In the early years of running my advertising business, I had my own clients, but I also freelanced for advertising agencies. This was before email, so I delivered my work in person. During those visits I ran into agency copywriters whom I knew, and usually one of them would say, “I wish I could be self-employed like you. If I could just get one good client, I could quit my job and freelance, too.” To which I replied, “You won’t find that client until you quit your job, because then you’ll be motivated by making your monthly mortgage payment.”

When I first started my business, I didn’t have any published writing samples to create a portfolio to show prospective clients. So, I wrote a couple of articles on current events and created mock-up advertisements of well-known products. My articles were typed on plain white paper, and my ads... well, they just looked fake. I cut out pictures from magazines and pasted them onto poster board, and used LETRASET transfers (alphabet stickers) for the copy.

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