Fired for Being Mexican?

Cross-border deal nightmares, sneaky negotiation tricks, and how to get high-paying clients WITHOUT contracts

Richard left a comment on the last issue…

Would love to see some newsletters touching upon deal structuring and the basics we need in terms of paperwork to close deals and look like bonafide pros in our prospects eyes.

For example:

Do we need contracts?

How can we handle paperwork with international clients, taxes, cross-border contracts, etc.

(I lost a huge prospect because I'm from Mexico and the were from Canada... Their legal department told them to avoid hiring me as a contractor after finding out I was from Tijuana, Baja California, Mexico and not from California USA.)

That's why I'm asking. Any advice on closing cross-border deals?

Do I need an US registered LLC?

What do I actually need to close deals and get paid?

Can I just send over a PayPal invoice and get paid or would that turn good clients off because it looks like a scammy fly by night operation?

How do YOU personally do it?

Also...

I'm thinking in reaching out to Marketing Agencies, as I've worked for a few in the past. But I charged by piece. (e.g., $50 per email)

But left those gifs because I would regularly make much less money overall, because of constant changes requested by nitpicky agency staff members or the clients themselves.

How can I avoid this and how can I structure deals without shooting myself in the foot?

I was thinking of offering a fixed monthly retainer for a certaint amount of client accounts per month and asking them to let me use AI for edits and ideation.

But I would love to hear your opinion on it first.

Oh, one last thing...

I'm a from Mexico (I know you said it does not matter, but I still want to ask).

Will that make it harder for me to break into Finpub world?

Thanks!

Keep up the great work, William,

Richard

Thanks for the comment (and the support) Richard. This seems like an excellent topic for today’s newsletter (by the way sorry for the Tuesday release — I scheduled this wrong).

Okie dokie so let me try to go through each aspect of your question.

• Do we need contracts?

I, personally, have never sent a contract to a client.

Typically what happens is we agree on a project with a sort of “paper trail” through email or some other documented communication so that — if I needed to — later on I could basically just say “Here’s what you said in your email.”

Usually it's the client who drafts some kind of contract, work agreement, or contractor agreement that they want me to sign.

Within the direct response industry it’s very “incestuous” and it’s still very much a handshake type of business (in a figurative sense — not that you actually have to be there to shake hands).

It’s not in any of the reputable companies’ best interest to enter into an agreement with a copywriter and then stiff them because word will get around and other copywriters will not work with them.

If they are truly a direct response company, then copywriters are the lifeblood of their entire business model and they need the best of the best WANTING to work with them (and trusting them).

So that’s why I never got too worried about contracts or anything like that. It was good enough to have an email exchange, a Zoom meet, and an agreement and to go ahead and begin on a project.

• How can we handle paperwork with international clients, taxes, cross-border contracts, etc.

  (I lost a huge prospect because I'm from Mexico and the were from Canada... Their legal department told them to avoid hiring me as a contractor after finding out I was from Tijuana, Baja California, Mexico and not from California USA.)

  That's why I'm asking. Any advice on closing cross-border deals?

I’d love to get some more details on this because I have no idea why it would be a “liability” for a Canadian company to hire you just because you’re a Mexican national.

But then again I’ve never worked with a Canadian company before.

I’ve worked with Australian, UK, and US companies in the past without any issues as a US citizen.

Right now one of my longstanding clients is from Singapore and I’m signed on with them as a contractor (the same as my US client). There’s never been any issue with payments or anything — it’s direct deposit right into my Bank of America account.

And also their HR team handled all of that, so there wasn’t really anything for me to do.

I think if I were to give any advice on this particular situation, I’d want to know more about what kind of company this was.

Because I think that matters also. Because most of the companies I work with have had fairly eclectic work teams — many of whom were purely virtual — working from all over the world from India to Belarus to UK to Philippines and beyond.

• Do I need an US registered LLC?

I’ve never done business as a contractor as an LLC — but in your situation that doesn’t sound like a bad idea.

If you want to make certain operating from Mexico as a Mexican national isn’t an issue moving forward, it’s relatively simple (and cheap from what I understand) to register an LLC in the States.

Most people I believe go with Wyoming or Delaware, you can do this 100% online as well, and just naming yourself the sole proprietor keeps things simple enough.

I’d say it’d be an advantage for you to do that.

• What do I actually need to close deals and get paid?

  Can I just send over a PayPal invoice and get paid or would that turn good clients off because it looks like a scammy fly by night operation?

  How do YOU personally do it?

So by the time we’ve established the parameters of the project and have agreed on the pay and the timeline, then if it’s a one-off project (not something that’s a retainer contract) then I’ll get 50% at least upfront.

In that case I’ve always just used whatever is comfortable to me. It really doesn’t matter. I could invoice them via PayPal. Or Stripe. Or Wise. Or some invoicing software that connects to one of those.

If I send an invoice through those services it’s just a method in which to pay — it really doesn’t make a difference.

Or the client might just want to do direct deposit, in which case I’ll give them my bank details for a transfer.

Again — reputable companies who are running strong direct response operations are NOT going to worry about stuff like this.

They’re going to trust you based on the conversations you’ve had and also know that you disappearing on them after a 50% deposit is worse for you than it is for them.

That might be inconvenient for them, but YOU will be out of work in that industry forever. All it takes is one or two times of doing that before you’re effectively blacklisted across the board.

So they know it’s in your overall best interest to honor your agreement and that’s why — again — this remains very much a “handshake” type of business.

• I'm thinking in reaching out to Marketing Agencies, as I've worked for a few in the past. But I charged by piece. (e.g., $50 per email) But left those gifs because I would regularly make much less money overall, because of constant changes requested by nitpicky agency staff members or the clients themselves. How can I avoid this and how can I structure deals without shooting myself in the foot?

Personally, I’d avoid agencies. Even if the agency itself is helping their clients by doing things the direct response way, it’s like you said — their clients are clueless, annoying, and nitpicky.

I’ve been doing a bit of agency work right now for a friend of mine and most of their clients have no idea what they’re doing, but are constantly micromanaging the projects as if they know better.

It’s not worth it to work with people like that. I applaud anybody who runs an agency because I could not deal with that.

I target companies who make ALL of their sales through direct response marketing.

They are — in effect — a “marketing company” but it’s their own products and services they’re marketing.

Think about any one of the Agora / Marketwise affiliates. Let’s say Chaikin Analytics off the top of my head or Stansberry Research and so on.

Those companies are “marketing companies” because every aspect of those businesses is essentially a direct response marketing operation.

They have products.

And how do they sell those products?

By having a fine-tuned internal team of copywriters, media buyers, acquisition specialists, editorialists, and so on down the line.

They’re constantly pushing out offers, split testing, and fine-tuning, figuring out what the market is responding to and adjusting.

They are the OPPOSITE of “nitpicky.”

These are the types of people who know what a copywriter does, know how to spot a good one (or one with potential), and know how to leave them alone to do their job.

If you’re a junior — sure your copy will get dissected by seniors, but only because they’re helping you grow, not because they’re a client who thinks they “know better” than you do.

Their more concerned about helping you (and everyone else on the team) come up with “big ideas” and new angles to test than trying to micromanage you.

And really THAT’S how you avoid those scenarios — by refusing to work with those kinds of companies or clients where you have to spend a single minute “educating” them on what you do or “explain” why you’re doing what you’re doing.

You avoid that by choosing to work with high level direct response firms who aren’t hiring agencies to “help them grow” because they don’t know how to do it themselves.

They already know how to do it themselves, they just need more copywriters, more ideas, more promos to test, so they can keep the lifeblood of their business flowing.

THAT’S who you target.

As far as how to structure deals? The deals in this industry are more or less structured already due to just standardized “best practices” shared among most of these kinds of operations.

I can tell you that for front-end promotions (a low-cost front-end campaign to convert cold traffic primarily) I’ve charged as low as $2,000 and up to $12,000 with the mid range being about $6,000.

Royalties are about 2%. Bonuses kick in if a certain amount of buyer threshold is hit.

For backends (meaning selling a higher priced product to someone who has already purchased other product — such as a front-end) the typical charge was $8,000 to $12,000 with 3% to up to 5% commissions on gross revenue less chargebacks and refunds.

Some other people I know who primarily write short copy (so emails, landing pages, opt-in pages, and so on) typically make about $5,000 to $10,000 a month (as many of these are ongoing efforts). Some get bonuses for certain bench marks paid out twice a year. Some get a percent of sales based on their contribution to the total sales (I think usually like 1%).

So you don’t really need to worry too much about “structuring a deal” — these companies already have basic structures in place.

They’ll ask you “What do you charge?” and you can basically say something in the range of what I just provided.

So for a promotion you could say “I typically charge about $10,000 for a campaign and 3% royalties.”

Even if you’ve NEVER charged that — don’t worry about it.

Because here’s another tip — it’s easier to negotiate DOWN than UP.

Many people think they need to “start small” and work their way up. But this is wrong.

You need to quote a price that makes you feel uncomfortable.

Best case scenario the client accepts it outright.

Worse case scenario they say “That’s too much!” and then you say, “Ah — you know what, that’s okay. Because I really want to work with you guys, I’m willing to negotiate and do something that’s more within your budget.”

This does a few things.

1. It puts a psychological pressure on them not to lower the price by TOO much because it’ll make them look like a cheapskate

2. It commands immediate respect, because now they consider you ‘worth that much” and so it seems like YOU are doing a FAVOR for them

3. They feel like they’re getting a deal. They can say “Hah! This guy wanted us to pay $10k, but we got him down to $8k!” little do they know, that in your head, your floor was $5k!

Now compare that to negotiating UP!

Think about it, “Hey I know we just did the last three projects at $1,000, but now I want to increase the price to $2,000 for the next one.”

LOL! Not going to happen!

Your best bet is drop the client and go get a completely new one charging the higher price. Once you put that ceiling in, it’s almost impossible to break through it.

This is why you ALWAYS overcharge and then negotiate DOWN.

• I was thinking of offering a fixed monthly retainer for a certaint amount of client accounts per month and asking them to let me use AI for edits and ideation.

  But I would love to hear your opinion on it first.

Going off my own experience here for retainers, I can tell you that I never started off talks with a client with the sheer goal of getting them to commit to a monthly retainer or monthly payment in general.

Right now I get paid $15,000 a month by one client and $10,000 a month by the other client, but that’s because they were actively seeking out long-term contractors (and in fact the first client is one I USED to be an actual employee of, but opted to go back as a contractor rather than employee).

So the reason I have those monthly payments is because they were looking for continual roles.

However, in the past when a client turned into a regular monthly paying client is essentially because we just found ourselves working together so regularly.

With Wyatt Investment Research for example I started off doing one project for them at $10k and 5% royalties.

Then we did another the next moth….

And another….

And another…

So eventually I just said, “Hey, looks like we’re doing about a full promo every month. I charge $10k a promo. Let’s just go on contract.”

And that’s how that happened and I was with them for about 4 years.

But I think those types of situations will simply happen naturally. If you and a client are working regularly eventually it makes sense to just set a longer term project, define the parameters, and go on a kind of monthly retainer.

But don’t force it out of the gate, in my opinion.

And of course there’s the fact that plenty of these companies are just saying “We want a copywriter to go on contract with us.”

One thing I will mention about those positions is that a lot of the time they’ll say like “Full time, remote.”

I’ve never encountered a situation where that meant you’ll actually be working “full time” in the sense of traditional full time hours (40 hours a week) or where you’ll be chained to your desk from 9 - 5.

So to be honest I don’t even know why they define positions in this industry like that anymore.

I can’t write 8 hours a day.

That’s not how a copywriter role functions.

That’s not really how ANY creative role functions.

How do you quantify my long walks on the beach?

My daydreaming while getting a foot massage?

Me watching a documentary or reading a book that’s half-way kinda-sorta related to a project I’m working on that gives me a sudden light bulb idea?

How do you quantify my binge drinking at the local bar that has me get a sudden “Eureka” moment 3 tequila shots into the night, where I scribble my next winning campaign idea on the back of a napkin and stuff it in my pocket?

What about when I only work 1 hour one day and 6 hours the next?

What about when it takes me 8 hours to research an idea but only 30 minutes to write it?

How do you quantify ANY of that into a “40 hour work week”?

There is no “on” and there is no “off” as a copywriter.

There are no set “working” hours there is no “standard amount of time” you put in and then clock out.

The job is always there and you’re always sort of working no matter what you’re doing and you’re always sort of not at the same time.

So don’t let job descriptions like that fool you — I think people just say that because what they really mean is “We want you to work long term with us.”

That being said — why on earth would you need anybody’s “permission” to use AI for edits, ideation, research, writing, or any other such thing?

Your process is your process, any tools you use to create copy is just part of your process and if it’s getting strong results and making money, who cares?

If your process is to strip naked, swallow the worm, and run around on all fours howling at the moon to get the juices flowing — it doesn’t matter as long as your copy is producing measurable results.

You don’t need anybody’s “permission” to do that.

As long as you’re not blatantly plagiarizing somebody’s work or getting your facts wrong, do what helps you get results.

If there is ANY client you’re thinking of working with that spouts some utter Grade-A horseshit like “You’re not allowed to use AI and we’ll check to see if you used AI” run far, far away from them and never look back.

The $700 MILLION/year financial client and $150 million/year health supplement clients I work with BOTH heavily encourage the use of AI and could not possibly care less about anybody using it.

THOSE are the kinds of companies you want to work with.

• Oh, one last thing...

  I'm a from Mexico (I know you said it does not matter, but I still want to ask).

  Will that make it harder for me to break into Finpub world?’

If you’re a good copywriter it shouldn’t matter.

If you can display that you are hungry, have a good eye for coming up with unique angles, and you’re endlessly curious then it doesn’t matter.

I’ve seen people who taught themselves English while living in countries like India landing six figure+ jobs at high level FinPubs.

You already saw Philip from Nigeria.

Look — if a high school dropout with no college education from the deep south can break into the FinPub world while living in Thailand and only ever having written low-level copy for Fiverr and Upwork type jobs — then you can too.

Only two points in my entire direct response career have I actually ever met my clients in person.

99.9% of everything was done 10,000+ miles away without actually meeting anybody in person, having zero formal credentials or education, and as you can tell from posts like this (which I am NOT going to go back an proof read) I have horrible spelling and punctuation skills.

If I can do it I hardly think the fact that you just happen to be Mexican is a problem.

That’s it for today’s issue!

Anybody else have some burning questions you want answered?

Let me know!

• William