Copywriting 101: How to Get Clients As a Beginner Copywriter

foreign because I think that we have the same opinion but very different experiences so Sean if I'm a beginner how do I get hired as a copywriter possible freaking way that you can yeah literally like they're they're it's this is very much an all roads lead to Rome kind of thing where you can approach this career this business this vocation this profession whatever you want to freaking call it and you can get there by any means necessary now we have some personal preferences like for me I think possibly different from Alex you know I started

in-house and I actually like started uh working in direct responsive marketing you know first I did freelance for a little bit after I quit my teaching career um and like I actually like reached out to people on Craigslist like sold writing services on Craigslist and then I got a part-time job as a proofreader and then from proofing I moved up into managing editing and then content writing and then copywriting and then all the way to publishing and management and so and copy chiefing all that fun stuff so for me being in-house it was really really

cool for me because I got paid to learn how to do this stuff and if it's one thing that I learned as a teacher if you are stressed or like in shambles or like freaking out in any way like you need that money to be coming in you're not going to learn as well you're not going to learn as quickly then if you know that you have like your basic the bottom two sections of Maslow's hierarchy of needs are met like if those are good well then your career is going to take off much more

quickly than if you are just like uh eat what you kill like always hunting and Gathering always trying to prospect always trying to get a new client kind of deal for anybody who doesn't know the terms uh in-house just refers to there is a company who are paying you as an employee in a salary position and you are just doing the marketing or copywriting full of them so you're just walking with one company and your employee there the opposite side of it is freelance and I think in this space and if you're a beginner and

maybe you've seen other stuff about copyright online most of the stuff you will have seen is about freelance copywriting um freelance juxtapose to in-house simply means you are working with multiple clients they can be individuals they can be businesses they can be big corporations but the point is you are your own business and you work with them at different times on different projects you can have multiple things at one time you can also just be working with one at a time but the point is they're always Contracting out to you so you're not an employee

there that's the big uh difference and I think that's a really good place to start with this question how do I get hired as a copywriter the first thing you don't you don't need to make a hard and fast decision on this but the first thing to kind of be aware of is that the biggest difference is going to be in-house versus freelance like that's the biggest kind of first fork in the road where you need to have a think about what is it that you value and what would you ideally like to do one

of them may appeal so much more than the other and if that's the case great go for that if neither of them appeal um or you don't really mind which one you do my advice is to try both and see what works honestly with everything no matter how granular you go no matter which job getting method that we'll talk about see you in a moment no matter which job getting method you use my advice if you're a beginner is always to just try a few work hard on them and put a lot of effort into

them when you're doing them but you know play the field a little bit like have a look at different ways of doing things and see what works so the first big decision really is or the first thing you need to think about is in-house or freelance if you need a stable income and you you just like really need that then honestly I would advise trying to focus more on in-house if you can if you're in a position to apply for those roles if either you're in you're somewhere locally with a lot of agencies or a

lot of businesses who hire um or you can reach out to people who are hiring for remote roles I would say try and favor that if you absolutely need stability right this second because the fact of the matter is in-house is for the most part in most situations in-house is easier to manage just because someone else is dealing with your expenses someone else is paying the tax for you someone else is making sure that you have everything lined up you have sick days you haven't got to worry about where the next paycheck is coming from

it's a lot easier it's a lot more stable mostly um so if that's really what you're worried about and you feel like oh I need stability then sure maybe look more in-house uh if you just want to go for it and you want less of a ceiling initially and you want a bit more freedom to try different things maybe even if you think I need to get started really quickly uh freelance tends to be the Avenue most people take just because you can jump around from client to client you can try a bunch of different

things you can spend your time crafting pictures to people and uh trying to get roles and positions with different companies like that's fine the the only warning with that is it is not the fairy gold cuckoo lovely land that you've heard of in the load of Facebook ads and YouTube videos it's not easy it's not a simple thing to uh like well it can be simple but it's not an easy thing to get these freelance positions Sean are you is this blowing your mind right now what I thought that I could be a six-figure copywriter

like writing with my feet in the Sands of a tropical beach what are you talking about unless you already live in Hawaii it's not going to happen people like I'm sorry to burst the bubble and the reason I'm being so blunt about this is because I know so many people join these streams and look at these videos because they have been sold this dream of oh my God copywriting is the key to financial freedom and being a millionaire uh for 99 of people it is not it just isn't it's a great career and we love

it um and there are a hell of there are loads of opportunities there but you have to work hard and you can't expect riches immediately not I would say on average not even for your first like few years as a copywriter you can't expect to be earning like six figures it's possible and it's been done yeah it's just it's probably only going to be the case for about 10 of people you can believe you're at 10 if you want but I'm just I'm just trying to be straight up have you ever seen the movie Dumb

and Dumber uh I haven't so there's this great scene where Jim Carrey like is hearing this person basically describe like how unlikely something is just how just unbelievably out of the ordinary something like it there would have to be such an out of control out of the ordinary like series of events that would need to happen in order for something to be accomplished and Jim Carrey just goes so you're saying there's a chance and I have a feeling that whenever we say things like it takes a few years to make six figures as a freelance

copywriter it's extremely rare to make that much money uh uh very very early on I have a feeling that every beginner watching this now and in the future goes so you're saying that it's going to be me yeah it's it's like a lot of winners and people who trade stocks like you know they assume that they are in the upper decile of Lucky intelligent people who are always going to get everything that they want and need so I think you're right on that and hey you know it's not a bad thing to believe it because

one thing I'll say is the only people who do make it are the people who believe that if you want to go in-house you need to have pretty decent portfolio spec pieces spec pieces are pieces that are written not necessarily for a job but are written to basically give an example of what you can do what you're capable of producing um you need to have a pretty good CV and pretty good sample pack you know I've spoke to the executive creative director of one of the biggest ad agencies in America relatively recently that is on

the youtube.com copy that channel which you can watch if you want but he basically said he never looks at resumes and CVS he just looks at portfolio samples he's looking for people to surprise and Delight him and I I have found that most people on like executive directors and Senior copywriters on the hiring side they're all kind of like that um like if you get an HR person God help you uh on the freelance side if you just want to go where there you know there are people who are hiring upwork is fine if you

are too young or if you cannot access upwork from your country then uh cold emailing might be the right way for you but I will be honest with you um there are a lot of cold emails out there and most of them don't get work I would say apart from you Sean everyone I know who got into copyrighting went freelance um and I'd say you're also an anomaly because well because you're an anomaly anyway but you're an anomaly because obviously you're in the financial world and you had that relatively um unorthodox route in uh no

one has similar no one has the same route but I would say most people who are working copyrights who I know or associate with definitely came in through the freelance side um and maybe maybe we can talk about that another time because I don't want to get too too deep into that right now [Music] foreign [Music]