What’s on the iPod: Safe by The Airborne Toxic Event
It’s been a fruitful week so far. I’ve made good progress on two articles and I hope to have one in to the editor today. The other won’t be far behind. That means Lori gets a much-deserved vacation soon.
This week has also been fruitful in terms of reaching out to new clients. I’ve had conversations with two clients, one of which I suspect I’ll be working with soon. The other may be kicking the tires, so I’m going to let the information I’d provided be the last word from me for now. If there’s interest, they’ll be in touch.
That’s a far different attitude from the one I had in my beginning years as a freelancer. Then, every contact with a customer was a must-have sale. At least from my perspective, I was desperate to please. And much to my own detriment, I ended up in bad situations unable to please people who were clearly not committed to the working relationship.
Now, I screen clients a lot more carefully. Some tire kickers still get through, but the majority of the prospects I contact not only need a writer, but they want one and are willing to pay for quality writing.
How much nicer it is to talk with people like that.
But if you’re starting out or if you’re a generalist, finding that ideal client is like finding the Holy Grail. Choosing wisely can be tough if you don’t know what you’re doing.
The marketing gurus use a simple method to determine ideal customers. It goes something like this:
- Age and gender
- Marital status
- Education level
- Geographic location
- Lifestyle
- Proximity to business location(s)
That works for marketing firms who are targeting individual customers. For freelance writers? I think we need to tweak a bit. Here’s a list of my identifiers:
- Industry and focus
- Customer demographics (if it’s a business or magazine)
- Has a problem that requires writing skills
- Needs/wants specific things
- Is motivated to work with you
- Is the decision maker
- Is willing to pay what you charge
Industry and focus. Choose any industry– general consumer writing, for example. What type of client falls into that category? Well, look at who’s targeting the consumer population; retailers selling everything from hand cream to life insurance; service providers offering everything from oil changes to roofing…so narrow it down to a focus. Do you want to work with people who need healthcare writing? How about companies that need technical manual writing for consumer products? What about textbooks? Figure out what segment of that industry you want to target (and it’s a personal choice with no wrong answer and that answer can change any time you want it to). Write it down.
Customer demographics. Suppose you chose to work with people who sell hand cream. You now need to know who their target customers are. Women, certainly. But how many men, too? What ages are their customers? That depends on the company. One company may target women over 50 years while another peddles scented lotions for the teen-aged crowd. Within each of those targeted audiences are slews of companies pushing their products and competing for business.
Has a problem that requires your skills. How can your targeted group stand out from the competition? How can they increase sales? How do they say this when all their current marketing says that? Your job is to find that problem that keeps them up nights and offer solutions.
Need/want specific things. Clearly different sides of the same coin, right? They may want a shiny new brochure and sales letter, but they may need a website update and a social media presence. It’s your job to hear what they want and make suggestions to help them uncover their needs, as well.
Is motivated to work with you. It’s the tire-kicker syndrome; you communicate with them more than twice and each time the question of “How much does this cost …” comes up. You’re probably talking with someone who’s trying out the idea and not really committed to hiring you. Do what you like, but I usually decrease my contact with someone who exhibits tire-kicking behavior. I don’t close the door entirely (there could be plenty of reasons why there’s hesitation), but I don’t pursue endlessly communication that feels like it has a quicksand base. Look for clients who can spell out exactly what they want and those who don’t lead with the questions on price.
Also, there are times people don’t show the motivation because they don’t realize the need. Here’s where the savvy freelance writer can help them realize the need. For example, I contact people who are about to exhibit at trade shows and offer to help them get their booth materials in good shape. They may not hire you for that specific job, but don’t think it isn’t a good introduction to impart the message “I pay attention to what your company does and I can help.”
Likewise, think about a magazine editor. Where else do you have a more motivated audience than in the editor, whose primary concern is filling pages with great content? That’s the kind of motivation you hope for and can help instill in your clients.
Is the decision maker. I remember having lunch with a prospect, who’d told me his company had plenty of work for me. I spent an hour explaining my background and how it fit into his company’s needs, and I picked up the tab. Imagine my surprise when I followed up and he directed me to his boss, who not only didn’t need a writer, but didn’t have a clue who I was. Make sure the person you contact can hire you. It’s okay to ask if they have to run the decision by someone else. That’s a subtle way of verifying the level of authority your contact has.
Is willing to pay what you charge. There’s no point whatsoever in courting a client only to find out your rate is three times what they can afford, or that they regard writers with the same disdain as they do the IRS (though I personally am an IRS fan). Get your price out there at the outset. It helps weed out those who aren’t your clients. Plus, make sure before you contact the client that they have a healthy bottom line. For individual clients, this is a bit impossible, but for companies it’s not hard to find out how much revenue they make. Also, pay attention to clues about their financial situation. A one-person shop usually has a website that suggests they’re one person doing the work of twelve. Not that smaller operations can’t be fantastic customers – they can indeed. But there are clues, such as the rudimentary website, the lack of any real involvement in their industry, etc. that can suggest your skills aren’t going to be compensated adequately.
After you’ve vetted clients for a while, you’ll be able to see within seconds if this is a viable prospect. Don’t forget your best tool in the vetting process — your intuition. Trust what your gut is telling you and don’t be afraid to back away if it feels wrong.
Writers, how do you go about identifying your ideal client?
client advice Marketing
I'm neck-deep in a client acquisition campaign now,and identifying quality prospects is the most important step. I'm looking at companies in my targeted industry who generate a certain range of annual revenues (at least $10 million). The databases available online through my public library's portal are invaluable in this first step. At this revenue level, my prospective companies will have at least one, if not multiple, dedicated marketing people, identifiable by their titles (VP or Director of Marketing, etc.) Not only that, but pretty much everything else falls into place, too.
You pointed out that you want to be talking to the decision maker. When I was working with small, local businesses I had to be really careful about this and make sure I wasn't spinning my wheels. Only the owner could make those decisions, but the owner was wearing about 17 hats running his business and was difficult to get to commit to or understand the need for marketing communications. At the corporate levels I now target, that's very rarely an issue; a marketing director has a budget and can spend it how he/she sees fit. 99 times out of 100, if they're talking to me, they're the decision maker; 4 times out of 5 they're willing to meet my fee requirements. But there are exceptions; recently, a promised $3000 job was abruptly cancelled, I suspect because the marketing director's boss unexpectedly told her she could only use in-house staff for the job. But that's rare.
I was too timid to go after the big fish for years, but that was foolish. I find it's actually easier, overall, to find quality prospects and close a sale for $10m-$500m companies than it was at the small local business level.
Eileen, I thought of you as I wrote this post. Thank you for offering your perspective and advice. I'd LOVE a guest post from you once your campaign comes to a close (or at least shows you some numbers).
Great point about small businesses and who that decision maker is. I've seen the same thing. In one case, I contacted the owner, who had his son follow up. Six emails and no accepted phone calls later, I stopped contacting them. It was as I mentioned before — leading with the "How much for this" conversation, and ignoring my reasons for why I could really help him.
When they're ready, they'll call. Or not. There are some clients who just don't want to spend any money on marketing or improving communications.
Same here. I didn't want to go after the top guns, either. But you're right — they were the easiest ones to sell to!
Great tips, Lori. I learned a while ago that my ideal client is often the Director (VP in smaller companies) of Marketing. Basically, I help them shine to their bosses. They stay on track for marketing projects, hit deadlines, and get professional results.
It's strategy I learned from my corporate days when I worked as a broker/consultant in the employee benefits arena. Work with the HR Manager/Director and help her or him to shine and you have a loyal client for a long time.
Cathy, what you said cannot be overemphasized. We are here to make our clients' jobs easier. We are doing them a valuable service. If you are marketing to large groups of people who, for whatever reason, don't understand that, you're targeting the wrong people. I've been doing a lot of prospect mailing and following up by phone recently, and on the rare occasions when I get a person and not a voice mail, they almost all say something like "thanks for reaching out" whether they have a current need or not.
Lori, regarding the top guns … with 20/20 hindsight, I avoided going after them for far too long. I think it's a common freelancer mistake. However, with that said, I think newbie freelancers might want to make all their mistakes on smaller businesses first, build their skills, portfolio, and confidence, and then move to bigger fish.