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How to Stop Leaving Money on the Table and Get Paid Your Worth - Every Time! by Chris Marlow

In this Special Report you'll learn how to negotiate more effectively so you can add hundreds of dollars - or even thousands - to your income this year.

Most freelancers hate to negotiate. Some are even so bad at the money end that they don't invoice, leaving the paper trail up to the client. (My favorite Webmaster is one; he won't invoice me, so I have to do it for him!)

Because dealing with money is such an important part of freelancing, this Report focuses on the art of successful negotiation. Believe it or not, most clients don't want to get a "great deal" at your expense; they simply want an agreement that's fair to both parties. Because when both parties feel there's a fair exchange, it opens the door to a continued and mutually profitable relationship.

So if you've kicked yourself in the past for coming in way too low on price...if you've hated a job you'd have enjoyed if only you were paid more...then print this article and keep it handy for your next negotiation. By understanding how the freelance negotiation process is supposed to work, and by effectively playing the part you're supposed to play, you can literally add hundreds of dollars each month to your bottom line.

THE FIRST RULE OF FREELANCE NEGOTIATION

I'm convinced that the foundation of a good business relationship rests on fairness and integrity. By starting from a place of honesty and fairness, you can spend your energy on arriving at an agreement rather than trying to be the winner, as some misguided "old school" negotiators do.

That said, let's get to the details of how you can become a good (or even better than you already are) negotiator.

ESTABLISHING YOUR "BASELINE"

Have you ever felt bewildered in the initial phase of a negotiation because you didn't know where to start? The problem may be that you don't really know how much time it takes you to complete a particular type of job...and that makes you unsure about what to charge.

In an advertising agency, filling out your timesheet is an every day occurrence, so getting adept at estimating jobs is a fairly quick process.

When I left the agency and went freelance, however, I wanted to get estimating down to a science. My friend, master designer Steve Colich, told me about StopWatch, an inexpensive timesheet software. So I bought it.

Using StopWatch helped me keep track of my time and gave me a huge advantage (and loads of confidence) when it came time to submit a bid. Knowing how much time it will take you to do a job is the strongest negotiating "tool" you can have in your freelancer's bargaining kit.

PHASE 1 OF YOUR NEGOTIATION:
PREPARATION

Assuming you have a pretty good idea of how much time a particular project should take, your next job is to size up your potential client, and consider your current situation as well.

Factors that will determine what you ultimately ask for include:

Is the client a mid-size or large company that's used to paying professional rates? Or is it a small, local Mom & Pop stretching finances to get a simple brochure?

If you want to work with the Mom & Pop shop, you'll need to take their tiny budget into consideration. Conversely, if you're providing copy for a large company that's mailing fifty-thousand, five-hundred-thousand, or a million pieces...then obviously you shouldn't be paid peanuts for your work and expertise.

Are you new at copywriting and trying to build a portfolio? It may be more important to add a sample to your portfolio than to get top dollar.

What's the economy like for your client's industry? If it's been a tough year, you may be viewed as insensitive if your rates don't accommodate tighter budgets. Not surprisingly, some technology writers have reported a depressed market over 2003. I'm betting that they, like me, looked for ways to service their technology clients at a lower cost.

What is the client's actual budget? Because talking about money intimidates most freelancers, many don't ask what the budget is. But as copywriting guru Bob Bly points out, if you ask what the budget is, many times the client will tell you. Now all you have to do is consider how long it will take you to do the work, and submit your bid within the budget's range (if it is indeed, a reasonable budget).

How badly do you need the job? If you really need the job, then you're at a serious disadvantage in the negotiation process. It's tough to deal with the tension, and very tempting to come in low on price in order to get the job...and some anxiety relief.

The problem is, once you've done a job on the cheap, your client will expect the same price again. If you're faced with a situation where you really want the job, try to strike a deal where you do the first job at a discount, but all subsequent jobs are at "market rate." Position yourself as giving a one-time discount, and - this is important - get it in writing.

This may seem like a lot to do in the "preparation" phase, but there's still a few more things you should know, such as...

Determine what you'd like to get for the job, know what the absolute minimum is that you would accept happily, and determine the price you want to start with.

In our culture (an in many others), the purchaser assumes the seller will start high so there's room for the customary bargaining. You have an expected role to play, and if you err in the first round by coming in too low, you have nowhere to go but down, potentially putting yourself between a rock and a hard place if your client is a strong negotiator.

Know what you're worth and be prepared to defend your position. Recently the CEO of an Australian software company balked at my hourly rate for Americanizing their marketing materials. He felt he was very knowledgeable about the price of writing because he was also the CEO of a worldwide language localization and translation company.

In order to appease him I reduced my hourly rate by $25 per hour. But it was still much higher than the figure he threw out. So I explained that because I'm a direct response copywriter, his materials will become much more powerful, with new headlines and captions whereever I find room for improvement.

I explained that the work I would give him was worth more because he was getting much more than just editing and Americanizing. And to make the difference "real" to him I offered to farm the work out to another writer, for a lower rate. He quickly agreed to my rate, and we both felt good about the outcome.

PHASE 2 OF YOUR NEGOTIATION:
THE DANCE BEGINS

At some point the potential new client is going to bring up the subject of price. If not in the first conversation, surely in the second.

If you're not careful, you can make a fatal mistake at this point. Loosely throwing out a ballpark figure can come back to bite you if you don't have a real handle on the amount of work to be done. I've made this mistake and I'm sure thousands of other freelancers have too.

The best way to handle a premature discussion of money issues is to have a few stock phrases tucked away in your back pocket. With the right words you can push the subject out until you have more time to study the requirements - and determine your role - in the project.

For instance, will you be expected to fill out a Project Brief, or will the client handle that necessity?

Will you handle creative direction, or just hand in the copy?

Is there a huge learning curve on the product? Does your client want high-level concepts or just a teaser on the envelope? Who is going to hire the designer, you or the client?

Making assumptions at this stage of the game can cost you money. You want a clear picture of the job before you start throwing out numbers.

When I want to avoid stating a dollar figure or a price range, I have a few stock phrases that work well for me. One is, "I'm not the cheapest, but I'm also not the most expensive"...and then I follow that statement with benefits I bring to that particular client.

Another statement that buys me time is, "Whatever your budget is, I'm sure we can find something that works for both of us." This reassures the client and the conversation usually moves on to another topic.

It's at this stage of the negotiation that you'll spend time "getting your arms around" the project. It pays to take your time and really think it through. By being very specific about the scope of the job, you get clear on what it is you have to do and how much you should charge. Collecting detail also helps you sell the client on your price by showing them visually, on paper, what you'll be doing for them.

For instance, consider a Fee Agreement that says "$4,000 for one lead-generation package." That's pretty naked and the price can seem high.

Now consider a Fee Agreement that says "$4,000 for one lead-generation package consisting of 3 concepts with rationales, one 6 x 9 envelope, one 2-page letter, one standard brochure, one 8-1/2 x 11 order form, and offer development." Both approaches take the same amount of work, but the second approach offers a realistic picture of what the job entails...and also clarifies expectations on both sides.

THE WAITING GAME

Once you've submitted your fee (I always do so in a formal Fee Agreement that includes contractual terms), there's often a period of silence while the client considers your offer. The bigger the project, and the higher the fee, the longer it can take to get feedback.

This is where the freelancer can go a little crazy, wondering "Did I ask for too much?"..."What's wrong? Did they decide not to do it?"...and "I blew it. They hate me. I'm dead."

Rarely is there a problem, outside of the fact that the client is taking their time. After all, you're asking them to sign a contract.

My personal threshold for waiting lasts about three working days. If I haven't heard back, I send an email asking if they received the Fee Agreement. In fact, this happened recently.

A client I've been trying to land for two months had not responded to my submitted Fee Agreement. Because of the volume of work, the Agreement ran three pages (remember, be specific!).

Three days later I sent an email asking if he'd received it. It turned out he'd been sick, and he hadn't even looked at it yet.

A day later he sent requests for a few changes that bothered me. I expressed concern and we set up time for a phone meeting. In the end, he gave a little and I gave a little, and the Fee Agreement got signed.

While this negotiation took nearly one month to complete, most take only a matter of days. The important thing to remember is to have patience when you're negotiating with a potential new client.

With a well paced, thoughtfully considered negotiation, where both parties feel their interests have been served, you have the foundation for building a lasting - and profitable - client relationship.

Master copywriter and coach Chris Marlow publishes a free ezine for copywriters who want to quickly build a profitable business. Visit:

Article Source: http://www.earticlesonline.com/Article/How-to-Stop-Leaving-Money-on-the-Table-and-Get-Paid-Your-Worth---Every-Time-/104430

Intro - Ten Email Newsletter Relationship Content Ideas

How To Write Email Subject Lines That Get Opened

You can really help your business if part of your work is done through e-mail marketing but some parts of this need to be given special attention (like your subject lines). In this article there are going to be a few tips that will teach you how to create high conversion rate subject lines for your e-mail campaigns. One thing we think you will find is the range of what That Free Thing can do for your marketing and advertising efforts is considerable.

The results you get with these and other marketing strategies will rest more on the strength of your knowledge. Any time you place any kind of ad, it is still part of your overall marketing and business strategy. There are tons of methods on the net that we bet you have never thought about, but approach with some common sense, first. A new method or new ad spot can be experimented with over a short time period. You will need to take your entire situation into account depending on what you are doing that is new, and that means ensuring you do not endanger your authority site, for example. You will come across many tools that will prove indispensable, and that is one of them.

You can get ideas and brainstorm subject lines by reading through old emails or emails written by other marketers. You will also be able to measure your degree of improvement, but you can also get that from your conversion rates, too. You'll quickly be able to identify weak areas and also how you dealt with them, if you have. Practice plus education can do wonders for improving at anything, just about. If you want to improve your writing, then learn to view it with dispassionate disconnect so you can judge it for what it is. Also, save all of your emails and anything you write because you will want to refer to them again in the future. Once you make this a regular activity, you'll realize how easy it is to actually write better subject lines each time. You can have to most expensive and highest quality tools for doing anything, but if you are not competent with using them then your results will be substandard.

People love case studies, and we will not provide one but you could do one on Unique Article Wizard as it applies to IM. You can take a thousand people all using the same group of methods, and you know what will happen in terms of how well they do.

The mistake that is usually made happens when a person looks at the method and thinks all that is needed is to copy it or use it based on what they have read. If you have never stopped and thought about it, then it is easy to see that online marketing has so many little components that really must be there in order to make it all work.

Your ability and willingness to test all you do in business is one thing that will give you leverage. Your email's subject line should be as honest as it can get. Avoid causing confusion or misunderstandings in your subject lines. Your subject line should make people realize that they understand and then create a smooth flow into your email body. We've seen it plenty of times whereby the actual email content was not what we were expecting by reading the subject line. Perhaps one good exercise is to learn, which you're doing now, study other emails written by marketers, and then practice writing your own.

Last but not the least, the key to being highly successful in carving out response pulling subject lines is to keep on testing new ones. All it takes is some simple testing and trying out different things. Most of the time your first efforts won't be so great. When you get used to testing out various subject lines, you'll understand how response changes by simply tweaking them a bit. If you are not implementing testing in any of your campaigns, then you really are operating in blind mode as well as very inefficiently. The possibilities are almost endless when you consider Lifetime Video Profits, and the degree to which you can optimize your business will probably blow you away if you do it. Not having any knowledge of what can be done with testing is not anyone's fault, and so unfortunately a lot is being missed.

Taking action is extremely important, always, but you need to take care about how you approach everything. Very often what is in your best interest and what you will eventually do can sometimes diverge. If you are doing pay per click, for instance, then a small test campaign at a major search engine or even at smaller, secondary search engines would suffice.

Remember there is no reason to over-engineer any kind of test, and remember that any type of marketing or advertising test on your sites need to include the appropriate tracking scripts. Obviously, some type of script that will record test results will be needed. All in all, from the above tips we come to the conclusion that email marketing is all about getting the important elements in place. All you do has an affect on you, and when you work to improve your own email subject lines, the better you'll get at it. The more you put into it, the more you'll get out of it - and that is just a fact about all you do.

How Can I Heal from a Breakup When I can't Accept that She's Gone?

You love your ex girlfriend. You're just not ready to handle the fact that she's left. You still wake up each morning expecting to see her face. You still find yourself extremely sad that she's not there beside you when you go to bed each night.

Healing is not something that happens over night. Neither is acceptance. Healing after a breakup is part of a process. It's the same process that people go through when grieving over the death of a loved one.

In some ways, breaking up and divorcing someone you've been with is, on an emotional level, a lot like losing that person to death. Before you can heal you have to accept that fact that she's gone. You'll never be able to heal until you've at least reached that point.

But, you don't have to be in any real hurry to accept that she's gone either. You could choose to devote your time and attention to figuring out how to get your ex girlfriend back instead of trying to deal with how to let her go.

When you just can't accept that she's gone then maybe it's time to get her back instead.

How do You Get Your Girlfriend Back?

Girls and guys seem to speak a different language when it comes to love. If she really loved you when you were together you can take comfort in the fact that she probably still has very strong feelings for you. She's just burying them beneath the surface and working really hard to harden her heart against you right now.

Whether you believe it or not, she's hurting over the breakup too. More to the point however is the fact that there is something she's not getting from you that she needs on a fundamental level in order to FEEL loved by you.

You can tell her you love her ten thousands a day from here to eternity and that's not going to get her attention and tear down the walls she's building to protect her heart.

But, What Will Work in this Situation?

You have to give her the one thing she's missing. It can come across as a thousand different things but at the heart of it all, women need one thing from their men in order to really feel loved by them. When they get this one thing they will walk across burning deserts barefoot for the men in their lives.

What is this one thing that will bring about such miracles?

It's APPRECIATION.

One little word means so much to women of all religions, from all walks of life, and at all economic stations. She NEEDS to feel that her small acts of love for you are appreciated by you. She needs those things acknowledged.

It doesn't require expensive gifts. You don't have to sweep her off her feet daily with romantic prose. You don't even have to make a fool of yourself for love. Just make her feel appreciated and you'll see an amazing turnaround in your relationship.

Of course the real challenge is showing her how much you do appreciate her when she isn't taking your calls.

Tired of having long conversations with her voice mail? Is she not returning your text messages? Put a stop to those right away and watch this free video -> http://magicofmakingup.com/ to find out the secret move you can make that will have your girlfriend call YOU. With a record of success that's over 50,000 couples strong the odds are good that the secret method in this video can help you get your girlfriend back too!


Accept Job Offer Email Sample

Accept Job Offer Email Sample