Website changes that can lead to finding new clients

By Nate Hoffelder, The Digital Reader

Guest Columnist

With the pandemic dragging on in the U.S., public events such as conferences and trade shows are effectively canceled for the indefinite future. Your chance of meeting new clients (or colleagues who might refer you to new clients) in person is essentially nil, which means that your website is 10 times more important today than it was last year.

If you haven’t taken some time to refresh your site recently, now is a good time to do so.

In my last post for An American Editor, I discussed 18 questions you should ask when refreshing your site. Today I would like to share seven specific changes you can make to your site to win more clients.

Let’s start with email.

Get a professional email address

One easy way to set yourself apart from all the other editors out there is to get an email address that matches your website’s domain. Almost everyone has their email with Gmail, Yahoo, AOL or another of the big web service companies. Those services are fine, to varying degrees, but using MyName@MySite.com simply looks more professional. It sends the message that you are serious enough about your work that you choose to present a professional image. (Editor’s note: It also gives you a permanent e-ddress, so you can change providers as necessary without having to notify everyone you’ve ever corresponded with about a new point of contact.)

At the same time, you should also choose an address that starts with your name or occupation. If your current email address references either your kids, pets or hobbies, that again does not present a professional image. My email address is Nate@NateHoffelder.com. It’s not terribly original, no, but it does present the right image, while an email address ending in Verizon, Comcast or AOL would not.

Add a Services page

Clients can’t hire you if they don’t know what you do, and that is why your website needs one or more pages listing your services.

I used to have several service pages, each focused on a single service, but now I just have the one services page on my site. I list four services on that page, and for each service, I explain what I do and how my clients benefit. I also have a button that links to my contact form.

Pro tip: The easier you make it for a website visitor to take action, the more likely they are to become a client. (Repeat after me: A frustrated visitor is a lost client, while an engaged visitor is one step away from being a paying client.)

Include testimonials

One of the best ways to convince a potential client to hire you is to tell them what others are saying about your work, which is why you should add at least a few testimonials to your website. I have about 20, which might be overkill, but I formatted my testimonial page so they are not too overwhelming.

Find the eight or 10 testimonials in your files that you think are the best, and copy them to a new page on your site. Be sure to fix the formatting so the client’s name is in bold, and use enough white space between each testimonial for them to stand out.

Add samples of your work

Your website’s visitors are going to wonder whether you have the skills they need. The best way to show them that you do is to have samples of your work, either on your site as links or images, or as PDFs that can be downloaded.

If possible, try to include both a before and after. This will give potential clients a better understanding of your style, and what you bring to the table. (Editor’s note: One important caveat for editors and proofreaders, though — Be sure you have the client’s permission to show what you did for their material. Not everyone wants the world to see the “before” version. And even with that permission, do your best to anonymize the material to minimize the potential for embarrassing the client.)

Collect emails for your mailing list

Email newsletters are one of the most-effective ways of marketing your services. An e-letter is your best opportunity to be invited to talk to potential clients by sending messages to their inboxes. But before you can send newsletters, you need to get email addresses for prospective readers, and for that, you need a mailing list sign-up form.

Even if you don’t want to send newsletters now, you should still have a sign-up form just in case your plans change. I can’t tell you how many years I wasted by not collecting email addresses, and I don’t want you to repeat my mistake, so please do yourself a favor, and add a mailing list form to your site.

While we are on the topic, why stop at one form? My recommendation is that you have a form for your mailing list in the footer of every page, in the sidebar next to blog posts, as a pop-up, and at least twice on your home page.

Speaking of which, what does your home page look like?

Create a home page

One common problem I have seen with neglected websites is that they usually do not have a custom-written home page. Instead, blog posts take up the prime real estate. This is a terrible oversight because the home page is one of the most-viewed pages on a website. It is the best chance to introduce yourself to potential clients and win them over.

The marketing industry knows website home pages are so important that marketers have written whole book chapters about only that page. They’ve written 2,000- or 3,000-word blog posts explaining in detail how to get just one aspect of the page perfect.

I am not going to make you go read those voluminous posts, but I do have a post for you. It covers the six key elements you should have on your home page. I think that a website’s home page is so important that it has its own 996-word blog post. If you have limited funds or time, it is the one part of your website that you need to work on.

Ideally, however, I think you should improve all parts of your website. You never know which part will influence your next client the most.

Any questions?

Nate Hoffelder has been building and running WordPress websites since 2010. He blogs about indie publishing and helps authors connect with readers by customizing websites to suit each author’s voice. You may have heard his site, the Digital Reader (https://the-digital-reader.com), mentioned on news sites such as the NYTimes, Forbes, BoingBoing, Techcrunch, Engadget, Gizmodo or Ars Technica. He is scheduled to discuss websites for the 2020 virtual Communication Central/NAIWE/An American Editor “Be a Better Freelancer”^® conference this fall. The Digital Reader was a sponsor of the 2019 conference.

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On the Basics — Making time for marketing

Ruth E. Thaler-Carter, Editor-in-Chief & Owner

We’ve all heard the seemingly constant drum roll about the importance not only of marketing our editing services and businesses, but of doing so constantly, regularly, eternally. We’re expected to develop and post regularly to our own blogs, comment on colleagues’ blogs, be active in Facebook groups for our various business niches, post often at LinkedIn, blather on Twitter, join in professional associations, participate in the discussion lists and other outlets of those groups, create and send out newsletters, even be visually present in places like Instagram and YouTube. Not to mention attend meetings of those associations, go to the occasional conference, maybe even make presentations.

Oh, and don’t forget learning about and enhancing the keyword and search engine optimization (SEO) aspects of, and updating content at, our websites — assuming we’ve all created websites for our editorial businesses, or had them created for us.

On top of all that, there are also reminders to contact past and potential clients regularly with pitches for new work. It never ends!

Doing all that seems daunting, for introverts in terms of their personalities and extroverts in terms of their energy levels — and, more importantly, seems to leave little time for actual editorial work. One of my clients provides its clients with a list of awards worth entering, and just carrying that out — preparing submissions targeted to various awards, geographies, individuals and services — could require one or two full-time staffers (or freelancers!) with no other responsibilities.

What rarely gets mentioned is how to make time for all that promotional effort when there are actual projects to complete and deadlines to meet (not to mention a personal life). Here are a few ideas.

Oh, and by the way — marketing your skills is important to in-house editorial professionals as well as freelancers, although perhaps not as much. You never know when a full-time in-house job might suddenly go poof! and disappear. If you wait until that moment to start marketing yourself, it will take much longer to get noticed and rehired, and any interim freelance efforts will be much harder.

Start small

To keep from feeling overwhelmed, especially to the extent of letting the pressure to market keep you from doing anything at all, start on a small scale. Don’t commit to blogging every day or posting everywhere every day. Choose a given day, or week, for blog posts, and one or two channels to focus on at first. As the process becomes easier and more routine, increase the scope and frequency of your efforts.

Accountability

Establishing accountability systems is a great way to structure marketing — and work as well. Some colleagues partner with individual accountability buddies to keep themselves on track and make sure that neither marketing efforts nor deadlines go awry. Others participate in accountability groups whose members keep each other on schedule.

One of my online groups invites members to post about their recent successes every Friday. I’m not sure how much good that does for my business, other than keeping me in their minds when members of that group need to subcontract to or refer someone by reminding colleagues of the kinds of projects I handle, but it’s fun to do and a useful reminder of things I might want to add to my website. However, when the new Friday thread would show up, I couldn’t always remember what I wanted to post. I started keeping a Word document on my computer to record a week’s activities, achievements and issues as they occurred; when Friday comes along or I’m ready to do some website updates, all I have to do is copy from there.

Scheduling

One of my clients suggests setting a quarterly schedule for law firms to update attorney bios at their sites, to accommodate news about successes, new professional development activities, pro bono projects, presentations and publications, rankings, and other aspects of individual members of a firm that don’t necessarily change from day to day.

We editors and writers, both in-house and especially freelance, can do the same kind of thing. Having a schedule makes it easier to organize the information you need to add without making it feel quite as daunting to do. If you assign every Monday or Friday afternoon to marketing activities, and put that on your calendar as well, it’s easier to do those activities. Seeing them on your calendar also provides an often-needed nudge to pull together the information you need, or make the effort required, to get it done. It’s always harder to avoid something that’s staring at your from the calendar page or in that to-do list!

Automating

Another helpful approach is to automate your social media postings. There are a number of apps for doing this; you write a post — or several posts — ahead of time and the app sends out the information on a schedule that you set. All you have to do is remember to write something to be disseminated; the app does the rest for you.

Office hours

Using office hours to manage regular work can help free up time to do the marketing activity that we need to do. To keep from being overwhelmed by the combination of client demands or expectations with marketing efforts, set office hours and stick to them (at least as far as clients can see — we can work into the late hours, on weekends and holidays if necessary, but clients don’t have to know we’re doing that).

Many of us put our office hours at our websites. Others craft responses ahead of time to be prepared for those inevitable times when clients ask for work to be done at what we consider unreasonable hours.

Deadline-driven

Another approach is to treat marketing activity as an assignment. This is similar to scheduling specific days to do marketing: Put it on your calendar as if it’s a work deadline.

Networking

You knew I couldn’t write about a business aspect of editing without mentioning networking. Being active and visible in professional organizations, discussion lists, LinkedIn and Facebook groups, Twitter, etc., is essential to your marketing activity. Networking is where you meet and are met, see and are seen. The more people see that you are someone with skills who is worth working with, the more business you will generate.

Rewards

Beyond all of these approaches, some of us respond best to rewards. Be your own Pavlov and build in treats to motivate yourself to market your freelance business. A day off, a brisk walk, a generous helping of chocolate or ice cream, a movie outing … whatever makes you feel good about accomplishing a marketing goal, give yourself a reward for making progress. Sometimes the carrot of that reward is all it takes to push yourself to include a marketing effort on a busy day. And it doesn’t have to be a major move. Something as basic as updating a LinkedIn profile, adding new language to a website, answering a question at a discussion list, attending a networking event — it’s all grist for your marketing mill.

How do you make time for marketing your editorial work? What has worked best for you?

Ruth E. Thaler-Carter (www.writerruth.com) is the editor-in-chief and — as of 2019 — owner of An American Editor and an award-winning provider of editorial and publishing services for publications, independent authors, publishers, associations, nonprofits and companies worldwide. She also created and hosts the annual Communication Central “Be a Better Freelancer”^® conference for colleagues (www.communication-central.com), this year co-hosted with the National Association of Independent Writers and Editors (www.naiwe.com). She can be reached at Ruth.Thaler-Carter@AnAmericanEditor.com.

Special AAE conference discount extended!

The special discount for AAE subscribers for this year’s “Make Your Own Luck,” Communication Central’s 13th annual Be a Better Freelancer^® conference, has been extended to June 25. The discount offers substantial savings (even better than the colleague’s discount for past participants and members of professional associations) on this invaluable event.

Who says 13 is an unlucky number? The 13th annual Be a Better Freelancer^® conference, September 21-22 in scenic Rochester, NY, with an extra session on the morning of September 23, is a great way to improve your luck in launching or enhancing your editorial business.

Go to https://www.communication-central.com/aae-registration to download a PDF and register today. The AAE password is Register2018.

There’s only a very narrow window for this rate, so be sure to take advantage of it soon!

Familiar presenter names include Victoria Brzustowicz, April Michelle Davis, Ally Machate, Dick Margulis, Chris Morton and Pamela Hilliard Owens, with new insights and topics to share. Adrienne Montgomerie will be back with a lively session on marketing your business. New to the conference are Ann Kellett and Brenda Siler, along with Susannah Noel and Nancy Marriott of the Editorial Arts Academy.

Sessions will be of value to aspiring and established freelancers, as well as in-house professionals in editorial work.

Speaker bios and session info will be added to the Communication Central website over the next week or so. Owner and conference hostess Ruth E. Thaler-Carter has only one functional hand and arm for the moment, so site updates will take awhile.

Worth Noting: Value Marketing & the Editorial Business

A common mistake that editors make is that they do not give enough weight to the business side of their editorial business, thinking that if they edit manuscripts well, business will come with little to no marketing effort. Perhaps that was true 30 years ago (in my experience it was more true 30 years ago than it is now, but even 30 years ago it wasn’t all that true), but today — with all of the competition and the ease of entry into the profession — it is not. Today, marketing is a key part of a successful editorial business.

How to market, to whom to market, and what to market are the pillar questions that editors must face. Not so long ago, marketing amounted to preparing a resume and sending it out. Then when email became ubiquitous, email solicitation became the method of choice. No thought was given to how well these — or any other — methods worked; if the editor did some marketing and received a new project, the marketing effort was considered a success and was repeated during the next dry spell.

Alas, there is much more to marketing, and the more knowledgeable the editor is about the science and art of marketing, the more successful the editor will be in having a steady stream of business. In years past, I conducted regular marketing campaigns. They were planned and measured. The result was I not only did I have more work than I could handle myself, but I rarely had a day without a backlog of work nor a week without an inquiry as to my availability.

But I came to editing from a business route and so had some experience with marketing a service. What I didn’t have — and wish I had had — was Louise Harnby’s newest guide, Content Marketing Primer for Editors & Proofreaders: How to Add Value to Your Editorial Business (2017; £3.99).

Louise Harnby is a well-respected proofreader who also has a handle on the business aspects of proofreading business. Louise does not rely solely on passive marketing to promote her business; she engages in active marketing, too. Although she recognizes the importance of websites and other forms of passive promotion that require the person looking for her type of services to find her, she also recognizes the importance of active marketing. In her Content Marketing Primer for Editors & Proofreaders, Louise shares her insight into active marketing.

As Louise illustrates, marketing is much more than listing one’s services (passive marketing). Good marketing has a very active component that tells the potential client why the client needs services like those you offer and, more importantly, why those services are best obtained from you rather than from someone else. It is this that is the substance of content marketing.

Louise’s earlier books (Marketing Your Editing & Proofreading Business and Business Planning for Editorial Freelancers) provide more detail and a step-by-step guide to creating a business plan, but Content Marketing Primer for Editors & Proofreaders gives you the information you need to identify, create, and execute an active marketing plan for your editorial business.

Content Marketing Primer for Editors & Proofreaders discusses various types of content marketing (with some examples) and includes a framework that you can use to create your own content marketing plan, along with some case studies. Importantly, Louise discusses branding and timing — two very important parts of any marketing strategy that are often overlooked.

Recognizing that it is not enough to have a good marketing plan, Louise also offers advice on how to be seen among the crowd. Editors need to recognize that the editing profession grows daily as an increasing number of “editors” hang out their shingle and seek clients. The successful marketer is the one who is quickly spotted from among the sea of editors. Standing out is key and Louise offers advice on how to do so.

Louise Harnby’s Content Marketing Primer for Editors & Proofreaders: How to Add Value to Your Editorial Business is a guide that every professional editor who wants a successful editorial business should own and read, and implement its advice.

Richard Adin, An American Editor

(Note: I have no interest, financial or otherwise, in the Content Marketing Primer nor have I received any consideration in exchange for this review/mention.)

The Business of Editing: The Card — Don’t Leave Home Without Them

A repeatedly asked question goes something like this: “Any tips on how to find clients?” There are any number of variations, but the question really is asking “how should I market and to whom should I market?”

The answers given are always the standard answers for today. Be on social media, have a website, ask for referrals, and so on. Never mentioned is one of the oldest and most effective methods of marketing: The Card.

“The Card” is the business card. That little scrap of heavier paper that acts as an introduction of the giver to the recipient — the one piece of paper that a businessperson should never leave at home. It is the gold mine of essential information about its giver.

Colleagues who have attended conferences at which I have spoken know that the first thing I do is make sure everyone present receives at least one of my cards. What they don’t know — because I never said so — is that I also made sure that every hotel or restaurant employee I came in contact with also received a card; I do not know who they know. Experienced conference colleagues also know that I expected to receive a card from them. Some gave me one, but some just made excuses for why they didn’t have a card to give me or for the quality of the card they were handing me. I’m willing to bet that since I stopped speaking at the conferences, the exchange of cards has withered — probably not thought of anymore because the value is not so evident in the internet age.

Yet that is a mistake. Sure, an online presence is important, and today’s young publishing professionals disdain the ways of the past. But I think of it more like I think of Sun Tzu (ca. 544–ca. 496 bc) and Carl von Clausewitz (1780–1831) and Niccolo Machiavelli (1469–1527) — ageless, priceless, and still authoritative. Just as we study these past masters of war and politics because what they said hundreds of years ago is still relevant and accurate today, so the smart hunter of business views the business card.

If I were looking to edit indie fiction, I would attend local writers’ gatherings and I would hand out my card to every attendee every time. It doesn’t matter if they take it home and throw it away; what matters is that for at least a few seconds — and likely longer — the only editor they will think of is me. And the card reinforces my information because it isn’t easy (or polite) to refuse to accept the card, unlike an email that can be put on the spam list.

Years ago I did something a bit different when it came to the card: I had it made into a mini-chocolate bar and I handed out the bar freely, often several at a time. Because I wanted to make a “lasting” impression, I wrapped with the chocolate (sanitarily, of course) the paper version of the card — the recipient received a chocolate card and a paper card.

I’ve stopped using the chocolate card because I am semiretired and can’t make up my mind whether I want more business or less business — but every so often I think about doing it again. Why? Because people liked it enough to actually ask me for a card if I didn’t proffer one immediately — within my narrow market circle I became associated with the chocolate card.

The card is, as I noted earlier, a source for information about me. But it gets boring to read the same information repeatedly (although not to eat the chocolate :)), so I made it a point to redesign my cards every 12 to 18 months. I changed the text, its placement, the colors, the image, the feel. The card was my walking billboard and so it had to be treated as a billboard — it needed to reattract the recipient’s eyes.

The problems are several with relying on social media and online forums to spread your name and attract business. I’ll set aside for this discussion the amount of time it takes, much of which is unproductive (by which I mean not income generating), but will acknowledge that it takes a lot of time. A good example is this blog. It takes hours of work to produce a single essay and it would take even more hours to properly promote the essay across the internet. And the financial return is not commensurate with the amount of time spent to get that return.

Instead, I’ll focus on other problems. For a website to be effective you have to properly design it, maintain it, update it, and most importantly, provide some reason for someone to make the effort to come to it and once there, stay there, not just skate by. The card, on the other hand, requires minimal amount of maintenance and already has a reason for someone to accept it — you are face-to-face in the same room. People are generally social, so you do not need to entice them to say hello when you occupy the same space.

Which raises another problem with online selling — separating yourself from all of the spam that clutters the internet and that most potential clients try hard to avoid. You have to make the recipient of your message want to read your message and then act on it, usually by clicking a link to visit your website. We all know how reluctant most people are, just like we ourselves are, to click a link in an email from someone we do not know. But when I walk up to an author at a book signing, introduce myself and hand over the card, there is no resistance — the recipient sees I am real and has to do nothing more than what they would normally do.

The point is that the card has not lost its value in finding clients; we just need to use them differently in the internet age.

Business cards need to be well-designed and printed, not just slopped together on the home computer and printed on tear-apart business card stock on the home printer. The information on the card has to be just right for your audience. (At one time I used five different cards simultaneously. Each was designed for a different target market and I would hand to a recipient the card appropriate for the their market.)

I suspect few of my colleagues still use business cards to a great extent, which means there is a marketing opportunity for the adventurous. Old-fashioned marketing is still the most effective marketing in a business like editing because it is personal marketing of personal services. It gives us the chance to demonstrate our interpersonal skills, something that is greatly diluted by the internet.

If I were looking to build my clientele today, I would make business cards part of my effort, especially because it would force me to think about and define my market and how to reach it in a novel fashion.

Richard Adin, An American Editor

The Business of Proofreading: Taking a Long and Interconnected View

by Louise Harnby

I love a list! Recording the stuff I need to do helps me to organize my thoughts and steers me away from procrastination and toward action. So what follows is by no means a call for the abandonment of the to-do list. New starters and old hands alike can benefit from a list of actionable points.

More than a to-do list – linear vs. interconnected thinking

Caution is required, though. The to-do list does have the potential to encourage linear thinking, and this can be a hindrance when it comes to the business of proofreading (or any other type of editorial service for that matter).

Linear thinking can lead one down a road of focusing too heavily on one part of our business in the belief that if we get X just right everything else will fall into place, or that X is more important than Y and therefore must be completed in full before Y is considered. Interconnected thinking (I call this joined-up thinking elsewhere), on the other hand, recognizes that X impacts on Y, which impacts on Z, and that, together, X, Y, and Z drive success.

In this essay, I’ll look at the interconnectedness of our business practices, and the time it takes to build connections.

A simplified example

Isabel is in the process of setting up a proofreading business. She’s completed a comprehensive training course followed by mentoring. She’s confident in her skills and believes that she’s fit for the purpose. And she is – from a technical point of view. She has a potential problem, however. She’s been so focused on her training that she’s not spent any time considering how she’ll make herself visible to paying clients. Training was at the top of her list – and while this is certainly no bad thing to be at the top of any freelance business owner’s list, focusing on this alone will not bring in paying work.

Isabel’s business to-do list

1. Training – courses and follow-up mentoring
2. Buying relevant equipment – hardware and software
3. Networking: joining a society, setting up social media accounts, attending meetings
4. Design brand: name of business, logo, color way
5. Officially launching the business – tax authorities, bank, insurance policies if required
6. Creating a promotion plan: website, business cards, leaflets, adverts, directories, domain name, and custom email address
7. Create pricing matrix for different client types
8. Create additional resources: consider blog, information sheets, terms and conditions, process documents outlining service
9. Create stationery: letterhead, invoices, email signature, postage labels
10. Create work schedule to track jobs, payments, time, etc.

An alternative view: Isabel’s business wheel

I’m a firm believer that Isabel would benefit from looking at her proofreading business in a different way. What if, instead, she visualized it as a wheel rather than a list? I’ve regularly promoted this approach specifically in relation to editorial marketing (see, for example, “The Marketing Wheel – Visualizing Your Editorial Business’s Promotion Strategy,” Proofreader’s Parlour, January 2016), but it’s a useful tool for thinking more broadly about editorial business practice.

The Business Wheel

Both the list and the wheel address the same issues, but the wheel has the advantage of helping Isabel to visualize the interconnectedness of the various aspects of her business development.

Let’s consider Isabel’s training in relation to other aspects of business development.

• Training provides her with skills. But it’s also a valuable message that she could use in her promotion materials, and that will make her more interesting to potential clients.
• Her qualifications include rich keywords that potential clients will use when searching online for people with her skills, so there will be SEO benefits, which will enhance her discoverability further.
• Her training program has also instilled in her a desire to provide proofreading work of the highest quality, and these high standards mean those new clients who discover her will be more likely to retain her and recommend her, thus leading in the longer term to a more consistent work flow and income stream. This will give her greater choice as to the work she accepts and the prices she can charge.
• Training has also contributed heavily towards her application for a higher-level tier of membership in her national editorial society, and this membership tier will provide her with the right to take an entry in its online directory. She can link her new website to this directory, so that’s increased professional credibility, SEO and visibility.
• The training organization she used might be interested in featuring a guest article that she could write about her experiences. This will add to her professional credibility, and will provide her with an opportunity to create inbound and outbound links between her website and the training organization’s website. The organization has a large following on Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook. It will share a link to her guest article with its followers. Some of its followers will link with Isabel, thus expanding her own professional community. That’s training, professional credibility, brand enhancement, business networking, SEO, and social media engagement in one fell swoop.

I could go on, but I expect you get the point. Training isn’t something you do before marketing. Rather, it’s connected to marketing. They are but two spokes on a wheel and they link the hub (the business) to the rim (clients). Training gives substance to the marketing message. Marketing generates visibility and, therefore, new clients. New clients become regular clients because of the standards embedded by training. And up and down the spokes and round the rim we go.

We might carry out a similar exercise when considering the links between pricing, an accounting schedule and stationery; or resource creation and business promotion; or brand design, accounting and stationery.

Taking the long view

Developing a successful proofreading business doesn’t happen overnight. No matter how good your skills, how creative your marketing, how professional your practice, it takes time to become so discoverable that you’re never without work offers; it takes time to build a list of regular clients who trust your skills and judgment so that they return to you time and again. And, even then, you can’t sit on your laurels because our industry, broad as it is, is always changing.

• What your clients wanted 5 years ago may not be what they want next year (consider, for example, the number of publishers who now require PDF markup).
• What your clients were paying 5 years ago may not be what they are paying this year (you may be worse off in real terms).
• The types of clients who were using people like you 5 years ago may have become more varied as of today (consider the expansion of the self-publishing market).
• The software or hardware you used 5 years ago might no longer be fit for the purpose or compatible with what your current potential clients are using and expect you to use.
• Two companies you worked for 5 years ago might merge tomorrow; or one might acquire the another. This could reduce the number of editorial freelancers hired, and you could end up on the cut list.
• The publisher you work with directly today might outsource its proofreading and editing to a packager in 2 years’ time. That could affect the rate you are paid and even the security of your freelancing relationship.

Moving from entitlement to investment

This means that, as business owners, we need to be keeping our ear to the ground so that change is something we embrace, not resent, and something we view as providing opportunity, not marginalization.

When we own our own businesses, we don’t have the luxury of spending time on blaming a lack of success on others who are now doing things in ways that don’t suit us. We’re not entitled to be paid X by a publisher whose profit margins may be being squeezed its own customers (consider, for example, the impact of university library budget cuts on academic publishers in the past two decades); we’re not entitled to work on paper because that’s the way we prefer it (for example, most independent authors want us to work in Word or on PDF).

Instead, we have to invest in what makes us interesting and discoverable to those we want to work for and who will pay us what we want/need to earn if our businesses are to be profitable. Whether that means acquiring new skills, learning how to use new tools, changing the way we do our tax returns, targeting new client types, replacing old equipment, or testing and evaluating new and innovative marketing activities that increase customer engagement, the responsibility lies with us, and us alone.

It takes time and hard work

Furthermore, we may not see the fruits of our labor for months, even years. None of us can say how long it will take for an individual’s marketing strategy to put them on pages 1–3 of Google. None of us can predict whether a favorite publisher client will merge with another press and freeze its freelance rates. None of us can know whether the skill we learned back in 2008 will still be relevant in 2020 (proofreading on paper? Are you mad?).

I do know one thing, though. There are no shortcuts — building an editorial business takes time and effort (and even courage when we are pushed out of our comfort zone). Taking the short view leads to disappointment and stagnancy: disappointment that the creation of a website alone didn’t generate 50 new leads a month — only 2 eight weeks after launch — or that the client you’ve worked for almost solidly for 6 years is now squeezing 200 additional words on a page but still paying you the same page rate; and stagnancy because you didn’t keep up to date with new developments and are no longer able to compete with colleagues who are providing a service that you consider unusual but that they consider run-of-the-mill (editing and proofreading onscreen might be a current example).

Summing up

First, you may be the type of person who is perfectly capable of looking at a list without feeling compelled to move through it only from top to bottom. In that case, list away! However, if you think that your to-do list is leading you into a mode of thinking that ignores the connections between the various aspects of running your business, try redrawing it as a wheel. It may be just the ticket to seeing your editing or proofreading business in a whole new interconnected light – and focusing your energy accordingly.

Second, be realistic about the time it will take to build your editorial business. The hard work you put in at the beginning will not generate immediate results. Taking the long view will keep you on your toes and prevent disappointment and stagnation.

Louise Harnby is a professional proofreader and the curator of The Proofreader’s Parlour. Visit her business website at Louise Harnby | Proofreader, follow her on Twitter at @LouiseHarnby, or find her on LinkedIn. She is the author of Business Planning for Editorial Freelancers and Marketing Your Editing & Proofreading Business.

The Proofreader’s Corner: The Generalist–Specialist Dichotomy and the Editorial Freelancer

by Louise Harnby

Is it better to be a specialist or a generalist? This question often arises in editorial freelancing circles. Actually, answering it isn’t straightforward because it depends on how one defines those terms.

One of my colleagues considers herself a specialist. She’s an editor who works solely with independent fiction authors, particularly in the field of speculative fiction. She doesn’t proofread. She doesn’t work for publishers, businesses, students, charities, project management companies, marketing communications agencies, or schools.

I’m a proofreader who works with publishers, independent authors, businesses, project management companies, and students. My focus is on the social sciences, commercial nonfiction, and fiction.

My colleague could be forgiven for thinking I’m a generalist because when you compare her range of clients (and the type of material she works on) with my range of clients (and the type(s) of material I work on), we’re worlds apart.

However, I still think I’m a specialist because I don’t provide developmental editing or copy-editing services, and I don’t work on, for example, STEM (science, technology, engineering, and medicine) material. When I promote myself to potential clients, I present myself as a specialist.

It’s not about me

In fact, it doesn’t matter whether my colleague, you, or I think I’m a specialist or a generalist. All that matters is that potential clients who are searching for someone to solve their editorial problems can find me and recognize my ability to help them.

The question I therefore need to ask myself is: “What does the client want to know?”

Imagine the following scenario. Gandalf is looking for someone to proofread an article he’s submitting to the Journal of Ethical Wizardry. His paper compares ten different countries’ legal instruments for controlling spell-making and spell-casting. It’s already been peer-reviewed by some other eminent wizards. Now he needs to get it checked to ensure that the grammar, spelling, punctuation, and consistency are in order. The references also need checking to ensure that they comply with The Sorcerer’s Bluebook, which is the definitive international style guide for magico-legal citation. He searches an online directory for proofreaders and takes a look at the first three profiles in the list. Who will he pick?

• The proofreader who tells him she “proofreads anything”?
• The proofreader who tells him she has a politics degree and specializes in working with academics, publishers, project management agencies, and students working in the social sciences, with a particular focus on economics, politics, philosophy, international relations, development studies, and magic?
• The proofreader and editor whose website tells him she is a former practicing lawyer who now specializes in working with academics, publishers, project management agencies, and students working in the social sciences, with a particular focus on economics, politics, philosophy, international relations, law and criminology, development studies, and magic?

Let’s assume that all three of the above proofreaders are experienced, well qualified, and members of national industry-recognized editorial associations.

If I were Gandalf, my first choice would be the third person in the above list because she has specialist legal experience (though I would also bookmark the entry for the second person as a fallback). It doesn’t matter that she offers two different types of editorial service, or that she works on many different subjects, or that her client base is wide ranging. Sure, some might consider her a generalist. However, even if you do consider her to be a generalist, the fact is this – she’s more likely to spot a citation that isn’t formatted in the style recommended by The Sorcerer’s Bluebook, and Gandalf knows this.

Clearly communicating what you do

When we market ourselves as generalists, we run the risk of saying nothing. When we market ourselves as specialists – even if those specialisms are many and cover a wide range of subjects/genres – we can say a lot.

Saying you do “everything” or “anything” is problematic for several reasons:

• It’s not believable: Specializing is about being believable. If you don’t inspire trust in a potential client at the first point of contact, you’re unlikely to be hired by anyone with even a grain of an idea in their head about what their chosen proofreader or editor might look like. Think about it – who really can proofread anything? I’m comfortable tackling a lot of subjects, but veterinary medicine isn’t one of them. Nor is electrical engineering. Nor is cardiopulmonary medicine. And if you’re an editor who does feel comfortable working in any of those fields, how do you feel about tackling the third draft of a self-publisher’s YA fiction thriller that needs a substantive edit? I suspect that editorial professionals who can truly proofread or edit absolutely anything are few and far between.
• SEO fail: Specializing is about being discoverable. If you don’t take the time to tell your potential clients what you specialize in, whether it’s one subject or twenty, your website will be less about SEO (search engine optimization) and more about SEI (search engine invisibility). When the search engines crawl over your website looking for keywords by which to rank you, they won’t find much and they’ll move on. Does that matter? After all, you proofread anything. That’s fine if your clients are searching for someone who does “anything.” In reality, many clients are more specific. Looking at my Google Analytics data, I can see that keyword searches include “academic editing,” “fiction proofreader,” “dissertation proofreading services,” “proofreading thesis Norwich,” “student proofreading,” “novel proofreading,” “PhD proofreading UK,” “medical proofreader England,” “academic copy editor,” “medical proofreading,” “scientific paper editing,” “CV proofreading,” “legal proofreading,” “self-publisher proof-reading,” “proof read my thriller,” and “proofread journal paper politics.” Given that I do provide services that match many of those keyword searches, I want Google to know that and rank me accordingly.
• Customer disengagement: Specializing is about being interesting. Saying you do “anything” is far less interesting than saying you do “X, Y, and Z.” When we tell a client about our specialist areas, we are demonstrating competence, experience, and knowledge. Imagine I send a letter to a scientific publisher. I’m one of five proofreaders who, that week, have contacted the book production manager with a request to be added to the publisher’s bank of proofreaders. In their cover letters, two of my colleagues have explained that they are specialists in academic proofreading; the other two have stated that they specialize in working with scientific academic material. In my cover letter, I tell the production manager that I’m a generalist and will proofread anything. Who makes the deepest impression on the production manager? I suspect that I’m bottom of the pile in terms of client engagement. I’ve not presented myself in a way that shows I’m interested in what the press publishes. Nor have I presented myself in a way that shows I’m interesting.

Again, whether you work on one subject, with one type of client type, on one type of file, or you work on numerous subjects, with several different client types, in multiple media, present your narrow focus or your breadth of service in a way that marks you as a specialist.

Specialization and the new starter

I always recommend specialization before diversification to new starters. Especially at the beginning of your career, thinking like a specialist helps you to plan your client-building strategy in a targeted manner and focus your marketing efforts on the type of clients who are most likely to give you valuable first gigs that enable you to build your portfolio and gather testimonials.

For example, if you have a degree in electrical engineering, and you identify yourself as a specialist technical copyeditor, you’re more likely to be successful in securing your first paying job if you contact publishers with technical and engineering lists. Engineering students are more likely to be interested in asking you to check their Master’s dissertations and doctoral theses. Engineering businesses are more likely to ask you to edit their annual reports. Your specialist knowledge will count for a great deal, even though your editorial portfolio will be scant.

When I entered the field of editorial freelancing, I deliberately targeted social science presses because of my politics degree and previous career with an academic publisher, marketing social science journals. I was able to present myself as a specialist proofreader who understood the language of the social sciences. Those factors made me interesting to those presses and gave them confidence in my ability to work with the subject matter.

Of course, that doesn’t mean you can’t expand your specialist areas, or that you have to decline work that comes your way if it falls outside them (as long as you are comfortable with what you are being asked to do). My current portfolio is far more diverse than it was back in 2006. Specializing, however, made it much easier to get my foot in the door and build my business.

Marketing that focuses on your business preferences

Some of us choose to specialize in very narrow terms. Some of us choose breadth. One isn’t “better” than the other. Rather, it’s a business decision. If you prefer to offer a range of services to a range of clients over a range of media, and you can do this in a way that makes your business profitable, then breadth is better for you. If, on the other hand, you prefer to focus on one or two services to one client type over one medium, and you can do this in a way that makes your business profitable, then a narrow focus is “better” for you.

Effective marketing will be key to whichever path you choose. If your preferred clients can’t find you, it matters little whether your client focus is narrow or broad – if you’re not discoverable, you’ll be unemployed either way.

Conclusion

When it comes to marketing communications, there’s no such thing as a generalist. Rather, there are two types of specialist – the specialist-specialist and the generalist-specialist. Either way, both are specialists and talk like specialists.

Even if you are, for all intents and purposes, quite the generalist – that is, you’ll edit and/or proofread a wide range of subjects for a wide range of clients – market yourself as a specialist.

You can present yourself as a specialist in a variety of ways:

• Relevant training (e.g., as a proofreader), related career experience (e.g., you used to be a social worker), and educational qualifications in pertinent a subject (e.g., you have a degree in public policy and administration).
• Industry-specific knowledge – you might be familiar with particular citation systems (e.g., OSCOLA for legal works), style guides (e.g., The Chicago Manual of Style or New Hart’s Rules), markup language (e.g., the British Standards Institution’s BS:5261C).
• Subject matter (e.g., sciences, social sciences, medicine, fiction).
• Client base (e.g., students, businesses, publishers, independent authors, academics).
• Editorial service (e.g., proofreading, copyediting, indexing, consultancy).
• Clear statements of interest: for example, “…I specialize in providing proofreading solutions for clients working in the social sciences, humanities, fiction and commercial non-fiction…” (Louise Harnby | Proofreader, England); “…We are a group of highly skilled and experienced editors who specialize in editing nonfiction…” (Freelance Editorial Services, USA); “…I specialise in fiction editing, especially for independent/self-publishing writers…” (Averill Buchanan | Editor & Publishing Consultant, Ireland); “…I offer specialist legal editing services for publishers, law firms, businesses, academics, and students…” (Janet MacMillan | Wordsmith | Editor | Proofreader | Researcher, Canada).

Being a specialist is certainly about the choices you make as an editorial business owner in terms of the kind of work you choose to do. But it’s just as much about communicating with potential clients in a way that demonstrates enthusiasm, knowledge, skills and experience — even if you are a bit of a generalist!

Louise Harnby is a professional proofreader and the curator of The Proofreader’s Parlour. Visit her business website at Louise Harnby | Proofreader, follow her on Twitter at @LouiseHarnby, or find her on LinkedIn. She is the author of Business Planning for Editorial Freelancers and Marketing Your Editing & Proofreading Business.

The Proofreader’s Corner: Offering Additional Services to Existing Clients — Up-/Cross-Selling (Part II)

by Louise Harnby

In this two-part essay, I consider how offering relevant additional services to existing clients can increase the editorial freelancer’s income-per-client in a framework of high-quality customer care.

In Part I, I defined up-selling and cross-selling, discussed why these strategies are key to an effective marketing strategy, and tackled freelancer fears of appearing sleazy when offering add-on services that haven’t been directly requested.

Part II considers how the editorial freelancer might create relevant up-/cross-selling bundles that are “wins” for both parties. I also offer a short case study on how I up-sold my proofreading service to an existing client — a bundle that was affordable and valuable to him, and profitable for me.

Making sure everyone wins…

Up-/cross-selling needs to make both parties feel like they’re winners.

• The editorial freelancer’s win: When considering, and costing, your up-/cross-selling bundles, consider the economies of scale you can bring to a project when you carry out different but related tasks, and how those might save you billable time. For example, if you offer a pre- and post-design proofreading bundle, the second pass will not take as long as it would have done if you had not worked on the raw text beforehand – possibly thousands of punctuation, spelling, grammar, and layout errors have already been attended to; you’ll already have built your style sheet; and you’ll be familiar with the content of the book, the author’s style of writing, and the way in which the book is structured. This means your bundle can be priced such that it is cheaper than if you had been commissioned to carry out both passes as independent projects.
•  The client’s win: Even if budget is an issue for your client, this strategy could still be effective if the client feels they are going to gain from the proposition. In order to make a client feel that they are gaining something, the editorial service you up-/cross-sell must be relevant. This requires you to understand what the client wants. Since you already have your client’s attention (precisely because they are an existing client), you’re in the perfect position to have the conversation; then, from the information they share with you, you can assess how you might be able to offer additional solutions to their problems.

Everyone loves a deal. If you’re asking your client to spend more with you, they may be more likely to agree if there is an incentive or reward. This doesn’t have to be monetary, but that is one obvious option.

When the editorial freelancer finds a way to present an up-/cross-sell in a way that combines both relevance and a deal, the chance of acceptance increases (see “Selling more to existing customers,” The Marketing Donut).

Case study

I’ve been working with a fabulous fiction self-publisher in the past year. He initially asked me to proofread in Word with Track Changes switched on. During an email conversation about his plans for publication, he told me that in addition to publishing his book on Kindle Direct Publishing, he also planned to produce a print version. As a gesture of customer care, I offered (free of charge) to help him source a professional typesetter; he thanked me for the offer but told me that he was confident in his design skills (acquired during his previous career) and would therefore be doing his own print layout. He also mentioned that he was glad of his skills because budget was an issue. Our conversation made me wonder whether there was a possibility of up-selling him an additional proofreading service that would be affordable for, and beneficial to, him ­— a service that was genuinely relevant, too, given that he’d commissioned only one pass of editorial assistance (proofreading) prior to the print formatting stage.

I offered him two solutions:

• Option 1: This option comprised several hours’ work on the prepublication typeset PDF, and was priced at a little over £100. I’d dedicate those hours to checking running heads, chapter drops, page numbering, facing recto and verso page balance, bad end-of-line word beaks, and consistency of layout regarding the different text elements; cross-checking the contents list and page numbers with the chapter pages; carrying out a spelling-error and -consistency check; and I’d run a macro to identify any potential confusables (see, for example, Louise Harnby, “Using proofreading macros: Highlighting confusables with CompareWordList,” Proofreader’s Parlour, 2016).
• Option 2: This involved all the work from Option 1, but also included a full proofread. The price was 40 percent cheaper than the first-pass proofread, but 2.8 times more expensive than Option 1.

My client went for Option 2. Price-wise, it was far enough away from the original pass to make him feel that he was getting a great discount; value-wise it was much better than Option 1 because he was getting another full proofread to complement the first pass, plus all the layout checks.

Did I lose out financially? Not at all. My hourly rate for the second-pass proofread was a few pounds lower than that of the first pass, but it still met my required and desired rate. The reasons are as follows:

• Physically, I was able to work through the designed book at a faster speed because I wasn’t having to make thousands of changes in the file. I’d already done all the hard work on that front.
• I’d created a style sheet during the first round of proofreading. In the second round, because all the build work was complete, it served simply as a useful reference tool for me. No creation work was required. This saved me more time.
• Finally, during the second pass, I wasn’t distracted by the engaging story line — I knew what was going to happen, so I was able to focus on ensuring that any final spelling, punctuation, grammar, and layout issues were attended to.

All of that saved time enabled me to save my client money while still earning a comfortable and profitable hourly rate for myself. That made both of us happy. We’ve agreed that this will be our standard workflow for future books in the series — that’s important because it’s a demonstration of how the initial up-sell to an existing client can have long-term benefits for both parties.

Summing up

Ask yourself whether you’re taking advantage of opportunities to offer your clients additional services that will be of relevance and benefit to them. Then work out how you can introduce incentives to make your up-/cross-selling bundles more economically attractive. Relevant value-adding services that are profitable for you and affordable to your client are a win for both of you.

Remember that securing additional work from existing clients is easier and cheaper than securing new work from potential clients. Existing clients have already made the leap from wondering whether they should work with you to actually hiring you.

When you offer additional services that you consider to be relevant and beneficial to your client, you are not being sleazy; rather, “[t]he fact that you’re telling them about other useful products or services shows that you understand their needs and care about their satisfaction” (“Selling more to existing customers,” The Marketing Donut). In other words, you are providing high-quality customer service. Good customer service is good business practice because it makes customers happy. And, as we all know, happy customers are far more likely to retain your services and recommend you to their friends and colleagues.

Louise Harnby is a professional proofreader and the curator of The Proofreader’s Parlour. Visit her business website at Louise Harnby | Proofreader, follow her on Twitter at @LouiseHarnby, or find her on LinkedIn. She is the author of Business Planning for Editorial Freelancers and Marketing Your Editing & Proofreading Business.

The Proofreader’s Corner: Offering Additional Services to Existing Clients — Up-/Cross-Selling (Part I)

by Louise Harnby

In this two-part essay, I consider how offering relevant additional services to existing clients can increase the editorial freelancer’s income-per-client in a framework of high-quality customer care.

Part I defines up-selling and cross-selling, discusses the why these strategies are key to an effective marketing strategy, and tackles freelancer fears of appearing sleazy when offering add-on services that haven’t been directly requested.

In Part II, I consider how the editorial freelancer might create relevant up-/cross-selling bundles that are “wins” for both parties. I’ll also offer a short case study on how I up-sold my proofreading service to an existing client — a bundle that was affordable and valuable to him, and profitable for me.

What is up-/cross-selling?

In a recent thread in the Editors’ Association of Earth Facebook group (to join, visit the EAE group page), an experienced editor/publisher wisely raised the issue of up-/cross-selling to existing clients. Before we consider why this is such an important part of a marketing strategy, let’s clarify our terminology.

• Up-selling: this is a strategy for selling enhanced or add-on features to an existing service or product line. For example, you’re a specialist proofreader and have been hired to proofread the raw text in Word for a client. You accept the commission and you offer a post-design proofread on page proofs for an additional fee. This will act as a second pass on the text but will also include a range of layout checks (see Louise Harnby, “Not All Proofreading Is the Same: Part I — Working with Page Proofs,” Proofreader’s Parlour, 2014).
• Cross-selling: this is a strategy for selling different services or products, usually related to the one the client has already bought. For example, you run an editorial business that offers structural editing, copy-editing, proofreading, and formatting. You’ve been hired to copy-edit a manuscript for a self-publishing fiction author. You accept the commission, and you offer to design a professional print-ready layout of the text for an additional fee.

Why is up-/cross-selling important?

The reasons why up-/cross-selling is so important to your marketing strategy are threefold:

1. You help your client to feel happy — like you’ve scored them a win — and that happiness deepens the relationship between the two of you. Deeper relationships mean higher retention rates (Len Markidan, “How to Use Upselling to Increase Customer Happiness, Retention and Revenue,” GrooveHQ, 2014).
2. Selling to existing customers is easier. Todd Berkowitz argues that revenue increases of up to 20 percent are possible. “When study after study shows that it’s easier and cheaper to sell to existing customers than to try to acquire new ones, and loyal, happy customers are key to influencing prospects, provider marketers should be completely engaged in this effort” (“Why Companies Need to Market — and Not Just Sell — to Existing Customers,” Gartner, 2014). Markidan (cited above) concurs that it’s easier to market to existing clients, pointing out that it shouldn’t surprise us: “Wouldn’t we much rather buy from a company we already trust than one we’ve never done business with before?” If you still need convincing, here are some more interesting statistics: “The probability of selling to an existing customer is 60–70%. The probability of selling to a new prospect is 5–20%” (Colin Shaw, “15 Statistics That Should Change The Business World — But Haven’t,” citing Paul Farris’s Marketing Metrics).
3. An initial up-/cross-sell to an existing client in respect of a current project can knock on to future commissions. That means both parties receive the gains across multiple projects — improving the customer-care experience from the client’s point of view while increasing income-per-client and reducing marketing time from the editorial freelancer’s.

Why bother?

Some editorial business owners are reluctant to up-/cross-sell; they feel embarrassed about offering services that haven’t been directly requested by the client, and argue that, surely, the client already knows what he or she wants. I understand where this feeling comes from; Markidan sums up the problem succinctly: “For many of us, it might bring up images of sleazy salespeople trying to line their pockets by selling us extra stuff we don’t need” (“How to Use Upselling to Increase Customer Happiness, Retention and Revenue”).

It’s not necessarily that simple, however; consider the following scenarios:

• The client recognizes the problems, wants to find solutions, but is unaware of the extent to which you can help: Client A sourced you based on your copy-editing experience. They landed on your website and headed straight for the copy-editing tab to find out more about what you offer. However, later down the production line, they plan to source professional assistance with making their book Kindle-ready. You supply this service, but they don’t know this because they didn’t read that information on your website and they haven’t had a conversation with you about their publication plans. If you do have the conversation, it could provide an opportunity to offer a relevant cross-sell — one that the client already wants.
• The client is still mulling over the problems, but has yet to work out what solutions will be required, and therefore hasn’t considered the extent to which you can help: Client B sourced you based on your proofreading experience. You’re working in Word for them, but in the meantime they’re mulling over the fact that errors might be introduced at typesetting stage. You understand how to work with professionally published page proofs. They don’t know this because you haven’t had a conversation about their publication plans. If you do have the conversation, it could provide an opportunity to nudge the client towards a relevant up-sell (in the form of two proofreading passes) ­— one that demonstrates your expertise and understanding of the issues in question.
• The client doesn’t yet recognize all of the problems and so is unaware of the range of solutions you can offer: Client C sourced you based on your proofreading experience, though you copy-edit too. This is a first stab at self-publishing and there’s a steep learning curve. Unlike more experienced independent authors, they don’t understand the different levels of editing, nor how these might impact on the quality of the published book. They’ve asked you proofread the raw text in Word. Budget is less of an issue than knowledge. The quality of their book would be greatly enhanced if they considered commissioning a thorough copy-edit for the raw text, followed by a traditional post-design proofread. Having a conversation about this issue could provide an opportunity for a relevant cross-sell (the copy-edit) and a relevant up-sell (the post-design proofread).

The key to overcoming fears of behaving inappropriately is to communicate with the client — to show them that you are engaged with their publishing journey and keen to explore the challenges and possible solutions. Those conversations will enable you to learn what your clients want and need, and whether there is an opportunity to offer appropriate additional services.

In Part II, I consider how up-/cross-selling bundles benefit the existing client and the freelancer, and I offer a short case study on how I up-sold my proofreading service.

Louise Harnby is a professional proofreader and the curator of The Proofreader’s Parlour. Visit her business website at Louise Harnby | Proofreader, follow her on Twitter at @LouiseHarnby, or find her on LinkedIn. She is the author of Business Planning for Editorial Freelancers and Marketing Your Editing & Proofreading Business.

The Proofreader’s Corner: Tackling Editorial Learning Anxiety (or Embracing Change Rather Than Resisting It) — Part II

by Louise Harnby

In this two-part series, I consider how resistance to change can stop us from learning new skills or testing new methods to make our editorial businesses more successful.

In Part I, I discussed “learning anxiety” and how it can stop us from embracing change. I introduced three ideas for how to tackle anxiety: planning the change so that it’s considered and systematic; redefining “failure” as “lessons learned”; and doing a cost-to-benefit analysis.

In Part II, I present a personal case study of how I dealt with anxiety about offering a new customer-engagement service with regard to quoting. I explain how I used a cost-to-benefit analysis to identify my concerns and come up with a solution that enabled me to move forward rather than rejecting change outright.

Case study

I recently carried out an exercise with regard to a new marketing technique. My colleagues Adrienne Montgomerie and Nick Jones were the inspiration for it. Nick’s Full Proof website includes a Get a Quote button and a page that details a range of rates per 1,000 words. Adrienne’s Right Angels and Polo Bears website has an Instant Estimate tab.

I love the customer-centric nature of these websites – when I’m considering buying something, I want to have a rough idea of what it’s going to cost, so it’s not unreasonable to assume that my customers are the same. Nick and Adrienne already provide this sense of immediacy and customer engagement, though in different ways. Up until recently, I’d resisted including such a device on my own website. I’d read a lot of opinions on the issue, most of it focusing on how one can’t offer a quotation unless one’s seen a sample of the work. That’s all well and good, but is it what the customer wants? Both Nick and Adrienne make it clear that their instant quotations are preliminary and nonbinding. I wanted to take this idea and run with it in my own way – provide a quick way for the customer to engage with me, a device that would give them a sense of immediacy. I wanted to be able to provide them with a ballpark price for proofreading that they could use to decide whether to continue the discussion. So I tackled the questions above, and the answers helped me to map out a solution that I could test.

What are the potential gains from the change?

• Customers who previously passed me over because they wanted an immediate sense of what the cost would be might be more inclined to contact me.
• In particular, I might be a more attractive prospect for self-publishing authors (a client group that I particularly enjoy working with) scouting for editorial assistance but who have a fixed budget in mind.
• I’ve always provided detailed value-on quotations in the past (see “Value-on or money-off? Putting a price on your editorial services”, Proofreader’s Parlour, September 2013 http://www.louiseharnbyproofreader.com/blog-the-proofreaders-parlour/value-on-or-money-off-putting-a-price-on-your-editorial-services) but these take time to produce, and if the price isn’t even in the customer’s ballpark I’ve invested a lot of time for no return. The quick-quote option would be an interesting alternative to test.

What will I potentially lose if I introduce a quick-quote function?

• I’m always “on” – customers can contact me whenever they want and I’ll be committed to responding to them accordingly.
• An instant quotation is all about the money, not about the value.
• If I want to avoid placing prices on my website, I’ll need to have a device with me that enables me to calculate a price – this could be a challenge, as I want to offer different rates for different client groups, and I want to introduce economies of scale for larger word counts.

What will stay the same, even though I’ve made this change?

• My proofreading website is still focused on providing comprehensive advice about the value I bring to the table. The customer comes through that medium and so will see this information.
• My current client list is not affected.
• I’m still offering a proofreading service.
• I can still refuse the work after I’ve seen a sample if I don’t think I’m a good fit for the customer – the quote is preliminary with no obligation on either side. Critics can argue that no matter how much one protests that the quote is not binding, it gives the user a number around which to wrap their thinking. If my quote is £150 but then I see the manuscript and realize that the real quote needs to be £450, I have a major hill to climb to move the client off the £150 mark. However, I’d counter this as follows: I’m a proofreader. If the sample file arrives with me and it needs so much work that there is going to be a significant difference between the preliminary quote and the post-sample quote, the manuscript is not ready for me to work on and I’ll decline the work anyway.
• I’m still in a position to turn down the work if it doesn’t fit in my schedule.

How will the changes make me feel once I’ve completed them?

• I hope I’ll be glad that I’ve tried something new.
• I’ll be excited to see what the results are.
• It will give me even more confidence to embrace future ideas for change that I might have rejected in the past.
• I’m in control of my website, so I’ll still feel secure in the knowledge that I can withdraw the quick-quote service instantly if I deem this to be necessary.

My solution was to offer a “Within 1 hour” service via text messaging to customers requiring a preliminary ballpark price. I require a few words of description, a deadline, and a word count. I commit to responding within 1 hour to any request that comes in prior to 10 p.m. GMT. I don’t want to have to carry around a tablet or laptop all the time because I won’t always have internet access, but my phone is always with me and I can always take calls or texts. I’ve set up a spreadsheet in the Excel app on my phone; this contains formulae that calculate the preliminary price based on different word-count ranges and client types. When a text comes through, I can place the word count into the spreadsheet; the fee is calculated automatically. I reply to the customer with the preliminary price and an invitation to continue the discussion, this time with a sample. At that point, I’ll be able to demonstrate the value I can offer.

I’ve placed this quick-quote service on a dedicated “Get a quote” page of my website. I’ve copied some of the client testimonials onto the page so that customers have a sense of the quality of service I offer.

On the same page I also offer a “Within 1 day” service via email. This provides customers with a confirmed quotation (rather than a preliminary ballpark figure) but requires them to furnish me with additional information and a sample of the work.

The quick-quotation tool has been up for a month at the time of writing, and early results are encouraging. I’ve had around 20 enquiries via text messaging, 4 of which have led to commissions to proofread works of self-published fiction. I also acquired a small, fast-turnaround job for a business client. I’ve turned down requests to proofread a business book and several theses, owing to the time frame.

I’m delighted that I decided to work out a creative solution to my earlier resistance. I’m even more delighted that the outcome has been positive. My fears about what I’d lose have been overshadowed by the decisions I made on how to manage the service: The time limit means that I’m not available 24/7; the fact that I’ve limited the service to text messaging means that I’m using a device that is always with me, so there’s no added inconvenience on that front; I’ve not been so inundated with requests that the service has felt intrusive; I can tweak the Excel spreadsheet at will; and if I decide to withdraw the service, I can update my website in an instant, even from my phone. I’ve also found a way to display the information in a way that provides social proof of the quality of service I offer.

Even more importantly, perhaps, carrying out this exercise has forced me to think more broadly how customer trust relates to pricing transparency, and about whether I want to increase my customer engagement further by being more explicit on my website about my pricing model – but that’s another test for another time! For the next few months, I’m going to focus on monitoring the “Within 1 hour” text-messaging service.

Taking professional responsibility

Resistance to change is a normal human emotion. However, we are business owners. We work for ourselves. There’s no one in the HR department to walk us through the changes we might need to make even though we feel nervous about them. Change is inevitable. The fact that it can be anxiety-inducing needs to be acknowledged. The key is to ensure that anxiety doesn’t get in the way of action. The decision I’ve made about my quick-quote service will not be something all my colleagues will agree with or want to implement. That’s fine – they have their businesses to run and I have mine. They make the decisions that are best for them while I make the decisions that are best for me.

Still feel reluctant to make a change, or learn something new? Break it down into smaller components so that it seems more manageable. View it as an opportunity for discovery rather than failure. And analyze it in terms of what you stand to gain and what you stand to lose. Chances are you’ll be pleasantly surprised by the results. Whatever happens, you’ll know that Woody and Thomas would pat you on the back for it!

Louise Harnby is a professional proofreader and the curator of The Proofreader’s Parlour. Visit her business website at Louise Harnby | Proofreader, follow her on Twitter at @LouiseHarnby, or find her on LinkedIn. She is the author of Business Planning for Editorial Freelancers and Marketing Your Editing & Proofreading Business.