7 Practices to More Successful Corporate Assignments

On a writers board, someone mentioned a difficult experience with a difficult corporate project that was turning into many revisions, big reversals in direction, and increasingly hostile clients. If you haven't done many corporate assignments, it's easy to make a classic mistake and assume that they are like editorial, in that someone says what they want and you deliver it. Corporate work can be far trickier to manage (not that editorial is easy). Here are seven tactics that can help you manage the process:

1. Limit on number of drafts with additional payment for additional drafts.


2. Start with an outline that they must sign off on, and don't write a word of draft copy until you have agreement on the outline. That way it's clear when they want to change directions. It also lets you go through some alterations without much pain.


3. Indicate in the contract that drafts are based on approved outlines and, if the direction changes, so does the fee.


4. Get the names of all people involved in the approval process. Often you'll get someone in marketing claiming to have the say, but that is almost never the case. You want all decision makers involved from the beginning so you can get all the feedback early, rather than turning it into an edit-by-committee experience that you'd get at one of the big women's magazines.


5. Remember that you are the facilitator and are there in part to help them come to agreement on what they want to say.


6. After any meeting, you circulate a draft of minutes so, again, there is no confusion.


7. When someone wants something different, you patiently walk them back through drafts and meeting minutes, all calmly and coolly.

It may sound like a lot more work, but it's actually less. This give you control of the process, which will cut the total amount of time you spend on the job and will come up with something that they have bought into.

On White Papers

There is some white paper "summit" that a number of people who sell books, courses, and consulting to writers are promoting. Now, this can be a good area in which to work. I know of one writer who has pulled down close to a half million a year at times writing white papers. Sound good? Yes, it does - but he had a deep technical knowledge of the topics he covered and was particularly good at writing about them. His background was not in copywriting, but in journalism.

Some of the points in the summit advertisement -- such as "painlessly" creating white papers, learning "closely guarded secrets," and "discover the deadly mistakes that will bar you from success" -- make me suspicious. They are straight out of copy writing 101, and exactly the sorts of things that won't work in white papers.

So I thought I'd offer a few points that might be helpful to those who want to work in the area:

1. You really need to understand the topic. Forget about faking it, because these papers are usually written for business-to-business marketing. The clients and ultimate target audiences know far too much and want some understanding.White papers are far closer to articles than marketing copy. So forget the hype and focus on the details of the message that you have to get across.These things take time to do well, so plan and price accordingly.Bring some marketing expertise. Help the client remember that they have to consider the audiences they must reach and the messages that might work. After all, you're there to help them communicate, so don't be shy.
2. There are three general sources of white paper business that I know: direct assignments from corporations (which means developing clients the way you would for other corporate work, usually focusing on the corporate communications department); custom publishers (including magazine publishers that have associated custom pub arms; and marketing and advertising agencies.
3. When looking at custom publishers and marketing or advertising agencies, find ones that focus on the industries in which you have some expertise.

Five Strategies for the Credit Crisis

Roiling financial markets have sent many leaving the equity markets and seeking solace with their remaining piles of folding money. But for writers the crisis can provide a financial boost, even with advertising down, if you know anything about finance or can help someone who does.

• Consider a book. Book chains and publishers are looking to make money from consumer fears with financial titles. So now might be a good time to go to a publisher with a title that helps people either make sense of what is happening or find ways to lessen the impact.


• Talk to your editors now. They will also be reacting to everything happening and will likely be open to stories about cutting costs, reacting smartly with personal investments, and even getting into stronger position for the eventual recovery.


• Companies are likely to expand custom publishing even as they trim back advertising. They can't completely stop marketing, so they'll want what seems to provide a greater assurance of success.


• Those specializing in financial advice will probably need to repair customer relations and otherwise find a way to dig themselves out of a hole. So offer them some help in doing so.


• Take the load off clients. When everyone wants to cut costs, help them by providing additional services. For example, you might take on large aspects of a project, managing it for the company at an additional cost that is still lower than it would be to bring someone in-house or even hire a temp. That frees them up to shore up the business and increases your income. A warning on this strategy: do not give the services away, or you devalue them and now create the expectation that you should be doing it for free going forward.

Tool: Google Trends

If you ever need to add keywords into your writing - which could easily happen either in Web corporate work or when writing editorial headlines that you want to grab attention - it helps to know how well a search term does. That's why you should check out Google Trends. It doesn't work for all terms, as it filters out anything that gets less activity than some secret threshold measure of popularity. But you can take a term and see both the search volume index (a relative measure of demand) and an index for how often the term is used in searching news items.

Check this example of trends for the search term chocolate. Not only are there graphs of the ebb and flow of user interest, but it marks some points by given news stories, so you might have a sense of why there was a sudden spike at one point. (It's imprecise, however, so there may be no story link to a given rush of interest.) Then you can see relative strengths in different countries, cities, and even languages.

Plus, you can actually compare the relative strengths of different search terms, so you can see which ones you might use, or not. Here's an example of searching on chocolate, cocoa, and carob. Also notice that you can restrict the examination to searches originating from a given country or that happened during a specific year.

Writing Memorable Phrases

Marketing expert Al Ries had an interesting piece in AdAge about some of the techniques that make for good marketing slogans. It seemed to me that the principles would not only apply to headlines and deks, but as ways of putting in the nuggets of memorable writing that can help make an article stick. (To say nothing of getting those doing corporate work to write better slogans.) Here are the techniques he mentioned (though read the article, because the examples are good):

• Rhyme and alliteration Used well, they can make language stick to the mind of the audience.


• Double entendre This is in the literal sense of a double meaning, and not necessarily a sexual double entendre. The tension between the two meanings helps cement the writing.


• Repetition This is a more sophisticated use than literally repeating the same thing. Instead, you use the concept two or three times in a row, underscoring it.


• Reversals This can be in the sense of chiasmus - the rhetorical structure where you use parallel construction but invert or reverse the latter ("Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country") - or a literal melding of opposite mental concepts, like sweet and sour.


• Pass-along phrasing Not only do you want the wording to be memorable - that is, lending itself to unconscious incorporation into memory - but you want it to contain words or concepts that one customer might use to pass on the message to another.

In addition to his strong list, I noticed three other points that I think bear consideration:

• Keep customers close Frame a concept with the customer in mind. Most of the winning slogans he mentioned communicate a vision of something the customer wants: a tractor that keeps running, non-messy chocolate, a newly cleaned drain, the promise of a job, getting your rear out of a sling by knowing the document you send will arrive by the deadline.


• Express big by talking small There is a specificity to the benefit or image that is important. For example, "You deserve a break today" speaks to a small benefit that people would like, and the delivery is an antidote for the larger disappointments of life.


• Specificity The more concrete the imagery, the more powerful the statement. I think that's why the "absolutely, positively" in the FedEx slogan works so well - because it conveys the real need of a member of the audience.

It would have been interesting to see some of the "bad" examples turned around. For instance, the EDS slogan "Expertise. Answers. Results." (which puts all the focus through the first two words on EDS, not their customers) could well have been changed to "Problems. Answers. Profits." or "Problems. Solutions. Pleasure." They aren't brilliant, but at least bring some sense of the customer in.

Contract Review: Custom Solutions From SmartMoney

This contract is from the custom publishing arm of SmartMoney. I'm not a lawyer, this isn't legal advice, and make sure you negotiate, because there are some terms in here that I'm betting you'd want to change. I'll review the clauses that I think might be of interest. Warning - every now and then I find a contract that seems so odious that I indulge in sarcasm and ranting. This is one of those cases:

• Clause 1 This would seem like standard "You're going to do this and the assignment schedules become part of this agreement" wording, but there's a killer sentence at the end: "However, should Consultant receive an offer to work on other projects that may be competitive to SmartMoney’s business, then Consultant must get approval from SmartMoney before accepting such assignment." Huh? Since SmartMoney is technically in the custom publishing business, you have to get flipping approval to do something that would be competitive, otherwise known as writing for any other custom publisher? No where in the agreement does it specify what SmartMoney considers its business to be. Could that include writing an article directly for a company that SM (notice the intentional allusion to pain games) might want as a client? Check their site and notice some of the work they do: magazines, newsletters, annual reports, booklets, bulletins, and web sites. To me, that's a "that goes or I go" statement, as they're trying to control your income and business without any promise of future work.


• Clause 2 It gets better and better, or not. You must perform all the work demanded "in an acceptable manner" to get paid. Also, "In the event the Materials are not accepted, SmartMoney will pay Consultant a reasonable kill fee, the amount of which shall be determined by SmartMoney in its sole discretion." That's right, it's totally up to them, even though they could deem it unacceptable because you delivered it on a Tuesday. There's no definition of the acceptance process or how long they can delay it.


• Clause 3 a) They want WMFH, which isn't surprising because, after all, they want to own your custom publishing time and prospects. They can do anything they want with what they accept. You have to wave moral rights.
  
  b) They also want "the sublicensable worldwide right to use Consultant’s name, biography and likeness in connection with the publication, use, advertising and promotion of the Materials, SmartMoney, its Custom Solutions division or its clients’ use of the Materials, and to make such other promotional use as SmartMoney, its licensees, successors or assigns may determine." In other words, your name, background, and image become a commodity that they can use again and again to promote themselves and anyone they sell the rights to, even if you would not want to be associated with said organization, product, or cause. You cannot ask to have your name withheld if they butcher your writing, yet they don't have to give you credit at all.
  
  c)You have to warrant that "SmartMoney’s exploitation thereof [of your writing] will not violate or infringe the copyright, patent, trademark, right of privacy or any other right of any person or party or be false or libelous or defamatory." That isn't just saying that your writing won't infringe copyright or be defamatory, but that their use won't be. There have been cases where people successfully sued for libel because of the way materials were used, even though the materials themselves were fine. You can't determine context, but the way I read this, you are warranting their use, which includes the context in which they use your work. Now for the indemnification: "Consultant hereby agrees to indemnify, defend and hold SmartMoney, its partners, affiliates, trustees, directors, officers, employees and agents harmless from and against any and all claims, demands, damages, costs and expenses (including reasonable attorneys’ fees and expenses) arising out of or related to a breach of Consultant’s representations, warranties and obligations hereunder or in any way to any of Consultant’s services provided hereunder..." Notice that you're not just indemnifying for a breach of the warranties, but for anything that would arise out of the services you provide, which means if they get sued and someone cites your article, you could find yourself indemnifying them. This is really bad.


• Clause 4 This is one of those idiotic confidentiality clauses so strictly constructed that technically you could not tell a source the subject matter of the article you are writing. When you stop working for them, all materials that they own, you must return. As you've done WMFH, I think that means every copy of any article you've written for them. If there is "a violation or attempted or threatened violation of this provision, SMARTMONEY may apply for and obtain, without any requirement to post a bond or other security, an injunction to restrain such violation or attempted or threatened violation..." Boom, an injunction because they think you might reveal confidential information. It doesn't matter whether it's likely that they'd do this or not, because you're bound by it should someone in the company decide to make use of the clause.


• Clause 5 You can't try to get any employee or client to leave. If you do, or if there's a threat that you might, they can again get an injunction to stop you.


• Clause 6 If the non-disclosure isn't enough, here's a gag clause (first time I remember seeing this in a publishing contract): "Effective with the signing of this Agreement, Consultant agrees to make no statements relating to SmartMoney, its affiliates or the project Consultant is working on orally or in writings which impair or disparage the reputation of SmartMoney or its clients." In other words, your opinions are now censored.


• Clause 9 I think this contract was adopted from one meant for more general services: "Consultant will comply with all federal, state and local laws regarding business permits and licenses that may be required to carry out the work to be performed hereunder." You'd need something like that if someone was doing building or renovation. But not for writing, so it doesn't apply. And, contractually, they cannot make you attend staff meetings. At least something in the contract is appealing.


• Clause 10 The contract is construed under New York State law, which is good in terms of the interpretation of libel, et. al. But if there's a contractual dispute, you have to go to New York courts.


• Clause 11 This is the entire agreement, so nothing that an editor says or writes to the contrary of any clause has any force. Similarly, don't expect any term that you include on your invoice to have force - and that means how quickly they have to pay.


• Clause 12 You cannot tell anyone that this agreement even exists and you cannot tell anyone about the services you are providing to them. "Without limitation, Consultant agrees that Consultant will not issue any press release or other information concerning Consultant’s services." Sounds like that means you cannot mention them as a client in your marketing.

Diversify Out of Danger

As I've written on this blog and said to people in talks and courses, you have to be able to walk away from a deal if you're going to negotiate with any integrity. Anything less and you are a psychological slave. The answer I've often heard is, "But I need the work. I need the money. I can't say no!"

I understand the pressure of having to bring in cash and feeling at a disadvantage when contractual issues come up. What you need to do at times like that is work like mad at marketing so you can diversify out of the danger areas. For example, I'm increasing the amount of corporate work I take on to raise my income and, as importantly, to make myself less vulnerable.

I don't expect to keep rights for corporate work. I also know that I'm not going to run anywhere close to the same risks under such things as libel and right of privacy. If it takes two months to get paid - well, it's not that much longer than publishers, and in some cases it can be shorter.

Now I'm sure some will say, "But I don't like doing corporate work!" Then find something else - teaching, maybe, or editing, or work for non-profits. But definitely start developing the attitude that if you're going to be in business, you can't guarantee that you'll be in love with everything you do. Not even great artists have that luxury. Think Michelangelo or Rembrandt or Bach never had to consider clients?

Sometimes you won't work with someone because you find it too distressing, but you have a duty to keep yourself financially sound enough to do the work that is important. The sooner you diversify enough to operate your business while minimizing your risk, the sooner you can be picky about the types of work that you want to do. You've undoubtedly heard of suffering for your art or craft. I think many in the creative fields don't really grasp the concept. They think they have to be miserable to produce good work. Not at all.

To suffer for art means that you undertake and solve difficult situations so you can stay on track with what is important. It doesn't mean living in an impoverished state. It means working hard enough, and bearing what seems unpleasant to you enough, so that you can do what is more important. If you can't manage that much for your duties to craft - let alone family and society - then you should get out of the business, because continuing is irresponsible and affects not just you, but everyone around you.

One Time to Ask for More than Enough

I'm a firm believer in understanding your own bottom line pricing based on your business needs and on value pricing - charging for the value you can deliver, and not the time you spend. But even then there can still be a gap between what you'd charge and what the client might be willing to pay on the upper end. I was reminded of this a couple of times this last week. Once was for a speaking engagement, when I quoted a significant sum, as I'd be out of the office for at least two days in traveling and through that it would be a discouragement. It wasn't and now I find myself getting a good chunk of cash for something where I could too easily have quoted something far lower and found myself resentful that I had gotten tied up for relatively little.

The other occasion was similar in a way. A corporate client asked if I'd be available for a project reworking a web site, but said that it would want to see a sample of how I'd do a page. I knew a bit more about the situation from other sources and understood that the company wanted more "editing" than writing, and so a lower hourly price. I thanked them for the opportunity and added that I wouldn't work for spec, but would be willing to discuss a price for a single page - probably on a flat rate for the whole thing. In ending the explanation, I asked a question about blending information with marketing that I figured would communicate my knowledge of how to bring the two together. Unexpectedly, I received a reply asking for the rate. I came up with something reasonably high, given the actual amount of work as well as the need for some expertise. Again, I was surprised - I was asked to do a fast turnaround on the sample for the pay I requested.

In the second case, again, had I not shot high enough, I would have been irritated because I wasn't getting value for the value I thought I could bring. Furthermore, going lower would have meant indicating that the entire project would be inexpensive. Not the type of corporate writing I'm really interested in doing.

There are many factors in pricing, and one has to be whether you are excited about a a project, both because of the material as well as the conditions. If not, it's generally the time to think outside your personal pricing box. Don't assume that your finanical view of the world is shared by your clients. There's always the very good chance that the client is willing to spend more than you'd ordinarlly think of asking, and there are times that you need to make that kind of money so that the project is worth your time.