2005 - 11-29-05

You know what? It'll probably seem curious
to many of my readers, but it never even crossed my mind to
ask if I could get this valuable material at a discount.

I charge different prices for my different
services. Sometimes it's as low as $7,500 for a 2-hour
telephone consultation. The most common price for my
copywriting services is $15,000 payable in advance plus 5%
of the gross sales I am able to achieve for my client.
Sometimes on a job which is going to take me a lot of time,
I charge $30,000 upfront.

I've noticed a BIG difference in the people
who hire me at $30,000. Basically, they only ask two
questions:

"Are you available to do my job?"
And if I say
'yes' the second question is,
"Who do I make the check out
to, and what address do I FedEx it to?"

During the course of my career, I've had a
lot of people call me and tell me they want to hire me and
money is no object.

But I have learned when someone says,

"Money is no object,"
that most of the time... money is the most important
consideration on their mind. I've had people tell me they
are making profits of as much as $750,000 a week... and then
tell me... they're thinking about hiring me but, they'd like
to brainstorm with me a little bit first.

You know what I tell those people? I tell them,
"Look, that sounds great to
me. I'll make you a deal. I want you to write a $500 check
payable to the Children's Hospital of Miami and send that
check to me. As soon as I receive the check, I'll hand it to
the Hospital and tell them to cash it the same day. After
that, I will consult with you for a couple hours on
the phone. Just think, the worst case scenario is, you and I
don't do business together. But some sick child who
desperately needs medical help will have a $500 assist in
getting that help. However, the best case scenario is you
and I end up doing business together and we each make a
small fortune. That sounds really fair to me, doesn't it
to you?"

And you know what? Absolutely nobody has ever
taken me up on that offer. It is remarkably curious how many
people claim to be making hundreds of thousands of dollars a
week... but... can't seem to get $500 out of their
accounting department (it's always because of accounting
difficulties) to get a consultation with me and help a
worthy charity.