A friend with whom I'd worked before on direct response projects called me. “Got a big deal working, but the guy wants to see some samples.”
My snorted response: “Pass.”
I've lived on this planet long enough to know that sending samples, whether they're hand-scrawled on butcher's paper or embossed and die-cut on 200-pound enamel, have all the significance of a recitation of the annual rainfall in Liechtenstein.
That's a given. A second given is that nobody ever has the courtesy to return samples. And a third is that many samples are outright lies. I recall vividly acting as filter for a direct marketing company that was looking for a creative director and spotting a sample from a candidate whose name and résumé were unknown to me. I knew that sample very well, because I had written it.
We might add a fourth: Many mailings and ads are completed in committee. That makes all samples, supposedly representing one person's creative salesmanship, suspect.
I quit collecting samples some years ago. My filing cabinet loves me for it. Oh, sure, occasionally a benevolent client will send me some samples. And I admit that occasionally I'll stick a couple of those pieces into the filing cabinet. But even as I do that, I reassure myself it's for a personal sense of history, not for display as supplication for a creative job.
So I made the logical suggestion to my friend, whose friendliness became a bit frosty at the suggestion: That potential client knows who we are. If we can't go into the arena with prefabricated recognition of our professionalism, it's unlikely we're going to please him. Yeah, yeah, I knew as I mouthed the cliché that it was a cliché and the possibility of landing this job was probably zilch unless we ran on the pre-laid tracks.
OK, I'm an idiot. My friend was desperate for samples. Oh, all right. I unearthed a magnificent winner for a Haviland porcelain collectible…a clever mailing for San Francisco Music Box Co.… a fundraising mailing I was especially proud of…a highly effective mini-mailer for a business publication…and a couple of others. Proud to have found these treasures, I sent them off (charged to the other's guy's FedEx account). An accompanying note warned of dire consequences if I didn't get back these riches from the Louvre.
What a surprise: About three weeks later I e-mailed my friend, asking what had happened. “Uh…it didn't work out. The samples didn't match what they were looking for.”
Of course they didn't. If the samples matched what they were looking for, they'd have swiped the ideas and turned the job over to a staff writer. Oh, well, at least I hadn't paid for sending them. And my warning of broken windows and kneecaps did bring back my samples, although a couple of them were somewhat the worse from shipping and handling, especially handling.
The “Administrative Assistant” of an executive with a West Coast company sent me an e-mail asking for samples. This struck me as one of those one-way-street negotiations, because I had no notion who the company might be or what the project might be.
So I asked, mildly, how she happened to contact me. The answer: “You're in a book.” A pro and a con here. Pro: She spelled “You're” properly. Con: Selection is about as elitist as being in the phone book.
So I explained that I no longer collect samples, suggested she might want to look me up on my Web site, and offered a reference — a major company that happened to be in her same city. About a week later, in came a boilerplate e-mail thanking me for my participation and “explaining” that the company had gone with “a recommendation.” Relief for me, no postage wasted. But how many eager or even anxious candidates sent samples fruitlessly into a black hole?
Samples, whether creative or lists, can be misleading. So what moves can a wary marketer make for protection against phony claims of competence?
Wellllll…
The marketer can check to see if the potential supplier has a Web site. Better yet, the marketer can ask the supplier to provide some client names as references (and they shouldn't be close relatives). If a direct marketer is interviewing candidates for staff positions, the answer is even easier, because a quick and simple writing test will yield more information than samples can offer, both in talent and in speed.
A suggestion, if you're giving writing “tests” to creative job candidates: Lard the instructions with words such as utilize and quality and indeed and however. If your prospective employee regurgitates those words back at you, beware: He or she either is unaware of what selling copy actually is, or he or she is afraid of you. Either situation is unhealthy for both parties.
HERSCHELL GORDON LEWIS is the principal of Lewis Enterprises in Fort Lauderdale, FL. He consults with and writes direct response copy for clients worldwide. Among his 27 books are a just-published new edition of “On the Art of Writing Copy,” “Marketing Mayhem” and “Effective E-mail Marketing.”
