Winning work through referrals and networking
Referrals grow from people who know a freelance writer’s work, trust their reliability and remember them when an opportunity arises. Networking builds those relationships through existing contacts, professional events, shared interests, practical help and introductions.
Existing contacts
Clients can be found through three groups:
- People the writer knows.
- People other people know.
- People gathered at events.
A useful starting point is a written list of former and current colleagues, managers, researchers, other freelances, friends, family, neighbours and people met at conferences or training courses. One practical exercise is to spend ten minutes listing thirty people, then contact them by email or through a professional network to explain that the business is open and available for work. Each contact knows other people and may move between companies, extending the network beyond the original list. New contacts’ details should be collected and used to stay in touch, helping build and maintain the client base.
Connections outside the apparent professional network can lead to assignments. One writer gained a longstanding publishing client after telling a neighbour about becoming freelance, without previously knowing that the neighbour worked for a publisher specialising in medical guidelines. Describing scientific interests in language a layperson can understand makes it easier for family and friends to recognise a possible lead.
Networking can begin before leaving employment: colleagues can be told about the intended move into self-employment and asked whether they would be willing to keep in touch about contract work. Former employers often provide early freelance projects. One practitioner cautions that this may limit earnings because the former employer knows the writer’s previous salary and may resist paying much more. Another began working for friends after a contract research organisation closed, then used those relationships to obtain further names and contacts.
A former manager can provide both commissions and introductions: one freelance received substantial early work directly from a former head of medical writing and through recommendations to that person’s colleagues. Another writer’s relationship with a former manager continued for years after leaving the job, with meetings at professional conferences.
Trust, listening and help
Building a network takes time: people need to trust a writer before offering work or referrals. Trust includes confidence in the writer’s skills, reliability, timely delivery and protection of confidential data; a binding contract normally covers those obligations before a project is received. A writer can set a timeframe for developing a network and review the return on the effort, while allowing for relationships that take time to become friendships.
Listening helps the writer discover another person’s interests and needs and tailor a concise, positive introduction when asked. Asking what the other person is doing and showing sincere interest is preferable to opening with a request for a job. Notes can help retain what was learned.
Offering time, skills and support can make a writer memorable without an immediate request in return. Sharing useful information, connecting people and helping colleagues are ways to strengthen relationships. Help need not be restricted to people who appear likely to provide work, because future connections are difficult to predict. An email can open a business conversation by explaining how the writer can help the recipient rather than simply asking for a job.
Conversations about life outside work can help people get to know one another and recognise who might suit a project. One writer’s most fruitful networking began with a conversation about keeping chickens; subsequent collaboration let colleagues learn directly how each other worked. A client or employer may consider a writer with limited experience if they already know the person to be reliable, resourceful and a good team member, especially when a colleague can vouch for them.
An established network of freelance colleagues can support reciprocal referrals because members have worked together, know the quality of one another’s work and trust that a recommendation will reflect well on them. Regular calls with colleagues to discuss questions, brainstorm and work through business issues can build that trust and lead to work being referred in both directions. Networking also lets writers learn from other people’s experience and mistakes.
A classification attributed to Angel Ramos distinguishes direct networkers who get straight to business, analytical networkers who are task-focused and dislike events, promoters who enjoy talking and selling, expressive networkers who value lively connections, and supportive networkers who value sincerity and helping. Advice centred on building relationships over time, listening and giving may be less suitable for people who prefer a direct or analytical approach.
Networking events and limited social energy
Professional conferences, training courses and freelance meetings can offer opportunities to meet colleagues and prospective clients. Scientific and medical conferences, industry meetings and groups such as Women in Bio and the Association of Women in Science can bring writers into contact with potential clients. Local freelance groups need not be limited to medical writing or clinical research to produce useful connections. At one peer meeting, invited clients discussed collaboration and then supplied contact details to writers interested in working with them.
Attending therapy-area or industry conferences specifically to promote services can feel pressurised; one practitioner recommends it for those comfortable acting as their own salesperson and notes opportunities to speak or present expertise.
A brief, natural explanation of the writer’s work and a business card help turn an encounter into a conversation that can be followed up. The explanation can cover what the writer does, who they work with and how clients benefit. It should give the other person context rather than sound contrived.
Networking may become less intimidating when approached as meeting interesting people, sharing skills and helping others rather than immediately finding work. Joining associations used by people who hire the writer’s kind of service can focus limited energy. Volunteering for a simple event task, such as setting up chairs or handing out badges, gives an introverted attendee something concrete to do. Before an event, a writer can practise an introduction, bring business cards, dress professionally and arrange a time and place to meet selected attendees.
At the event, approachable behaviour, questions and conversations with people sitting nearby or waiting in line can provide openings. Other attendees may also be shy and welcome someone making the first move. A conversation can end considerately by acknowledging that the other person has others to meet. Notes on business cards preserve the context for a follow-up invitation or email. Frequent breaks for time alone can help an introvert recharge during a multiday event.
Some experienced freelances consider in-person meetings the strongest way to begin trusting relationships and regard online contact as particularly useful for maintaining them. Meeting face to face provides facial expressions, body language and a face to associate with an email. Trust can also develop online, although one practitioner finds it easier after meeting at least once. For another, conferences provide many contacts over a few days and have supplied most referrals through the freelance friends met there.
Asking an experienced freelance for an informational video call can help a newcomer learn and make connections; many experienced writers remember being beginners and are willing to share advice. Both such calls and in-person networking can become easier with practice. When the same people recur throughout a writer’s contacts, trying a new platform or attending a medical conference can broaden the network.
Peer groups and volunteering
Connections through colleagues and professional associations can help a writer become known and found through referrals.
A local group can provide regular discussion, business advice and referrals between independent writers. In St Louis, two freelance writers met after one found the other through a library newsletter and a website, then brought together freelance members of local AMWA and Society for Technical Communication chapters. Their first joint luncheon was held in September 2006; by the 2009 account, eight to ten people were meeting every two months on weekdays at restaurants, paying for their own meals. Varying location, cuisine and price range helped make the meetings appealing.
Each luncheon had a participant-led discussion of writing or self-employment, including business plans, business goals, marketing, retirement, telecommuting, contracts, electronic networking, new technologies, visual communication and participants’ own business problems. Two coordinators recruited discussion leaders and alternated reminders and RSVP collection, while periodically adding new local association members to the mailing list. Participants valued informal feedback as well as presentations: the group provided comments on a conference handout, suggestions about a contract problem and advice between meetings. Members actively referred jobs to one another, and one hired writers met there when overloaded.
Volunteering can let potential referrers see that a writer is competent, reliable, helpful and pleasant to work with. A writer who becomes known through voluntary work may stand out as the person to approach in an organisation with few writers or editors. Professional-association activities can build visibility at local and national levels. One practitioner attributed substantial business growth to association leadership, presentations, journal contributions, webinars and social media, which together developed a professional reputation. Other practitioners reported freelance leads from association friends and referrals from people met through volunteering. One writer’s first subcontract from a new collaborator came through a colleague’s recommendation when that colleague was unavailable.
Community organisations outside medical writing can also generate work. One freelance’s volunteering with Kiwanis, a merchants’ association, a planning organisation and a parks group led to a year-long book-editing assignment, a dermatologist seeking help with journal articles and several clients who saw a community pamphlet the writer had produced. Interest groups such as Women in STEM and ELAM may also become referral networks through volunteer work.
Chance connections can build on one another. One freelance’s empathetic reply to a stranger’s LinkedIn post led to literature-review work for a Japanese writing company. A response to a local Facebook enquiry prompted attendance at an EMWA conference, which produced a contract for daily educational summaries and a conversation with a workshop neighbour whose father-in-law was a paediatric consultant the writer had previously worked with. The connection led to a two-year paediatric rare-disease guideline project. Later conferences brought friendships and reciprocal help finding work.
One practitioner working where medical communications was still new reported that most clients came through national and international network referrals, and that much of her professional knowledge had been learned through those contacts.
Asking for introductions and keeping in touch
Only when a client is happy with a completed assignment should the writer explain that the business grows through referrals and ask whether the client knows two or three people who might need the service. Some companies prefer not to share their favourite freelances’ names, whereas academic clients may be willing to recommend them.
Existing contacts can also be asked for an introduction to someone who needs the writer’s services. Reluctance may reflect concern about seeming too commercial in a trusted relationship, or fear of asking, so it is worth examining the reason for holding back. A recommendation requested from a past colleague, employer or client can provide a testimonial while reminding them why they enjoyed working with the writer. One freelance uses Christmas cards with a simple greeting to remind contacts of the business and reports a strong return on the small investment.
Regular contact with former colleagues and previous clients can concern their current needs, updates to services or newly available capacity. Recording who was contacted and when makes regular follow-up easier. Consistent communication can help keep the writer in mind for future opportunities, including during difficult business conditions. Name and contact details in an email signature make it easy for a colleague to copy them into a message introducing the writer to a prospective client.
Referring work to another writer
When unable to take an assignment, a writer can help solve the client’s problem by recommending colleagues whose work they know and trust. Such recommendations can benefit the client and colleague while establishing the referring writer as a helpful problem solver for future work or referrals. There is a risk of losing work to the recommended writer, but one practitioner considers the goodwill worth it.
One writer keeps a document of trusted colleagues’ contact details to paste into replies and often blind-copies them to provide advance notice. Another offers to find a suitable freelance for every declined project and refers only people known fairly well, often through joint association volunteering. When a referral follows a phone conversation, an email to the colleague can provide the prospective client’s name and contact information.
A fuller introduction procedure begins by contacting both parties to make sure they know about the proposal and agree to it. The writer then emails both together, introduces each with a relevant, complimentary detail, wishes them well and tells the client they look forward to another opportunity to work together. Frequent referrers may keep a spreadsheet of whom they referred and to whom.
Sources of work and networking frequency
In EMWA’s 2012 freelance survey, longstanding clients supplied a mean 50% of respondents’ work, colleague referrals 17% and client referrals 13%. The corresponding figures in 2010 were 46%, 16% and 13%, and in 2007 were 41%, 16% and 9%.
EMWA’s 2023 survey asked for one major source of projects: 40.8% chose longstanding clients, 10.8% professional or social networking sites, 7.2% client referrals, 6.7% colleague referrals, 2.2% freelance listings and 0.4% a personal website, while 30.5% did not respond. The 2018 questionnaire allowed multiple sources, so those frequencies cannot be directly compared with 2023: 83.9% named longstanding clients, 43.4% colleague referrals, 39.2% client referrals, 32.9% networking sites, 21.7% freelance listings and 7.7% a personal website. Asked which channel most influenced new business, 41.3% of 2023 respondents selected word of mouth from current or past clients and 17.0% selected social media or LinkedIn.
Reported networking through professional or social networks fell from 65.7% of respondents in 2018 to 40.8% in 2023; EMWA conferences from 46.9% to 22.0%; local meet-ups from 32.2% to 19.3%; and other associations’ conferences from 32.2% to 12.1%. In 2023, 30.0% did not answer the networking question. The results table reports that 14.3% did not network with other medical writers in 2023, compared with 4.2% in 2018, although the printed 2018 questionnaire did not offer that response option. One interpretation is that established client relationships and a growing market may reduce the perceived need to seek new business.
In a 2018 survey of 175 freelances, 42 of 173 respondents said referrals supplied more than 75% of their work, while the largest group, 68 of 173 (39%), said referrals supplied less than 25%. Of 172 respondents, 89 (52%) attended networking events several times a year, 45 (26%) once a year and 12% never. Reasons given for not attending included introversion, few local opportunities and lack of time. Limited reliance on referrals and networking may be a missed opportunity: referred clients are typically familiar with a writer’s services and fees and arrive interested in working together. This can reduce time spent marketing and establishing whether the client and writer are a match.