I try to make life as easy as possible for my clients.
After all, who wants to work with someone who makes their life difficult?
With that in mind, I’m going to be as clear as possible about how I work, and what you can expect if you decide to work with me.
Usually, after contact is made, projects look like this:
1) Brief discussion of needs
2) Quote
3) Thorough discussion of needs
4) Fact finding/research
5) Write & submit
6) Amendments
Simple enough, right?
The first two steps can usually be completed very quickly. A simple phone call or short email exchange is enough for me to base a quote on, and once that’s agreed we can press on with step three.
At this point, I’ll be looking for a more detailed understanding of your requirements.
If you have a formal specification that’s great, but don’t panic if not. We’ll discuss and agree your requirements before moving on, and I can make recommendations if desirable.
This is the time to really hammer out precisely what you need from me. Although there will be the opportunity for revisions once I’ve submitted your project, we won’t be talking about complete overhauls.
Long story short: We’ll make sure we agree on exactly what you need, so there are no nasty surprises for either of us later on.
We’ll also agree precisely when I will start working on your project, and when you can expect to see results.
Step four is where the fun really starts.
If I’ll be writing a case study, this would likely be a three-way teleconference between myself, a representative from your company, and your delighted client. I’d be looking to find out precisely how you solved their problems, improved their processes, and generally made their lives better.
If it’s educational writing you’re after, such as an e-book, autoresponder series, white paper or article, this stage will usually be a bit more involved. I’ll be asking you for every scrap of information you can get your hands on, from product specs and sales material to instruction manuals, mission statements and customer reviews.
The same goes for sales pieces, such as landing pages, product pages, and email content. You’d be amazed how much information can be distilled into a concise, compelling sales message.
And I’ll also conduct my own research. I’ll interview your product champions, engineers, and visionaries. I’ll look at your competitors, alternative solutions, and anything else I can find that helps me to understand why your products and services are the best.
Anything I can do to better understand your business, I will. Collecting all this information can sometimes take a bit of time, but trust me.
More is more.
Once all this is complete, the final stages are simple. I complete your project, and submit it to you by the agreed date.
Our agreed project cost includes two sets of revisions, to ensure you get precisely what you need from me. These revisions will be discussed, agreed and completed within 30 days of the initial submission, so you won’t be left twiddling your thumbs and wondering what I’m up to.
And that’s it, really.
If that sounds good to you, go ahead and get in touch.