Copywriting Q&A: How to Get Over the Fear of Selling

If you’re trying to build a freelance business or to land a job, you’ve got to be able to sell yourself, right? Well, if the idea of selling freaks you out, I have good news: If you’re Selling, you’re doing it wrong. Read on…

Today’s question comes from Zoe T., who asks, “I know that copywriting isn’t just writing, that I have to sell my services to get clients. But the idea of doing that makes me really uncomfortable. I’m just not naturally good at sales. Do you have any tips?”

If you don’t like selling or if you consider yourself “not very good” at it, I have good news: If you’re Selling, you’re doing it wrong.

Okay, now obviously, I’m not talking about making sales: getting new clients to hire you for work. Instead, I’m talking about capital-S Selling: The high-pressure, make-or-break interactions that make you feel gross and make your prospective client feel uncomfortable.

So what does that mean to make sales without doing any capital-S Selling? Well, think of it this way: You can try to get sales by incessantly messaging your target audience, hoping that some of them will get so “worn down” by your repeated sales messages that they’ll finally give in.

Or… You can make what you offer seem so appealing, so irresistible, so perfectly suited to solve their problems that instead of Selling, you’re virtually just fielding requests to purchase.

Effective selling is really just connecting people who have a need with the company that can fulfill that need. That’s what we do with the copy that we write, and that’s what we have to do when we try to connect with our own prospects.

Here’s how:

1. Hone your messages to your ideal target audience. Who do you want to be writing for? How specific can you get?
2. Make it clear how you can benefit their business. What can you do for them?
3. Make it clear why you are the very best person to do it. What makes you different from other writers
4. Give them the clear way to get started. How can they hire you?

You should be conveying these key points all throughout your own web copy, in your blog (content marketing), in your social media posts, your LinkedIn profile, your email signature, and anywhere else you have an interaction with the public.

Come up with a few quick lines to convey this information to people you meet out and about, and come up with longer, more detailed versions for your site and content.

When you have the exact right solution to someone’s problem or need, there’s virtually no selling involved. The more people recognize themselves and their needs in what you communicate, the easier it is: They understand that they need you, and they’re happy to hire you.

Will there be some people who opt not to hire you? Of course. There will always be people who don’t buy the things they need to buy. But that’s part of the reason you have to be so keyed into your target audience—the exact right people for you will be much more likely to purchase.

Your turn! How do you answer those four questions? Let us know in the comments below!