Approaching a prospective client

An approach to a prospective client connects the writer's relevant experience with a need inside the organisation. It involves identifying the right person, making a focused introduction, following up and deciding how much work to invest before an assignment is agreed.

Research and the right contact

A prospect list should match organisations' medical specialties, therapeutic areas, products or pipelines with the writer's background and experience. ¹ Company websites, news and media pages, professional association directories and directories of contract research organisations (CROs), continuing medical education providers and medical associations can identify prospects and their contact details. ^{2, 1} Recent trial success or new business can provide a specific reason to approach pharmaceutical, biotechnology, contract research or medical communications companies. ³

The appropriate contact may be a regulatory affairs, publications or medical writing manager, a marketing director, brand or account manager, a vice president or director of communications, or the head of a company. ^{4, 5, 2} LinkedIn can help identify relevant individuals; a telephone call may be needed when online research does not reveal the right person. ^{6, 5} Email formats on a company's news or media page can help identify an individual's address. ² An approach should address a named individual, ideally with a direct email address and telephone number, rather than a generic enquiries address. ^{5, 1} If a company requires first contact through human resources, obtaining that person's name can avoid an anonymous approach to the department. ¹

Research before a cold call should include whom the company works with, its business pipeline, its funding and employees' accounts of the work environment. ⁷ Profiles and posts about interests, holidays or family can help establish a personal connection; as prospects become more comfortable, they may reveal their underlying needs. ⁷

Companies advertising full-time vacancies may also use freelances and can be approached with an offer of freelance services. ⁸ One freelance editor preferred this to applying for advertised gigs, which attracted competition and, in the editor's experience, seldom paid enough to sustain a business. ⁸ New prospects can be researched whenever their names appear on email lists or in news or magazine articles, with time reserved each week to contact them. ⁹ Publisher directories such as Literary Market Place can also provide contacts for publishers producing the materials a writer or editor wants to work on. ⁹

Calls and introductory messages

In 2012, a writer with a sales background recommended a six-stage approach to a new business contact. ^{4, 10}

1. Research the company and recent developments that could create a need for writing services.
2. Identify relevant individuals within it, using a professional network.
3. Call and ask for the person directly; sales skills, personality, presence of mind and a little guile help when a gatekeeper blocks access.
4. Present the writer's experience in a short, succinct conversation, using a style that suits the individual, and insist on sending a summary and curriculum vitae (CV) for the company's records.
5. Persist in trying to connect through LinkedIn or Xing so the contact can readily reach the writer's profile.
6. Stay in touch without becoming overbearing, using occasional updates or courtesy messages.

^{4, 3, 6, 11, 12, 13, 14}

An unfocused call can end at a generic enquiries address; simply asking for a medical writing manager may not get past a gatekeeper. ⁴ Before making cold calls, a writer should plan and script the call and prepare to explain their background, experience and suitability for a project. ¹⁵

Experienced freelances have differed on whether to make cold calls: one found them ineffective and preferred researched warm calls, while another considered the telephone an excellent way to qualify prospects, second only to meeting face to face. ^{7, 1} A third editor would not approach a new client without knowing someone in the company, at least through meeting them or receiving their card at a conference. ⁵

An introductory message should focus on the prospect's needs and how the writer can help meet them. ^{9, 16, 17} One direct-email approach recommends no more than four sentences, showing knowledge of the organisation and the benefits offered, with a website link. ² A more detailed direct-email procedure recommends the following. ¹

1. Use language from the prospect's website to show understanding of its needs; greet the contact by name and use the organisation's name in the email and subject line.
2. After the greeting, write one sentence showing that understanding and one or two sentences about the writer's most relevant experience.
3. Link to a client-focused website, or a client-focused LinkedIn profile if no website is available.
4. Add a clear call to action, such as proposing a call the following week.
5. Write a compelling, client-focused subject line last.
6. Send a polite, professional follow-up after about a week without a response.

¹

One freelance reported gaining steady, high-paying clients through this approach, with most responses coming from follow-up emails; direct email is also called warm email prospecting, cold email or sales email. ¹ Another used a short introduction highlighting relevant experience, links to a website and résumé, a promised follow-up within a few days, a marketing postcard and later newsletters or announcements. ⁵

One healthcare marketing writer recommended targeting 150–200 organisations, including professional associations, pharmaceutical companies and hospitals, and contacting their managers or directors with short, focused emails followed up after a few weeks. ¹⁸ The same advice was to expect no job from the first attempt about 90% of the time. ¹⁸ Another freelancer's prospecting routine was to list suitable companies, identify the right individual, connect, email and send a handwritten card to ten prospects a day until work began to arrive. ² That freelancer considered cold calling necessary to building a successful practice, while pointing to cold email as an available alternative. ²

One freelancer sometimes devoted a full day to prospecting, qualifying and contacting potential clients. ¹ The same freelancer considered learning to handle rejection essential to sales. ¹

An experienced medical writer described using LinkedIn to find prospective clients, asking new connections for their email addresses or inferring addresses from the employer's naming pattern and persisting with email attempts. ¹⁹ For an experienced translator seeking clients abroad, the same writer suggested an email summarising relevant experience and using LinkedIn to find recipients. ^{20, 21}

Direct mail and the time to a response

One freelance who began working full-time in March 1997 built mailing lists from the American Medical Writers Association (AMWA) membership directory and library directories of hospitals, health care associations and other health organisations. ^{22, 23} In the first year, three flyers went to about 250 people each, at a cost of approximately $10,000; within eighteen months the practice had as much business as the writer wanted. ²³ Some clients responded within days of the first flyer, while others hired the writer after the second or third, prompting continued marketing so prospects would remember the business when they needed help. ²³

In another account, the same writer sent a well-written and well-designed 8.5-by-11-inch trifold mailer on good paper to a targeted list of named contacts, followed by a second piece approximately four months later. ⁵ Despite the work and expense, nearly every campaign brought one or two new clients. ⁵

A different writer sent a CV and short introductory letter to pharmaceutical companies throughout France and sometimes received calls three or four years later from companies that had kept the CV until a need arose. ^{24, 25} That writer linked the slow process to the trust required for a large purchase such as a clinical study report costing tens of thousands of euros, and advised extensive marketing without expecting immediate work from new contacts. ^{25, 26}

The first conversation or meeting

For an enquiry about health-website writing, the writer should inspect the current site for clues to its purpose and audience, then ask about the client's challenges, short- and long-term website goals and intended readers. ²⁷ Understanding these needs helps with negotiating the contract and delivering the content. ²⁷ Once a prospect is interested, gathering detailed project information and letting the client do most of the talking can reveal the needs and challenges behind an effective proposal. ²⁸ Trying to sound like the smartest person in the room risks both credibility and missed information. ²⁸

One experienced freelance recommended controlling an assignment interview by knowing four things. ²⁹

• Who the client is.
• What this client wants.
• What every client wants.
• What the freelance wants.

²⁹

The writer should accurately describe strengths and weaknesses and know their preferred working hours and availability; overselling capabilities can damage the relationship. ²⁹ Treating the meeting as a performance about skills, knowledge, credentials and experience was suggested as a way to reduce interview anxiety. ²⁹ Focusing on what the writer can do for the client, rather than the writer's need for the job, can help instil confidence that the work will arrive on time, on target and on budget. ^{29, 30}

Writing samples should be used when requested or when they enhance the presentation, with no more than six chosen to demonstrate the depth and breadth of the writer's skills. ³¹ The conversation should include asking whether the client has an immediate need or specific future projects for which the writer could help. ³¹ One practitioner's decision rule was to trust a positive or negative gut feeling at the end of the interview, either sealing the deal or leaving. ³⁰

Work invested in proposals

A detailed proposal can require substantial preparation; for audiovisual or educational projects, providing a proposal and budget may effectively design the project before the writer is paid. ³² A prospective client may collect proposals from several vendors, combine their best ideas, then execute the project in-house or use a cheaper vendor. ^{32, 33}

One freelancer supplied sample graphics and layout in a proposal, only for the client to give the work to its advertising agency, whose six-figure annual retainer allowed it to accept a lower project fee. ³² The graphic artist who helped with the speculative proposal received nothing, having agreed in advance to be paid only if the project was won. ³² The same freelancer had also won projects after preparing unpaid proposals, but generally preferred not to design projects speculatively and recommended charging for solicited proposals unless a longstanding, reputable client could be trusted to award the work if possible. ³²

Another writer usually charged for helping clients pitch to their own customers, reasoning that the client's other pitch-team members were receiving salaries. ³⁴ With spare time and a valued client, that writer sometimes contributed without charge to be seen as more than an individual writer: a successful pitch allowed recovery of the time and a risk allowance in the project estimate, while a failed pitch was treated as goodwill and, in the writer's own view, an advertising write-off. ³⁴ Ideas should be protected, because some can become businesses rather than merely individual projects. ³⁴

One regulatory writer surmised that most freelances learned of potential projects only when a client contacted them, but suggested that a writer familiar with a client's completed clinical study reports and planned submission could propose marketing-application summaries, selling familiarity with the product and its messages. ³⁵ The same writer also drafted medical-writing sections of CRO clients' business proposals on a general assumption of receiving the writing work if the CRO won, although that assumption was not contractual and the proposal time was treated as a business cost. ³⁵ Detailed assumptions and allocations of responsibility were intended to demonstrate the writer's working practices. ³⁵

A different freelancer recommended spending time on marketing materials, direct approaches and networking rather than unsolicited proposals; for a requested proposal, the potential payoff should be weighed against the effort and the possibility that a new client is seeking free advice. ³⁶ Another practitioner's advice was to avoid providing a full proposal before a signed contract unless the client agreed to pay for its design and writing, and to copyright proposals and hand them over after the project was awarded. ³³

One experienced freelance recommended an expiry date of approximately two weeks on proposals, creating a reason to follow up when approval was delayed, especially in large organisations where sign-off could be distant from the project contact. ³⁷ The follow-up could ask whether the contact needed anything further to obtain approval. ³⁷ In that approach, professionalism, capability, third-party validation and budget had already been addressed before closing, so the signature was treated as a formality. ³⁸