Why Clients Hire Me (and How You Can Show Them You’re Worth Hiring Too)

 

Nobody hires me because I know where the commas go.

They hire me because I know where the work needs to go.

And if you’re a marketing writer trying to win over clients, here’s the secret. And it’s not just about turning clever phrases. It’s about showing that you can do 4 things most copywriters either can’t do, don’t do, or don’t bother to prove they can do.

1. Zoom Out Before You Zoom In

Anyone can write a sentence. Not everyone can step back far enough to see the business, the brand, the market, and the moment in time … and then figure out where the sentence fits. The “zoom out” is what lets you write words that aren’t just pretty, but profitable.

Show it: Ask questions that scare small thinkers … questions about the market, about the why, about what happens in six months if this campaign works. Clients will notice.

2. Speak More Than One Business Language

I’ve written for teams that looked like Noah’s Ark: two of everything: designers, engineers, product managers, brand strategists, and that one mysterious person who “handles the numbers.” My job? Be fluent in all of their dialects.

Show it: In meetings, translate your thinking into terms each team understands. Talk benefits with marketing. Talk conversion rates with sales. Talk technical feasibility with dev. You become the bridge they didn’t know they needed.

3. Tie It to the Bigger Prize

Every line of copy has a job to do, and that job rolls up to a bigger product goal, which rolls up to a bigger company vision. If you can trace the line from headline to quarterly revenue target without breaking a sweat, you’re already in the top 10% of writers clients will trust (and C-suite will love).

Show it: Map your deliverables back to product or business metrics in your pitch decks and project updates. Make it impossible for them to see your work as “just words.”

4. Bring Empathy to the Mess

Products are messy. Teams are messy. Projects, especially the big, high-stakes ones, are basically chaos in a 3-piece suit. Empathy is what lets you navigate that without losing your cool (or your deadlines).

Show it: When things go sideways, focus on understanding the “why” behind the mess instead of pointing fingers. This isn’t about being nice … it’s about solving a problem faster because you actually understand the people and the problem.

 

Bottom line: If you can prove you’re more than a typist with taste, you stop competing with “writers” and start competing with strategists. And strategists get hired, re-hired, and referred.

A Couple of Classic Stories

There are a bunch of classic stories that have circulated around the advertising community for years. 

One of my favorites involved Donald Trump:

When Donald Trump launched Trump Shuttle in 1989, he hired Chiat/Day, the hottest ad agency at the time, to create the ads. They delivered their signature bold, creative work, but Trump hated it.

Trump fired off an angry letter on his gold-embossed letterhead. Jay Chiat simply sent it back with a handwritten note: "Donald, I thought you should know that some lunatic has stolen your stationery."

Trump fired them the next day.

And here's one specifically for the copywriters:

A client once hired a renowned copywriter, then proceeded to rewrite all their work. When the client joked, "I guess I'm just a frustrated copywriter," the writer shot back: "No, I'm a frustrated copywriter. You're an asshole."

 

Typo?

In 2018, Visible, a cell phone service provider, advertised “unlimited massages” instead of “unlimited messages” in Denver, its hometown market.

The campaign centered on 150 outdoor ads around Denver promising “unlimited massages, minutes, and data” for $40 a month. Of course, when a company makes a “typo”, the internet attacks like a lion spotting a limping gazelle. Screenshots flew. Hashtags appeared. Snarky advice like, “This is why you proofread” was offered.

“Free massages?” they said. “Sign me up.”

Visible leaned into it. They responded with jokes on social media. “We’re all about eliminating pain points.” “Are we sending mixed massages?” That kind of thing.

Then a few days later they delivered the punchline: the typo was deliberate. And if you showed up at Denver Union Station on specific day, they’d actually give you a free chair massage. CBD oil if you wanted it. Towels, eye masks, kombucha. The whole spa-day starter pack.

The whole thing feels like a magic trick designed for social media. The typo isn’t really a typo. The mistake is the point. It’s bait, engineered to trigger the internet’s favorite reflex: “Look at this dumb thing.”

But I’ll give Visible this: at least the payoff was real.

Too many marketing stunts end with nothing but a tweet thread and a vague sense that you’ve been manipulated. These people actually gave massages. Multiple massages, apparently, if you wanted to stand back in line like a kid riding the same roller coaster.

There’s something human about that. A "typo" that becomes a joke that becomes a real-world event where strangers sit in folding chairs getting their shoulders kneaded.

Which, if you think about it, is probably the closest modern advertising gets to art: a small absurd moment where language slips, the internet notices, and suddenly a phone company is handing out CBD massages like it’s running a pop-up spa.

I’m still not convinced the world needed this … but, from my point of view, if you’re gonna manipulate my attention with a typo, at least bring a massage therapist.

The NY Times: AI vs Human

In March 2026, the New York Times ran a quiz where readers picked AI-written passages over human ones. 

My first reaction wasn’t outrage or awe. It was a long, tired “yeah… that tracks.”

Not because I think machines have suddenly developed a soul. But because I’ve spent enough years reading things online to know most writing isn’t exactly brimming with one to begin with.

We like to pretend there’s this sacred line between “human writing” and everything else, as if every article comes straight from someone’s inner life … messy, vivid, earned. But a lot of it? It’s just clean sentences doing their job. Functional. Like airport signage. Nobody cries over Gate B12.

So when people say readers couldn’t tell the difference, I don’t hear “AI has arrived.” I hear: “Most writing was already halfway there.”

And honestly, the results make perfect sense. If you strip away the author’s name, the publication, the little halo of credibility we like to place over certain bylines, what’s left?

Rhythm. Clarity. Momentum.

AI is very good at those things. It’s like a cover band that never misses a note. Tight. Polished. Slightly eerie if you stare too long.

But here’s the part that interests me more: the gap between factual and opinion writing. People preferred AI for the clean, informational stuff, but it lost ground when things got personal.

Of course it did. Because information is about getting somewhere. Opinion is about having been somewhere.

And you can feel that difference, even if you can’t always articulate it. It’s the difference between a map and a story about getting lost.

The problem is, a lot of modern writing, especially online, doesn’t really do either. It hovers in this strange middle zone. Competent. Inoffensive. About as memorable as a receipt.

That’s the writing AI is quietly replacing. Not the brilliant stuff. Not the strange, voicey, slightly unhinged essays that make you stop and reread a sentence just to see how it was built.

It’s replacing the middle.

Which, if I’m being honest, deserves to feel a little nervous.

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Who’s a Better Writer: A.I. or Humans? Take Our Quiz. March 9, 2026 Kevin Roose and Stuart A. Thompson