The Quick and the Good: How to Be Fast on Your Feet in the World of Online Business
February 16th, 2008 Dina at Wordfeeder.comI worked as a copywriter in the creative department of a large corporation for many years. The downside to this is that “creative” is not so creative when you’ve got fifteen or 20 sets of hands stirring the sauce. The upside is the organizational skill you gain with after working with a group of graphic designers and computer geeks all passing and sharing files on the same network.
If you’re in this business game to serve people well and make a good living, then that’s a huge upside - and it applies to any business, not just advertising or copywriting.
Don’t let the label “creative” fool you. Yes, those cubicles may be cluttered and bedecked with off-beat artwork and paraphernalia. But the back end of an advertising department is tight as a drum. Every single client file or inter-department file has its place on the server. Within each of those folders lives more folders. Whether you’re adding a few copy blocks, tweaking the design, or just poking around, you’re trained to save the file to the public server. The server is configured so that two people can’t be working in the same file at the same time.
This may bore you if you’re not a categorical thinker like I am. But if you’re the type who keeps people, topics, and contexts in tidy little boxes inside of your own head, this type of setup will make you insanely happy. I respect the process and system I learned from working in an ad department, and I use it to the benefit of my clients. I may be creative to some degree, but I don’t share the same enthusiasm for chaos and randomness as I do for order and classification. Everything in the natural world is ordered and classified, and that’s the only way for me.
Back in my corporate days, it seemed I was always the busiest bee of the copywriting department. Always finding myself being dragged to this or that creative brainstorm. Lines forming at my desk to edit this or that, find the right word, confirm the punctuation, or bang out a quick list of taglines impromptu. It feels uncomfortable to say this because I’m really not the braggy type. But it’s the truth. People seek me out because I give them what they want quickly and without complication.
I was, am, and probably always will be that copywriter on the fly. Some people ask how I can be so fast - and maybe they think I’m quick-witted? But I’ll tell you the real reason why I’m fleet-footed in the arena of writing and editing copy.
It’s because I keep my workspace clutter-free, and that keeps my mind clear. (Okay… to say that I never feel buried in work or scatter-brained would be a lie. But the more I work with other people online, the more I realize how much I really do have it together and never really gave myself enough credit for it.)
When I say “clutter-free workspace,” I’m not referring to my desk or office. (As I look to my left I see three empty glasses, a scattering of client papers and a couple of legal pads.) I’m actually referring to the little things that you’re supposed to do but you procrastinate on - the “junk” that accumulates, and comes back to create static for you when you need to step up production during a crunch. Yeah, that physical clutter is junk. But we all have Pesky Yet Important Junk that we’re ignoring because “I’ll get to it later.”
The thing is, you really need to get to it now.
Pop question, what do you do when a new client solicits your services?
1. Get their full contact information and do a background check on the ‘net if you don’t know them.
2. Immediately set up a folder in their name and place it within your CLIENT PROJECTS folder on your hard drive. (Uhh, what do you mean you don’t have a client folder?)
Another one for you…
Three emails come in. One is a forward from a friend who managed to finagle your work email (friend emails should ideally not mingle with work emails). The other is one of those “polite but non-urgent” client messages - something like “Thanks, I got the file, will review ASAP.” The third email has a Microsoft Word document attached. It’s a project you’ve been working on and the client just sent back revisions.
So what do you do now?
1. Delete or file away the non-work related email.
2. Delete the non-urgent correspondence.
3. Open up the email containing the project draft. I don’t care how busy you are, if you were about to make a lavatory trip, or what. Just open it, do a SAVE-AS, and then save to the appropriate client folder. You don’t even have to look at the file, just do that much for now.
The papers and dishes to your left can be bothersome, yes. But if you have to make a choice between clearing the physical area and sweeping the client area clean, you go with the second choice always. Clients take priority over everything. Staying organized is key.
Question three: what do you do when a client emails or calls with a new request?
Answer: you grab your handy legal pad and pen that’s next to the half-drank cup of water to your left, and you jot that down on your list.
I always have a running tasklist. Since the “when it rains it pours” rule seems to be forever in effect, the list accumulates to about 18 or 20 items before I can begin chipping away at it.
Since I’m offering an impromptu quiz here, let me ask you: what happens when you complete a task - whether it’s a small or large project?
You check it off on your master list and give yourself a little pat. If it’s a small but necessary task, you knock out a couple of other easily managed tasks, since you’re already in that mode.
If it’s a milestone item, such as a website project that’s finally wrapping up, you reward yourself if time permits. Maybe catch a movie, cook a nice meal or do something fun, social, and non-work related. But then you’ve got to make your next move, and that’s aquiring a new large-scale project to replace the one you just completed.
How do you do this? You put the feelers out. Run through your list of email contacts and sort alphabetically or by date. Locate someone who once asked you for a project. Didn’t someone say they might be launching a landscaping business in January? Guess what, it’s January, make the call. Crack your productivity whip and get that person motivated again to begin work.
If there is no prospect, or if the person you inquired of isn’t ready to begin work, you focus on your marketing effort, no two ways about it. If you send out a newsletter and the time is ripe for a new issue to break, get moving. If you run ads on the ‘net or hit up potential clients via email, it’s time to start pitching your skills again.
There are many more tricks to being quick and good at business. The biggest motivating factor is that your heart should be in what you do. Your work should make you feel good, and flow out of you because it’s your natural talent. So many people are placed in ill-fitting careers. If you’re happy in your work life and you know it, you’ll want to run a tight ship. I hope you’re taking notes - I just told you how it’s done.
Copyright 2008 Dina Giolitto, Wordfeeder.com Copywriting and Marketing. All rights reserved.
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