Elizabeth Hanes 0:08
Welcome to The RN2writer Show where we help nurses and other clinicians become freelance writers. I'm your host, Elizabeth Hanes, RN, and today we're talking about the interesting topic of how do you nurse writers find clients. You know, because freelance writing is such an obscure career, many nurses misunderstand the process of finding clients. First of all, they don't understand who a prospective client is. And then they fear that this process is going to require lots of sleazy outreach and strong arm tactics to accomplish getting a client. But actually finding clients and reaching out is super easy. Clients are all around you. The problem is your brain is not registering them because the brain is very lazy and wants to overlook the obvious. So today, I'm going to share a simple two step process you can use to start identifying who might be a prospective client, and where to find them, so that you can reach out and offer your writing services. Let's start with the who, who are the clients that hire freelance writers, and specifically, who are the clients that hire freelance nurse writers. In a nutshell, any company that publishes any kind of marketing material at all, as a prospective client, let that sink in for a moment. Any company that publishes marketing material is a prospective client for you. If that hasn't already blown your mind, let's dive a little deeper. For some specific examples. Let me start by asking you a lot of questions. Do you work for a health system or a corporation with a website? Did it ever occur to you that some human being wrote all the words on every page you see on that site? How many pages does your company's website have 500? To 1000? Well, I can assure you that some human being actually wrote that content. And I know this because I myself have written dozens of websites, some of them for very high profile companies. And I got paid good money to do that. For example, in the summer of 2020, I wrote a 50 page website for a major home care Corporation, and was paid $35,000 For that one project alone. Not too shabby. If you ask me another question. Does your health insurer send you printed or emailed newsletters with information like how to maximize your insurance benefits or tips for heart health? Well, spoiler alert, once again, a real person wrote that newsletter content for your edification. Personally, I have written scores, if not hundreds of newsletter articles, and even entire newsletters for various organizations. Now, another question, if you or a family member come down with a weird illness, do you do what 99.9% of other people do and type a query into Google? And after you do that, do you see that Google says there are 14 million web pages you can look at to learn more? Well, every one of the companies that published every one of those web pages is a prospective client. Because again, some professional writer got paid to create that content, so that that company would show up in Google's search results. Okay, done with the questions. Now, let's think about all the written words you're bombarded with every day of your life. Do you read magazines? If your favorite magazine publishes health articles, then it's a prospective client for you? Do you read websites? Again, if your favorite websites publish health information, then their prospective clients for you? So I guess I wasn't all done with the questions on the job. Have you ever watched how to videos published by a healthcare company so you can learn how to operate a piece of medical equipment or EHR? Well, that video very likely was scripted, and they probably had a freelance writer do it, which means that company is a prospective client for you. Or maybe one of your relatives has their own business and asked you to look at a video explaining how they can purchase health insurance for their employees. Yep, some person wrote the script for that too. In fact, I purposely chose this example because I myself wrote multiple scripts for anthems Small Business Division on that exact topic. Have you ever been looking online for information about an obscure issue in healthcare administration and found a great looking white paper on that topic? So you typed in your email address in order to download a copy, the company that published that white paper is Ding ding ding, a prospective client. They almost certainly had a freelance writer produced that white paper you're now enjoying. Okay, I'll stop now. What I've described here is just the tip of the iceberg, seriously, clients are all around you, you just have never thought of them as clients before. But I hope this little exercise has opened your eyes and your brain to becoming aware and conscious of all the written words surrounding you every day. Because as I said at the beginning, any company that publishes marketing materials is a prospective client for you. Now that we've talked about who prospective clients are, let's talk about where you can find them. Remember that although we talk about entities, companies, or health systems, or insurers as prospective clients, in reality, we're talking about a single person at that company. Usually, your prospective client is the content director, or the marketing manager or someone like that. So your next task as a writer, is to figure out where these people live online so you can reach out to them. Well, one place every client lives online is at their own website. Most freelance writers begin their research by trying to find someone with a likely job title at the company's own site. But you also can find prospective clients on websites like LinkedIn, indeed, journalism jobs, and many others. LinkedIn in particular has become a hotbed for connecting with prospective writing clients. RN2writer students report great success doing that every single day. You also can look for part time or contract writing gigs on LinkedIn, and indeed, set job alerts and allow those services to do the legwork for you. One thing I want you to avoid, however, is signing up for those freelance platforms that promised to give you the opportunity to search for and bid on 1000s of jobs. The problem with these sites is multi fold. First of all, they put downward pressure on freelance rates by encouraging all service providers to compete on price. As a nurse writer, you should never compete on price because the knowledge and insight you bring to health writing as compared with a non clinician writer, holds incredible value to clients. Secondly, remember yobs law, Money always flows toward the writer, you should never pay for the chance to compete for a gig just as you wouldn't dream of paying for an interview to compete for a nursing job. Okay, I hope this episode has helped you see exactly who might be a prospective client for your writing services, and where you can find these clients. These are exactly the things we teach nurses in our get paid well to write program. So I hope you'll hop over to RN2writer dot com and check that out. In the meantime, pop any questions you have into the comments here on Youtube. Don't forget to click the subscribe button so you don't miss an episode. Or follow us on Spotify and Apple podcasts. I'm your host Elizabeth
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
