Managing Assignment Risk

Whether you work in editorial, corporate, non-profit, or even fiction, you still have to run a business. One of the big areas that established businesses consider is risk. The idea is actually simple, and you do it every day in your life. When crossing a street, for example, you look both ways. What you're doing in that moment is assessing risk by determining if there is any oncoming traffic. Obviously if there's a car right a few yards away, you stay on the curb. Similarly, if there isn't a vehicle in sight, you can cross at your leisure.

But what if there is traffic coming from one or both directions at varying distances? You may have enough time to safely cross or not, and you make that judgment based on your past experience. What you're doing subconsciously is identifying a potential source of danger and calculating how likely it is to cause a problem.

Think about it and you'll see how amazing this is: you estimate speed and position, take into account direction and your own pace, mentally calculate whether you and the car will intersect at any point, adjust your own speed as a consequence, consider how urgently you need to get across the street, and then make a decision as to whether it is "safe" for you to cross at that time.

You can do the same thing, often with as little effort, in your writing business. All it requires is for you to put at bay your eagerness at getting work. Instead, you take a few minutes when hearing of an assignment and consider the following points, at least:

• Pay - Well, of course you consider that. Or do you? If you find yourself making excuses for why a low pay assignment is acceptable to take, then you're not bringing a critical view that you need.


• Timing - Is the schedule one you can live with? You have to consider when it must start, when the work is due, how much time it would take, and how fully you are booked.


• Profitability
- Take the pay and divide it by the time you estimate that the assignment will take. You now have a dollar per hour figure that should be at least above your minimum. (See my article on business planning to the left under Writer Resources.) This is another point where you should be brutally honest. If you aren't going to make enough for the time you invest, think carefully whether you want to get involved, as it could be a huge mistake.

• Getting Paid - You want to be sure that you get the money you're earning. Check out the current reputation of the client. If you hear of others getting stiffed, or even greatly delayed, pass on the assignment. If you're working with someone unknown to you, limit your exposure. Take only one assignment at the start and see how it goes. If it's a large assignment, break the tasks and deliverables into multiple parts, billing (and, hopefully, collecting) for each before continuing to something else. Too many writers have found themselves waiting for thousands of dollars because they didn't use this approach.


• Business Fit - Generally not as major a consideration, it should still be one. Will you see any disadvantage from the association with the client? If so, can you remove it by working under a pseudonym?


• Client Satisfaction - Taking business that only has the opportunity for single assignments is largely a waste, because you can't leverage the marketing you just did and the time it takes to set up a client and have it set you up as a vendor on its accounting system. If there is the chance for continuing assignments, be sure you can deliver on what the client needs and wants. If not - if you don't have particular skills or expertise the client needs - then determine whether getting up to speed is possible. If not, then refer the client to someone who can do that particular job. You avoid wasting everyone's time and actually build relations with the client.

This doesn't have to be an onerous process. Just consider the signs you can see, what your experience and that of others tells you, and make an informed decision. You won't be right all the time, but you're unlikely to get as seriously run over as you might otherwise.