Recently, I had an email come in from Lisa Lehr of Lisa J. Lehr Copywriting, based in Northern California. Lisa is a graduate of American Writers and Artists Institute (AWAI) Copywriting Course and has several years experience. Despite the fact that her editorial work has been widely published and she’s listed in Marquis’ Who’s Who in America 2005®, Lisa was having some trouble attracting the type of clients and projects she wanted.

I shared some advise with Lisa and I want to share it with you as well. To follow are some of the highlights from our correspondence.

NT: How is your site traffic doing?

LL: To be honest, I don't know. I'd have to ask my web designer how to access those statistics. It's pretty rare that someone contacts me through the site, just out of the blue.

NT: It's a good idea to check your stats at least monthly. Many hosting accounts come with one or more stat packages. I use Hands-On Web Hosting, in Fullerton, CA, and have several different stat packages included with my account. Most accounts have a control panel or admin area where you can access your stats.

There's a couple of reasons to keep track of your traffic patterns. First, it lets you know if you're getting any return on your investment in the site.

Second, it helps determine what's important to your audience. For instance, you might find that folks are hanging out on a certain page, but not the one where you want them to go. A few changes to your content can help direct the traffic to the right place.

Third, it's just a kick to see your traffic grow.

LL: At this point, most of the potential clients who've contacted me seem like they'd have a problem affording even the "beginner's fees" I'd be asking.

NT: I hear this one a lot. A large part of this stuff is being able to pre-qualify clients. That means determining if they have the moolah to pay for your services ... and if they'll be a good fit for a business relationship.

For instance, if I'm talking with a prospect and they have some dough to blow, but they give me the heebie jeebies, I'll decline the gig. In my experience, my gut feelings are usually right.

One of my more popular articles deals with this topic. Setting the correct rate for your specific situation is important. Too high and you won't land any clients. Too low and you can literally sell yourself out of business. Here's a link to the article. I have a rate calculator you can download to figure your rate, if you like. There's a link at the end of the article.

graphicdesign.about.com/library/weekly/aa092702a.htm

LL: That said, I'll take just about anything.

NT: Er ... not a good idea. Yeah, I know ... you don't want to limit yourself. But, taking anything that comes in the door, or rings up the phone, usually positions one as a generalist. Typically, generalists are perceived as lower value than an expert.

For instance, many moons ago, I was working with a local non-profit organization. I did their web stuff and their print work. But, when they had to change their corporate name and whip up a new identity, they went to a place that specialized in identity design. I was a wee bit ticked. "Heck, I do identity design." But, I hadn't promoted that bit of information to them. Idiot moi. They were shelling out a boat load of dough and felt more comfortable going with the place they saw as being an expert.

So ... we need to start positioning you as an expert. It's not really all that tough. That doesn't mean all you do is one thing. It simply means that's what you promote.

LL: I'd be happy to take anything that comes along, but certain things I'm more comfortable with ... health, pets, faith-based and conservative issues.

NT: Seems to me that targeting a specialty in the non-profit arena would be a good fit for you. Contrary to popular belief, not all non-profits are cash-strapped. I have several clients with fairly deep pockets.

The point here is finding that niche where you're comfortable and feel rewarded for the type of work you do - both financially and emotionally. There's little worse on the career front than doing work you hate and feel unrewarded doing it.

LL: Definitely national, international would make me happy too. Not local. I live in a small town and local businesses are small and would want me to work for minimum wage if not free.

NT: That's similar to me. I have a handful of local clients, but most are out of my area.

When I first stared out, we were doing all local work. I had an outside office and a staff of 5-6 at that time. As we grew, we started working on mostly out-of-state deals. That was expensive - for us and our clients. Lots of airports, hotels, overnight shipping and such. Now days, I'm a one-man-show and work virtually with remote clients. Lots better. I've never met most of my clients face-to-face.

The trick with this stuff is leveraging the web. Without the web, I couldn't do most of what I do. You have one huge advantage over lots of other indy professionals - you're a writer. So am I, as you can likely tell from the length of this email. :-) My primary work revolves around web design and marketing consulting, but I use my writing as a promotional vehicle.

I'd suggest you try a few things to kick start your expert status. First, put together a list of topics that would be helpful and of interest to your target audience. Draft up a series of articles and tip sheets. Websites are hungry for content. Most will link your articles to your site. That helps build link popularity and that's a huge factor these days in search engine rankings.

If you decide it would be a good idea to target non-profits, maybe some articles about grant writing, working with a writer and/or creating copy that generates donations would fit the bill.

Next, I'd suggest you consider becoming active on a few forums/discussion groups on the web where your audience are hanging out. Many forum posts are also indexed by the search engines and that also helps with link popularity.

It takes time, but after a while ... poof! You're an expert. Next thing you know, folks are contacting you for quotes for articles, interviews, wanting to feature you in a book, yada, yada, yada. I get calls and emails from all sorts of places. I was even interviewed by American Massage Magazine (huh?) for an article about setting rates. The writer had read one of my articles and wanted to adapt what I wrote [mostly for creatives] for massage therapists. Never a dull moment.

LL: I belong to Turning Memories Into Memoirs(TM), a personal history network; and I do a lot of volunteer work (kids, animals, literacy, church).

NT: Is there a possibility of putting a spin on any of these activities and whipping up some press releases? Those are also great to help build your expert status.

LL: I tried a direct mail marketing campaign ...

NT: Save your dough. There are lots of free or very low cost options that work better. Public Relations efforts - the stuff I've mentioned above - are more an investment in time than money and they're more believable than advertising or direct response.

Think about it. What are you more likely to believe - an ad or an article that you find helpful?

LL: ... I don't really relish making a gazillion cold calls because I hate to sit still for that long, and talking a lot gives me a sore throat. ;)

NT: By putting together a sensible P.R./promotional plan, you won't need to make cold calls. The idea is to have [qualified] prospects contact you and generate referrals from your network.

LL: I have this idea that because of that, I'll never have much money, because I hate to ask people for money in exchange for anything. I hope I'm wrong about that.

NT: It's a balancing act. Money is necessary in our culture. Money, in and of itself, isn't evil. It's the love of money that can be problematic. Heck, even the poorest person can be messed up by that.

The laborer is worthy of his or her wage. You provide a valuable service for your clients. In most cases, your work helps them be more prosperous. That's worth something.

LL: I guess I haven't gotten to the point where I state my rate and somebody says, "Wow, that's all?" It's more like, "You gotta be kidding ...

NT: You'll run into those types ... and you'll want to steer clear of them. The thing is, it's a big red flag that tells you the person doesn't understand the nature of business or the value of what you do. Just because we bill out at say, 75 smackers/hour, that doesn't mean we get to keep all of it. We have overhead and various expenses to pay.

This is were qualifying prospects comes into play. You'll want to set up your criteria for qualifying. That might industry, be the size of the company, revenues, whether or not they've worked with a writer before and such.

When you're hunting new clients, it's a good idea to create a profile of your "best" client. Then it's just a matter of matching up prospects with that profile. For instance, your prospect profile might be something like:

• Mid-size non-profit organization with annual revenues over one million
  
• National or regional scope
  
• Active website that's updated often
  
• Produces multiple printed materials - brochures, posters, annual report, etc.
  
• Has a monthly e-newsletter