by Christopher Niesche
15 April 2016
Moving from journalism to corporate writing presents a whole set of new challenges for journalists.
Certainly it did for me, when for the first time in my career I had to go out and pitch for work, quote on jobs and appeal to clients instead of to editors.
It’s moving from a world where things are much more certain – clear briefs and deadlines, word rates and story lengths – to one where expectations of both the writer and the client are not so clear-cut and might not always match.
Here are a few freelancer pitfalls I’ve come across in the five or so years I’ve been freelance writing for corporates:
An email pops up in your inbox. It’s from a PR or marketing agency asking if you want to talk about an upcoming new project. You have a chat, and the details are pretty vague, but they say there’s the prospect of a lot of work and they want to know if you’re interested and how much you’d charge. This month is starting to look a whole lot better.
Odds are that the agency is pitch trawling. They haven’t actually won the work but they’re pulling together the names of some writers for their pitch.
Be careful about this. Essentially, what they’re planning to do is to use your name, experience and the reputation you’ve built up over several years to help them win the job. You have to ask what yourself what you’re getting in return for using your name. To my mind, a vague promise of some work at unspecified rates isn’t enough in exchange for leveraging off my reputation which I’ve spent years building up, so I always refuse to let anyone use my name in a pitch.
Similar to pitch trawling is the plan of action scam.
A business contacts you and tells you they’re interested in upping their game on content and asks if you can come in for a meeting. You chat to them to find out about the business and their needs and agree to come back to them with a plan of action/proposal.
A week or so later you send off the plan of action which you’ve spent several hours working on. And wait. And wait. And wait ….
When you finally get an answer, it turns out that they’re not actually ready to dive into content yet or have decided to go with another “supplier”. (Don’t you love being a supplier?)
You realise you’ve just provided this business with a lot of your time and expertise for free. Whether deliberately or due to general ineptitude, they’ve taking you for a ride. Even if they don’t fully adopt your free plan of action, it will undoubtedly help form their own thinking.
When you see a potential client, try to find out how ready they are for the project they’re telling you about. When do they want to start? Have they allocated budget and resources to the project? If that all stacks up, do a quote and brief outline of your ideas. After that, if they want more detail, tell them that you’ll have to start charging.
Watch out for the client who doesn’t really know what they’re looking for in the piece of writing they’re commissioning from you. If you end up with a wishy washy brief then probably the first draft you present won’t be what the client wants. It might well help them crystalize what they do want, but the problem for you is that you’ll end up doing a rewrite or two which you’re not being paid for.
There are two possible solutions. The first is to try to work out the brief with the client on the phone, then email them an outline of what you’ve agreed so it’s in writing. The second is simply to tell them that the brief is too vague and quote a price that includes a couple of rewrites and lots of back-and-forth with the client.
Sometimes clients add bits and pieces onto a job as it progresses. If you’re being paid by the hour then that’s fine, but if it’s a job you’re being paid a fixed price for then you want to be careful. Something that adds only a few minutes to a job is probably fine – you can let it go as a show of goodwill – but if it gets too much you need to raise it with the client.
Explain that you weren’t told about the extras when you agreed to the job and the price, and that they’ve significantly added to your workload. See if they are prepared to renegotiate the rate. If they’re a reasonable client then you’ll probably be able to come to a new arrangement. If not, they’re probably not the sort of client you want to hold onto.
If you’re an experienced writer and have a portfolio of work you can show potential clients then you should never write for free so the client can see what your writing style is like. No matter how desperate you are for more work or new clients, you should turn these “offers” down. Someone who tries to get you to write for free is never going to be a good client and is never going to pay fair rates. Spend your time trying to find better clients instead.
Even if you are starting out, I’d tend to say no. At least insist on a small payment for your work and if they use your work, insist on being paid properly next time. Never do a second piece for free. If the first one is good enough to use they can start paying you.
And you should never write for “exposure”. It’s unlikely that the potential client who’s asking you to do that is providing their products in exchange for exposure instead of cash.
These are the potential “clients” who say they’re interested in content, get you in for a meeting, then sit on their hands.
While they’re making up their minds about exactly what they want or your quote, they ring you or email you, asking for a bit of advice on this or that. It can add up to a lot of time and advice, so you’re best to cut your losses and move on.
The most important thing with all of these pitfalls is to not let your desire to win more work outweigh your common sense. A bad client will always be a bad client and most of the time you’d be better off not wasting your time on them.
Have you come across any pitfalls when writing for corporate clients? We’d love to hear about them in the comments.
Good piece Christopher. I wish it had been there to read when I first started doing business/corporate writing. Even now the pitch trawling was a new one me.
Great article, Christopher. Recently, I met with a client who wanted content for two different websites. I suspected from the start that he would be difficult to work with, as he was very vague and didn’t seem sure of what he wanted. I spent three hours producing content for one of the websites, but he has since decided not to go ahead with it. Basically he is not going to use any of the content I wrote, but still wants content for the other site. Would you do a “free revision” of the content I have already written, or charge him for both jobs?
Even if he has decided not to use it you should still get paid for it. If he balks at that then you have a pretty good idea of what sort of client he is going to be like to work with.
Hi Milly. Darren is right. He should pay you for the content you produced if that’s what you agreed, regardless of whether he used it or not. After that you can talk about producing content for the other site, but I wouldn’t do any more work for him until he’s paid you for what you’ve already done.
This really is spot on! After getting into corporate writing via Annual Reports as a favour to a designer friend, I stumbled through until reaching the point of winning Gold Awards at the Australasian Reporting Awards, and suddenly, there I was!
Now, with new clients, I have learned that during the first meeting, I listen to what the client wants on any number of writing jobs, and then, when as you rightly say I get a pretty vague brief, it’s my turn to let the client know what I expect from them. The ubiquitous ‘everybody’ will have an opinion, so it’s very important to set out the lines of communication, who needs to approve what, and how many changes you will accept before sign off (two is usually maximum) otherwise you’ll be inundated with ‘changes’ that have no bearing on facts, but are merely different-neither better nor worse, simply different. If one person makes a change, that will effect the tone of the whole thing.
I usually set out a time line, and ensure all concerned sticks to it (with a little wriggle room of course). It is essential they know they have hired a professional for a reason. And make absolutely sure you negotiate the fee first! I much prefer ‘project fees’ which are an ‘all in’ price, because it makes it simpler for me, simpler for the CFO or whomever is getting your invoice, and you don’t have to spend time working out who owes whom what. You will of course hear, innumerable times, ‘We are not the clients with the big budget!’ and its perfectly OK to say no client ever is. A gentle reminder that if their management team were to spend the time and effort you put in (plus the very important knowledge, skill and experience) then the rate of their pay, broken into hours, multiplied by the time it will take them away from their core work would be astronomical. There are plenty of really good clients out there, and there are some doozies as well. Suggest subtly that this lot may well be happier with the end result if they do it themselves.
If it is a big job like an Annual Report, negotiate payments in three blocks-at the beginning, work in progress half way through and then final payment when the job is out of your hands at the printer (or wherever). Waiting for three months till a job is finished is not going to work-for all the reasons we freelancers already know!
Thanks Jane. That’s good advice about establishing the lines of communication and who will review the content. Usually, the more people involved in reviewing then the more pointless changes, because sometimes people seem to think that if they are reviewing content then they should also be making changes.
Great words of wisdom, Christopher. Some great fundamentals covered here – especially the advice on ‘wishy washy’ briefs. Never knew about ‘pitch trawling’, so that is a valuable head’s up.
I didn’t know about that either! Very dodgy.
The term ‘pitch trawling’ was definitely a new one on me but I have been sort of pitch trawled. An agency I was already working with told me they were going for a new client, it would be really big if they got it, it was in my area of specialisation and could they put me down as one of their writers as part of their proposal. I said yes but after reading Chris’s piece I probably should have asked for a bit more information.
Just adding to my piece above, Christopher. I’d like to join the others in saying I too have never heard of pitch trawling in this kind of work. Ad agencies and the like often do that with creatives for a pitch, but I’ve never come across it with writing. Thanks for the tip.
I’ve been pitch trawled a few times as well but hadn’t realised it was a thing. I also hadn’t given the pros and cons of letting someone use my name much thought but of course you’re right Christopher – there aren’t really any pros.
Thanks so much Christopher. I have fallen for every one of these pitfalls since becoming a freelance. Encouraging to know I’m not the only one! However, you do learn how to spot perpetrators with experience. Always good to have tactics in place though, so your advice will come in very handy.