The Savvy Scribe

Want to Build Your Clientele? Try One These 18 Expansion Strategies!

August 21, 2019 Carol Bush Episode 18
The Savvy Scribe
Want to Build Your Clientele? Try One These 18 Expansion Strategies!
Show Notes Transcript

Can you believe it?  Carol powered through 18....yes 18 strategies you can swipe & implement to grow your client base!  Don't forget...pick One and take some action!

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Speaker 1:

Welcome to the savvy scribe, a podcast for freelance healthcare and medical writers who want to start or grow their business. Your hosts, Carol Bush and Janine Kelbach, will help you build a profitable health writing business without having to spend years figuring it out on your own. Now let's join the conversation

Speaker 2:

. I think this is one of the most commonly asked questions, Janine and I get how to find more clients or from newbies. How do Iand my first client when we first decide to pursue a career as a high performing health writer, we really might not have a clue how to actually find clients, right? However, if we start with research and ask businesses what they look for in freelancers, as well as ask your peers that would be savvy scribes for advice. Listen to our podcast and your professional network of other high performing freelance writers. Your work will begin to grow and you'll already know what clients are Looking for. So let's think about it. Most health writers that I know and freelancers and even solopreneurs start out their businesses, kind of like this. First they decide to pursue their passion and try to get great at what they do. Then they build a writer portfolio. Or if there are solopreneur, a website that talks about their expertise, then they set up their social media profiles and start promoting themselves, work on their clips and publish and they wait for clients to come to them. So when you think about it, when it's laid out like that, maybe you can see the obvious flaws. And yet this is really how a lot of high performing health writers try to start working for themselves. A lot of times we think that simply being good at what we do is enough to have clients knocking on our door, but in reality we need to be more than good to get attention. So how do you get more clients or primarily how do you land those first clients? Today..Really, there's certainly no silver bullet. I wish, wish, wish I could, u h, craft for you the perfect podcast and you would listen to it. And say, oh, Carol said to do x and you'll have clients knocking down your door today and for years to come. Instead. Friends, here's the reality and you'll hear Janine and I talk about this over and over. Getting new clients takes time, energy and frankly, good bit of effort on your part. You'll hear us talking about the power of building relationships. It's really important to create relationships, to have a steady pipeline of client. You do need to invest time in building those relationships, networking and frankly marketing your consultancy or your business and yes, as a high performing health writer, we are CEOs of our own business and our consultancy.

Speaker 3:

Hey everybody, I wanted to let you know we have an upcoming free webinar called three steps to earning an extra$1,000 a month as a health writer. If y ou a re ready to make an extra thousand dollars a month as a health writer in three action packed steps, come sign up. The link will be in the show notes, but if you have a pen and paper handy, go to http://savvyscribegrowthlab.writern.net/extra1000amonth. We h ave three upcoming dates and Times August 23rd August 30th and September 3rd we'll see you there.

Speaker 4:

[inaudible]

Speaker 2:

hi and welcome back savvy scribes. Today I want to review some strategies you can use to get new clients. In fact, I clocked a, I put my little time tracker on and I just gave myself 30 minutes to come up with as many ideas as I could that I've used and heard from others... Students and other colleagues using. You may be familiar with some of these. I bet you are. You definitely want to check the show notes because I'm going to include links for some of my faves. So number one, ask for referrals. Don't wait for them. Okay? Okay. I know I hear you. Referrals are the most obvious and well known way to actually get new clients. However, too many health writers just wait for referrals to fall in their lap after all happy clients should spread our name right? And in reality most clients will, but sometimes folks, clients are really busy and won't go out of their way. So instead of waiting, open up your email and find two happy former clients that haven't sent you referrals yet or left a referral on Linkedin. What you're going to do is take some action. You are going to email them right now asking for a referral. Seriously, I'm serious, do this! And I want you to let me know that you've done it. Here's an example and an email script that I've used before that worked really well. Oh, you can just start out with h igh name of client. How is name o f company doing? I enjoyed working with you on t he e health project and I would love to hear the results. On a side note, I just wanted to let you know I'm focusing on whatever your pivot is or a project that you want to work on and looking for new clients to work with. Would you be able to connect me to any people or companies in your network that you feel could use my services right now? Thanks in advance...look forward to connecting again a have a great day and just simply put Carol number two browse job board. And I know again, this is really another no-brainer and chances are you're already using job boards. If you don't, you'll want to bookmark some and in the show notes I'm going to provide their links. Some folks check them daily per new projects, but if you don't want to check them daily, there are several subscription services or lists that you could actually belong to. This is really one of the easiest ways to get new clients. These boards can often include marketing, copywriting, and miscellaneous writing and editing jobs. A lot of the opportunities listed will cover remote, part-time contract,, and even some full, almost full time. Make sure that you let me know if I left one of your favorite boards out. Yes, Craig's list. Folks, this is a great opportunity to look for local, um, writing opportunities or regional and all you need to do is look at writing and editing and yes, guess what you're going to stand out because you're going to craft a well-written, uh, application or opportunity letter and that's gonna help you stand out from 99% of the people that respond to the craigslist job ad. Don't forget indeed you can try to look at, and I'm talking about indeed.com so a way you can search is looking at a keyword. So copywriting plus your location or remote or contract or freelance, et Cetera, you get the keyword idea. Don't forget your local nonprofit chamber board. Here in my region, in the Kansas City area, we have agree, uh, nonprofit, uh, connect and there were a lot of opportunities that are listed there. Also, you want might want to check out one of my new favorites, which is called virtual vocations. If you don't want to check those boards daily, again, you can subscribe to a service. And virtual vocations is definitely one of those. You can search some things for free, but if you want to look at and get more detail on opportunities you do need to subscribe and you know what, it's okay to do that for a short period of time, especially if you're looking to add clients into your queue or you're looking to land at first client.

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Number three, follow up with lost clients. So folks, when I'm talking about lost clients, I'm referring to clients you may have spoken with or sent a proposal to in the past, let's say six months or longer and you didn't win the business. Remember my motto? No, doesn't mean not you. It just means not right now. So go through your email, your old proposals and find the clients that you lost, uh, two or more months ago. It's not uncommon that, uh, folks may not have the timing or the budget at the point that you submitted the proposal and things change and they may have moved onto a new role as content marketing, VP of a really marvy online site.

Speaker 2:

So go ahead and go through your email. Find those clients, send a I really quick follow up email asking how their work or project is coming along and if there's anything you can do for them. A lot of things I like to do is if there's any way I can support your success going forward, you know, just let me know. This is a great strategy. It's about being helpful and showing that you care about that person. Remember I talked about establishing relationships. This can lead to a small project or even better spark and New conversation about hiring you and guess what? If they're unhappy with their previous selection, um, that might be a great opportunity. And if not, they're still happy. Guess what? You're still putting yourself on their radar and you might see some da da duh, guess what? Referrals come your way because of that. Because again, in the healthcare niche, quality content, people who create quality content are in high demand. And the world of content VP's in the health space is very small. So it's really common for people to refer to their colleagues within their network. The fourth strategy is to follow up with YOUR network. So this means your writing colleagues, connections and the people that you've spoken to in the past. Maybe they will be at fit for your consultancy. So follow up with each of them and ask them, Hey, what have you been up to? Because people's businesses grow, they pivot and sometimes they're not able to handle all of the work that comes their way or they might have shifted and they're no longer doing web copywriting. You have the opportunity to let them know what you're up to and that you would appreciate a referral.

Speaker 5:

Number five,

Speaker 2:

you want to find some, um, online blogs that your perspective clients read because we want to hang out or find out where our prospective clients hang out. So what are some blogs that some of your clients might read and ask to post on them!, You could write about a topic that fits within that blog, but also something that readers might get a ton of value about. Again, it's about creating value and relationships. Guest blogging is really great. It's a great strategy. I love it because you can share your expertise and grow your brand by tapping into someone else's audience.

Speaker 3:

Hi Guys. Janine callback here. Sorry for the interruption, but I am dying to tell you guys about our new Savvy Scribe Growth Lab strategic coaching program for health care writers. If you are a healthcare writer making less than a thousand a month and just starting out in there, even if you've never written before, it just starting out in a business. We are wanting to help you. We have a group going right now, so there is a waiting list, but Carol Bush and I are live with you twice a week. If you could not come to the live sessions because you are working another job right now. We totally understand everything is replayed. You're going to get a workbook, handouts and yes, homework to help take your business forward. We Are With You with group coaching. We provide hour long trainings and coworking sessions with accountability, so if you're ready to join us, we would love for you to be a part of it. If you go to http://savvyscribegrowthlab.writern.net/ sign up to be on the waiting list. You will get access to a private Facebook group. All the live video trainings, hours of trainings, and much, much more. Check it out guys. Okay, back to the show. Thanks.

Speaker 2:

Number six. Here's a great strategy. Use Twitter search. It's one of my favorites. It's a powerful way to find real time tweets from people and companies looking to hire health writers or that need help and you can find these tweets by using some keywords and phrases like this. Hiring a and your keyword health writer, health copywriter, a web copywriter, looking to hire a whatever your keyword searches. Hashtag hiring hashtag health writer and just use your own creativity. Try some different search phrases and I bet you'll discover some potential clients and projects. Number seven, this is one of my favorites as well. Network online and offline. So folks, instead of sitting behind the computer all week gets what I want you to plan to go to a meetup or a conference or a workshop or your local library or a coffee where your perspective clients might be mingling or better yet, guess what? Everyone else is going to be at those meetings trying to hook up with clients. How about you go to the networking event and focus on meeting the connector. You know the people like me who know a million other people and can refer you and connect you online. Networking is important as well. Complete your linkedin profile with uptodate information and work samples. It don't forget to import your contacts and connect with as many people in your network, um, as possible. Don't forget to share anything that you've written. So we love to publish on rink linkedin because guess what? Publishing a post on Linkedin, the shelf life is four months. Simply posting a comment comes and goes. It's actually a 24 to 48 hours is the shelf life, their checkout. Some of the groups on linkedin because there are groups for every industry. And this is also a great way to get in front of prospective clients. Although I personally have more luck with engaging with other likeminded people and their posts. So when other high performing health writers write something, I love to engage with their posts, not just always give it a thumbs up, um, you know, respond to it in a thoughtful way because that's going to increase their traffic and will bring, um, some leverage and awareness to both of you for perspective clients. And it's going to amplify the profession of the health writer as well. Number Eight, here's a great way and a wonderful strategy for gaining new clients. And that is to create a product, a product, or productize your service. Tithing or packaging is a powerful strategy to create recurring revenue and to get new clients. So basically what you're doing with a packaged offering is bundling your services into a package that the client can purchase for monthly fee. So best of all what you're doing is you're teaching your clients about all the different services that you can offer. You're putting it into a package, a, a predictable and standardized menu, and you're going to share the value that you can provide. When people can book with you in a package setting, you're going to be creating predictable, recurring revenue. You could also consider selling your offerings as a package for, I just want to give you a few examples of number nine, start coworking. If you work from home, consider coworking at least once a week. I love coworking spaces because they're great for meeting likeminded individuals and becoming part of your local community. You'll build up some really strong relationships and be a go to resource for people at the coworking space. It's really cool because I don't know about your coworking spaces, but most spaces in my area also host events, meetings, conferences and workshops. And guess what? I've even been invited to co present and that's been a great opportunity for me to pre, um, to get in front of some potential clients and create thought leadership locally. So how in the heck do you find coworking spaces? Well, go to our favorite resource. Just start by, um, the Google search coworking plus your zip code, and you can browse through a coworking directory by searching on the map at a website that's called desk surfing. That's a great resource. Number 10 always offer advice and help. So I love this as a longterm strategy to bring new clients into your business is really to help people who are connected to your perspective clients. You can offer ideas, introductions, feedback, maybe some thoughts or help them in any way possible with their business challenges. So this is a little bit different than following up with your network that I mentioned earlier because it's an ongoing process. You might not close a client or get referrals immediately with this strategy. But in my own experience, offering advice and being helpful to others has been proven tactic to build relationships, right? That I said was key. And to win new business over time. Yes, it's not a quick fix, but this is something that when you invest in building the relationship over time in my experience has always paid off. So a friend of mine actually uses this strategy to build relationships and get new clients. He helps out anyone who gets in touch, whether it's giving short pieces of advice, feedback or connecting them with a marketing download or a one pager. And though he says that this strategy can be pretty taxing and sometimes takes up a lot of time, he's landed some high value clients and b y high value that would be over$10,000 a month and received referral businesses just for helping. So for his situation, that ROI has definitely been there. Number 11 send a handwritten note to those clients. Yes, if you're looking to land a new client and you really want to get their attention, folks try sending a handwritten note. You definitely want to find the person at the company that's most likely to hire you and send that letter that focuses on solving their problems or um, identifying a project that they have going on that you can add later in the mail. Um, you know, we don't get those very often. So it adds a nice personal touch and shows people that you truly care. Because you took the time to write a letter. So you can definitely write those letters yourself or use a service like Mail lift to have the letters written and sent for you. And yes, that will be in the show notes. Number 12. Here's a great one and I've actually even connected with clients and other partners using this. And that's to answer questions on Quora. So you can find questions on Cora in your industry and lot and write some thoughtful answers. Folks, you want to, um, get set up and establish a profile link to your website or your portfolio so people can learn more about you and be sure not to just spam your website all over the place. Instead. Again, it's about building up those relationships with people and being helpful. So if you start looking on Quora for health writing or freelance writing information, u m, there w ere actually thousands of people searching for answers in that particular space. And the good thing about it is most of these questions are very heavily indexed in Google, which brings traffic and visibility to your replies. So here's a great strategy. Is you can start this, um, strategy for outreach and um, building relationships by answering one question a day or a few a week. You'll be amazed at the responses and relationships that you'll build up in the Quora community. So check out the link in the show notes. Number 13 this is a great strategy is to create a presentation. And what's even cooler about that is you can upload it on slideshare and link it to your linkedin profile. Just think about it. If you're a content strategist, you might create a presentation on 10 copywriting hacks startups can use to get more customers. If you're focused on helping small businesses start their blogs, you could actually create a presentation on how to build a simple content calendar for small businesses or something like that. The possibilities are really endless and actually creating an engaging presentation because we've got a lot of tools, not just PowerPoint, but there's some great tools in Canva as well. Creating an engaging presentation will bring traffic, some social shares, and of course new leads. Number 14, right? A guide similar to the slideshare tactic that just talked about writing a guide on a specific topic that you have expertise in will really set yourself up for some thought leadership and showcase your expertise as well as give you a nice lead magnet. Um, and a way that you can provide examples for potential clients. Linkedin is a really great place to distribute these types of guides along with not only your personal network and as well as again on your website. So creating a guide is a great way, again, to drive some traffic, capture those leads and showcase your authority on a specific type of topic. Number 15, writing a case study. Case studies are really fun and they show prospective clients your results. So of course writing a case study is going to be something that you can prepare after you have clients, right? If you're a new writer, it would be really awesome if you capture some return on investment and outcomes that you're able to provide for a client and document those after every client. Simply writing up a one page case study, uh, based on your scope of work. And the problem that you solved and the results that you obtained was, would be really cool. A case study usually covers things about the client projects and challenges, processes and results that you are able to help them achieve or engagement that you helped to increase. The, AWAI website has a really great post that's very in depth on how to write case studies. It's actually one of my favorites and I had the link in the show notes. Number 16, speaking at industry conferences or just speaking at a local event period. I love, love, love attending conferences because I like to live tweet them as a digital journalist and that's a great way to attract some visibility, but we should also do our best to try to speak at them even at a panel presentation. Um, not just, I think a lot of times people think about when we're speaking that we're delivering a keynote, but think about a panel presentation or an association, a professional association and speak there too. You want to find conferences in your industry and reach out to an organizer about speaking, pitch them on topics that you want to speak about and back it up with your skills, your experience, maybe even include some of the pieces, the articles a nd the blogs that you've written about that would lend credibility to your ability to speak to that topic. And yes, guess what, this isn't going to be for everyone, especially those new in the business or of course people who have a fear of speaking in public. But trust me, u m, it's a great way to build up your personal brand and forge new relationships with a live audience. It's a great opportunity. And once it's really true that the more you do it, the better you get at public speaking. Number 17, don't forget, one of the importance is we work so hard to create content, calendars and strategies for our clients. Don't forget to work on and create your own SEO strategy. So search engine optimization is a great longterm strategy to drive targeted traffic to your own company website. And just like we advise our clients, we're not going to see overnight results from SEO but with a sound strategy in place, consistent content production and consistent use of those SEO keywords. You can drive traffic to your website over time and convert those visitors to paying clients. In the show notes, I want to give you a couple, three links to some of my favorite SEO guides. One is from Yoast and it's about[inaudible] excuse me. One is from Yoast and it is a guide on SEO copywriting. My second that I'll share is from moz.com and it is a beginner's guide to SEO. That's one of my favorites as well. I really love, love, love a website called daily writing tips. There's some great information on there about the craft of writing and I'm going to share with you a freelance writers basic guide to SEO. So for all you new health writers out there, I think you'll appreciate those resources. Number 18 can you believe I came up with 18 in those few minutes that I set my timer. Last but not least is to partner with noncompeting colleagues. So I talked earlier about the value of relationships and the value of getting referrals not only from happy clients but colleagues as well. So another great strategy is to partner with a colleague and you can offer your services as an extension of their business. So just partnering up, for a short term project, you can look at noncompeting colleagues and pitch your services to them and you can even form either a memorandum of understanding work for a short term project or full on form a larger partnership So as an example, in my own consultancy, in my own business, I have partnered with a web copywriter who dislikes sales and negotiation and I liked that and uh, doesn't really enjoy the proposal preparations. So I handle the sales calls and proposal prep for select clients while they focus on the web content development and delivering that content. It's a win-win partnership for both of us. And I've learned a lot from this person and I think they've learned a lot from me. So that's another win-win. So savvy scribes. I know that was a lot, but I had a lot to share with you. So now guess what? It's your turn. I want you to choose one today, a covered some really I hope you will find that They are helpful strategies that will help new and experienced health writers land more clients. A lot of you listening to this, you will listen all the way through, but you know what? I know, I know that some of you will not take action, b ut we're a bout taking action, a little action every day to build a profitable health writing business. So let's take some action together, right? Here's what I want you to do. I want you to choose one strategy from this list and come up with a plan to implement that strategy right away. So don't make excuses, guys. Choose one, make plan, set some deadlines, and get going. Janine and I want to hear from you, so please connect with us on linkedin or via email. You can reach us savvyscribes@gmail.com And here's what I want you to do. I want you to share with us that strategy that you are going to plan to implement for your health writing business. Are you focused on taking your health, writing business to the next level and you want to connect with other members of the savvy scribe community? We'd love to have you join the savvy scribe collective on Facebook. It's a great community where you can share and gain support for building your business, building a profitable business. Thanks so much for listening today. Savvy scribes. We can't wait to hear what your strategies and your plans are going to be. These are some of our best strategies for getting new clients and I really want to hear from you, what strategies do you use to land new clients? What tools and resources are helpful? Do you have some of those favorites and you'd like to share? We'd love for you to hop on over to the savvy scribe collective and post on Facebook. If you've used some of those strategies before. We'd love to hear your case story, case studies and we'd love to interview you on the savvy scribe podcast. Let us know what worked and what didn't and guess what? Take some action and go get your write on!

Speaker 1:

[inaudible].

Speaker 3:

On the savvy scribe podcast, we're always talking about finding a tribe or finding those like minded people. So Carol and I thought, why not make our own community of podcast fans? It's open now. Come join us, search on Facebook savvy scribe collective, and join us for discussions, exclusive tips and tricks, and more that you might not hear on the podcast. See you over at the collective

Speaker 1:

for today's episode of the savvy scribe. Thank you so much for listening. If you enjoyed today's show, we'd love for you to subscribe and leave a review on iTunes or your favorite podcast app. Until next time.