealous now. It’s only natural.

Build Yourself a BrandWord

Since the subject of brand building is obnoxiously huge, I’m going to cut to the chase and throw out a few of my best kick-ass tactics that help your site become a BrandWord. All you have to do is follow my awesome plan, which consists of four kind-of-easy steps:

• Pick a brand name (duh!). Make sure it’s not too long and that it’s easy to remember. It should be relevant and descriptive, and a name you’ll feel good using forever. (I know, commitments scare me too, but a lifetime devotion to cash is something even I can handle.)
• Create a blog for your brand name that has a relevant URL. One of my early mistakes was that I bought fitjerk.com after I bought flawlessfitnessbook.com, and the blog attached to my book blew up faster than I anticipated. The problem was that there was no branding for that URL.
• Create a load of content and make sure you toss in your Brandword frequently. Spread it around – guest posts, articles, social bookmarking, free ebooks etc. This is an obvious step but so crucial and so often overlooked.
• Spend some cash on advertising, but write catchy ads. About a year ago, I set up a Facebook ad that said, “He’s a Jerk, but he’ll get you in the best shape of your life!”. The title had my BrandWord in it, I targeted the ad to males that were 30 to 40 years old, I set the budget and let it loose on the book-facers! The ad was NOT supposed to generate a click; it was meant to give my BrandWord exposure. The money I spent gave me a ridiculous number of impressions. Play around with exposure advertising on the web.

Honestly, that’s all there is to it. Time does factor into making this work, but then again, a business is a long-term plan to wealth. The accumulative time you spend on building your BrandWord  pays off quite nicely… and I’m speaking from experience here.

So, is your business a BrandWord? Or is it just an unknown keyword?

Author Bio: “While he has a passion for writing and oozes the entrepreneurial spirit, FJ is a Fitness Expert first and foremost, focusing on impeccably accurate advice delivered in a straightforward, no-BS style. Check out his popular Fitness Blog and E-Training program!”

What’s Your BrandWord? Another rockin' post from the Men With Pens! Copyright 2006 - 2010 30 Sous Zero Inc - All Rights Reserved