Working on the business as well as in it
A freelance practice needs business management as well as client work. The owner sets its direction, learns business skills and designs conditions in which the writing can continue sustainably.
The business owner's responsibilities
A freelance medical writer also performs marketing, accounting, business development and management, alongside responsibilities outside work. The business owner and the medical writer both need to develop as their fields change. Medical-writing expertise and the ability to establish and run a business are different skill sets, and a successful freelance needs both. A one-person practice can combine the chief executive's responsibilities with even the smallest operational duties.
Working in the business means project work, client requests, writing and translation; working on it means accounting, administration, personal development and business development. Distinguishing the two makes it possible to allocate enough working time to both. Marketing remains part of the job even when it feels unwelcome. Time spent learning from others, meeting possible clients and collaborators and considering unfamiliar perspectives is investment in developing the business.
The business functions include executive leadership, marketing, sales, finance, bookkeeping, administration, public relations, purchasing and shipping; initially the owner may perform all of them. Establishing infrastructure early can reduce administration later: computer hardware, software and backups; proposal, invoice and timesheet templates; branding and marketing materials; an accounting method; bank accounts; and office space and equipment. Enjoying business management matters because it consumes a substantial part of freelance working time.
New owners may not recognise their writing practice as a business and can lose momentum when unfamiliar self-promotion, client-finding and sales tasks accumulate. Fear of mistakes should not prevent action, but each mistake should lead to learning rather than repetition. Learning management skills, including self-leadership, requires deliberate time because the enterprise's success now rests on its owner.
Learning business skills
Business education need not require an MBA. US resources described in 2010 included Small Business Administration information, training and counselling, and SCORE seminars and online counselling, with discussion among participants adding practical experience. Repeating a seminar later can refresh that knowledge. Professional-association workshops, freelance discussion lists and other freelances can help with contracts, estimates, computer questions, billing and collecting. In 2023, SCORE business experts and Small Business Development Centers were also recommended for advice on business plans.
An entrepreneur organises and operates a business while accepting financial risk; freelance medical writers may take on that role without prior business training. An MBA-trained practitioner's recommended business-strategy reading was Good Strategy, Bad Strategy.
A written business plan
Writing a plan clarifies what the owner wants, strengths and weaknesses, and what is needed to move forward. Free structures and examples can be enough for an experienced writer to produce the plan without buying specialist software. The plan provides a commitment against which to judge progress and accountability, and changes as experience and the market change.
A business or marketing plan should name specific services, desired client types and ways of reaching them, rather than describe the offer only as “freelance medical writing”. It can include a mission statement, values, revenue and marketing goals, and realistic objectives for the year, quarter, month and week. The plan can also address strengths and weaknesses, market opportunities and threats, brand and differentiation, how marketing will be measured and what success means. Early-stage advice was to reassess progress and update it at least every six months. One writer who faithfully implemented a marketing plan reported more work than could be handled within about a year and later revised it towards preferred patient and consumer writing.
Some experienced freelances maintain plans and revise them annually, while others do not. One experienced business owner's stronger view is that a written plan distinguishes owning and managing a business from working as a contract writer. That owner's suggested contents are a summary, the business's nature and objectives, market, marketing strategy, competitors, staff and organisation chart, operational strategy, projected sales and profitability, future growth, and income-and-expense projections over a period such as five years. If one person performs every function, their name belongs in every relevant box of the organisation chart.
A complementary planning outline starts with a mission statement and adds prospective client profiles, projected income, office and client locations, equipment and furniture costs, space needs, and immediate and longer-term finances. Describing who needs the service, why they need it and who can pay appropriately makes the prospective-client picture concrete before searching directories and personal contacts.
The business environment
A SWOT analysis examines strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats, while a PEST analysis examines political, economic, social and technological factors. The suggested SWOT questions cover all four dimensions.
| Dimension | Questions |
|---|---|
| Strengths | What does the business do better than competitors? What intellectual property does it own? Does it have a clear direction that can be communicated? |
| Weaknesses | What do competitors do better? What is needed to compete more effectively? Can the business withstand a downturn or unforeseen setback financially? |
| Opportunities | What industry or demand changes can it use? Which competitor weaknesses can it exploit? Can internet marketing or customer relations improve? |
| Threats | Which changes can competitors exploit better? How are they attracting customers? Are regulations or customer demands forcing changes to services? |
Updating the SWOT analysis yearly and watching changes in government and the economy can reveal new writing opportunities. The accompanying advice was to diversify rather than rely on one source and look ahead instead of becoming comfortable with present circumstances.
Owner and employee as separate roles
One model treats the freelance as both owner and sole employee of the company contracting with clients. The owner assigns a reasonable workload, provides pay and benefits, maintains financial health and establishes quality systems; the employee delivers to a high standard, improves skills and raises problems. Both roles matter, and weaknesses can become visible quickly in a one-person company and cost clients.
In this model the owner's judgement should outweigh the employee's urge to accept work, auditing work, systems and ethics, finding causes of problems and arranging prevention. Separating the roles allows objective decisions before overload damages quality, particularly when financial pressure tempts the writer towards underpaid work or work outside their competence. Autonomy still needs to accommodate client communication: the example warns against working only from two to nine in the morning when clients share the same time zone.
Written personal business rules can record lessons and commitments, such as requesting payment within thirty days, avoiding weekend work, declining further work from late-paying clients and listening to concerns about a project. Reviewing them often guards against breaking one's own rules in quiet periods or out of generosity, while a short statement of preferred work and respectful, well-paying clients can guide project choices.
Designing a sustainable practice
Working independently does not automatically create rewarding projects or a satisfactory balance between work and personal life. The design needs to reflect personal requirements as well as professional ones, changing as experience and life stages change. A sustainable practice can combine work that fits other responsibilities, produces the required income and offers suitable challenge and motivation, with capacity to reflect and flexibility to change. Reproducing agency working patterns without reconsidering them can intensify the problems the move to freelancing was meant to solve.
Reported barriers include repeating previous job patterns, accepting everything, limited training, feedback or progression, uncertainty about rates, and no capacity to reflect or adapt. The following questions can be considered separately to build a picture of current and desired working conditions.
- What responsibilities and ambitions exist outside work? Do they receive enough time and attention, and how might they change over the next few years?
- What monthly income is needed? Is enough work planned, with a buffer for quiet months, and does that workload leave time for finances, training, planning and networking?
- How should working days, weeks and months ideally be structured? How do current patterns compare, and can time be planned and protected with an acceptable balance?
- Which project types or therapeutic areas are preferred? How is other work handled, and how are specialities and preferences communicated to prospective clients?
- How should the business develop? Does the strategy include skill development and contacts that could become clients?
Finding work, managing projects, setting rates, paying taxes and invoicing are part of the freelance role rather than extras around writing, while employee-provided development and benefits disappear. Peers, role models and professional coaches or mentors can support designing a sustainable practice; the mentor advocating this support also provides commercial training, mentoring and consultancy.
A separate business alongside freelancing
A freelance can develop a separate product or service while continuing client writing: one writer launched an online service two years after starting to freelance and funded its minimal setup costs from freelance profits. The planning questions change when promoting a separate product rather than the writer's own work. A practitioner's four-part starting checklist is as follows.
- Refine the idea: test whether the product or service provides a benefit and communicate it clearly and enthusiastically.
- Plan the setup: decide whether to work alone or with a partner and how to finance it.
- Allow for the effort: development may need evenings and weekends when freelance work occupies business hours.
- Build a network: use business social-media accounts and relevant regular content to communicate with customers and develop the business.
The idea can be refined to a thirty-second explanation, and external investment needs a repayment plan. A trusted partner can divide the workload, but roles and responsibilities need discussion. Continuing freelance work can mean developing the new business outside normal hours and running it during quieter periods or lunch breaks. The practitioner valued building something from scratch as a satisfying break from client work and intended to continue both.