CHAPTER 4: CLIENT FOCUS
Task: make a note in your business plan about the different kinds of people/organizations you might target; consider this in light of your own experience, skill set and educational qualifications.
Learning goal: to give you a practice-based focus on the client base most likely to give you work.
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4.1 Who are your potential clients?
Client types are wide ranging, but ask yourself this: are they all suitable for you and are you suitable for all of them? Freelance editors and proofreaders work for publishers, independent self-publishing authors, academic authors preparing articles for journal submission, students writing theses, pre-press project management agencies, businesses, magazines and newspapers, freelance writers and bloggers, website owners and professional associations. This list isn’t exhaustive, but it gives you an idea.
4.2 What’s your unique selling point (USP)?
In an interview on my blog, one of our featured practitioners, Marcus Trower, said: ‘I think it’s better to come across […] as a specialist in a particular field than it is to sell yourself as a generalist.’ I agree. Think about your background and specialist skills – your USPs. You are more likely to be of interest to potential clients for whom your background is relevant to the material they are publishing.
You may dream of editing crime fiction or salivate over the idea of proofreading the next Salman Rushdie novel, but if you have a degree in engineering you really would be better off, at the outset, targeting publishers, businesses and professional bodies with technical publications, or individual academics preparing to submit to technical journals. On the other hand, if you are fluent in another tongue, this skill could be a way of adding value to the editing services you offer to clients whose first language matches your second.
Specializing also makes it much easier to stand out in the search engines (an important consideration for anyone when doing a business plan). Getting to the top of Google for a phrase like ‘academic proofreading’ is so much easier than ‘proofreading’ because there is far less competition for those keywords.
Here are some other points to consider:
4.2.1 Educational background
If you have a scientific background, science, technical and medical (STM) publishers will be much more interested in you than me – indeed, most editors/proofreaders I know who are working in STM have scientific qualifications of some type. If you have a legal qualification, consider focusing on legal societies, law and criminology publishers, and law students. Publishers and independent researchers have told me how much they value their freelancers having knowledge of the subject matter in which they are publishing, so selling your educational background is a critical marketing tool and thus a key consideration at the business-planning stage.
In addition to her career background in social science publishing, Louise has a degree in politics. Her many years spent in higher education and in the office reading social science texts meant she understood the language, style and structure of the material. This knowledge base was her USP. It wouldn’t make her attractive to a fiction-publishing client, so she based the client-focus section of her business plan around social science presses. She made a list of every academic publishing house in the UK, highlighting those with strong lists in the fields of politics and international relations.
Your educational background can really make a difference, and the more specialist your qualifications, the more able you are to stand out from the crowd. The higher your qualifications, the more you have to sell!
Anna completed a PhD and postdoctoral research in developmental/evolutionary biology and then worked as an in-house editor on several biology journals. Her specialist scientific knowledge is one of her USPs. She therefore decided to target scientific publishers and independent researchers planning to submit articles to biomedical journals. Anna’s qualifications enable her to reach out to specialist sectors of the market that the broad base of the freelance community would not be able to access.
4.2.2 Past career
Your previous career experience is something you should give serious attention to when writing your business plan. Think about the skills you have and how you will present them in a way that demonstrates a match with your target client base. The aim is to build a list of clients who are publishing material in your field of expertise. Using your previous career as a marketing instrument will be vital in helping you to stand out from the crowd. The following examples illustrate the point:
~ If you’re targeting publishing clients, and you’ve worked in publishing, use your business plan to remind yourself that this is a key selling point. It shows that you understand the business of publishing: the importance of deadlines, the diplomacy involved in author liaison, the challenges that your in-house contacts will be facing, the standards required, the financial margins they are working within, and the broader editorial process.
~ If you’ve been a social worker, you might initially target clients who are publishing in the areas of social work, social policy and administration.
~ If you’ve been a teacher, consider targeting students, academics or educational publishers rather than trying to convince an independent literary fiction writer to give you a break.
~ If you are an ex-accountant, consider clients who are publishing professional and academic material in the areas of business, finance, organization studies, marketing and administration.
~ If you have an engineering background, you might think about publishers, professional trade associations, magazines and businesses in the engineering and construction fields.
Janet spent many years as a practising lawyer. Her USP is the specialist legal knowledge that enables her to go beyond knocking a particular piece of text into shape; her field expertise means she can help publishers, academics, PhD candidates, researchers and practising lawyers identify structural problems or errors on complex points of law that could have expensive consequences if left undetected.
USPs can be specific, as in the previous case with Janet, or more broadly conceived, as Kate demonstrates in the next study.
Kate had career-based knowledge of the business and finance world and experience of working in the public sector. Says Kate: ‘I realized one of my USPs was the fact I’d worked outside of the publishing industry … I felt that my experience would help me understand the needs of business clients and therefore help with my proofreading and editing of their files.’
4.3 Armchair specialisms and hobbies
Hobbies are not to be ignored – you may not be a professional photographer, artist, angler, historian or crafter, but a particular hobby may have made you an informal specialist in a field. There are many independent and niche publishers who will be happier turning their manuscripts over to you if you can demonstrate knowledge in a niche area.
One of my clients recently asked me if I felt comfortable taking on a proofread for a book about baking. I did a bit more digging to find out what was required and, realizing that I’d have no clue if teaspoon measurements had accidently turned into tablespoons, we mutually agreed that she would send the project elsewhere! What may be a simple home-based task to you might be a highly prized skill to a client. So, for example, if you’re a mighty fine cook, then consider searching for those publishers with strong food and cookery lists.
The same goes for gardening, child-rearing, DIY or dress-making, just as a few more ideas. There are scores of books that are published in these fields so if you have skills in these areas, use your business plan to consider how you might present this as one of your USPs.
In addition to her in-house editing roles at several children’s and educational publishers, Liz had worked for a packager specializing in art and craft titles. She is also an enthusiastic cook. Liz understood that this combination of her career experience and practical interests was one of her USPs. One of her specialisms is now copy-editing and project managing highly illustrated non-fiction craft and cookery books.
4.4 Do the research
There are no short cuts here, alas. Carrying out the detailed research for your business plan will enable you to reap the benefits when you begin your promotion strategy, so take the long view and do the hard graft. In your business plan, compile a list of all the clients you are going to contact. They should be relevant to your background and experience. Note the name of the organization, the types of material it publishes, and the name of the person to contact. Make a quick phone call if you don’t know the name of the person in charge of commissioning editorial services. My initial list had over 70 entries.
Take time to research each client, even if there are lots of them. Make a note in your business plan of their specialist areas so that you can customize your contact message. Round-robin letters are less likely to get you noticed than tailored ones.
Think about what your potential clients want so that when you contact them you convey the right message. There’s no point in telling them about how you can use the BSI markup symbols if they are a non-publishing business that needs its editorial freelancers to work on Word documents. On the other hand, if you are contacting publishers who work primarily on paper, they’ll want to know that you have this ability. So, research the client and find out the types of material they publish, the media they use, the services they require and the tools they’d want you to work with.
KEY POINTS
~ Client focus is about marrying your experience and skills with those of the people/organizations who are publishing printed or online material. Identify your own USPs in your business plan so that you can sell them on to clients further down the line.
~ When starting out, don’t waste valuable time targeting those for whom you are not going to stand out.
~ Specialize first; diversify later. Once you have experience you may find that opportunities to widen your remit come your way, or you can actively investigate them. In the early days, though, focus on your specialist knowledge base.
~ Use the business-planning phase to write a short pitch articulating why your client group needs you. Until this is clear in your own mind, you won’t be able to convince anyone else.