#180: Liz Farr on Writing Bylined Articles to Generate Hot Client Leads and Attract New Opportuni...

Welcome to the High Income Business Writing Podcast, helping you propel your writing business to a whole new level. And now, here's your host, Ed Gandia.

Hey there.

Welcome to the High Income Business Writing Podcast. I am your host, Ed Gandia, and this is the podcast for business writers and copywriters who want to earn more and less time doing work they love for better clients. Just a reminder that you can find detailed show notes for this episode@b2b launcher.com episode and those notes include a summary of our discussion as well as links to resources we mention during the show. You know, one of the keys to earn more and less time as a solo professional is to get much more value out of every activity you do in your business. And since each of us has a limited amount of time, if you can spend one unit of energy or effort marketing your business and get, say, 10x the results you would normally get, that means you can spend less time marketing and still grow your business, everything else being equal. Of course, that's what today's guest is going to talk about. Her name is Liz Farr. She's a wonderful, wonderful lady. She's just a very, very talented writer and she's also a cpa, a certified public accountant, and she works with accounting firms and companies that sell to accountants. Now, what we're going to talk about today, what Liz is going to detail, is a very powerful marketing strategy she's been using for years now that's giving her a huge multiplier effect in her business. And she's going to explain what the strategy is about, how she come across the idea, what results is generated for her business, and how you can apply the same strategy for yourself. This is a simple but a just a brilliant strategy. And I hope you enjoy our discussion.

Liz, welcome to the show.

Well, thanks, Ed. And I gotta say that it's an honor to be here because your podcast was such a lifeline to me when I was getting started. So thank you for all you do.

Well, thank you for coming to the show and I am really excited to talk with you about this because this is, I'm grateful to you for approaching me with this topic because I know this is something that's going to help a lot of people and it's just a brilliant strategy that I think and we'll get into this, but has yielded more benefit than you even imagined, I think when you kind of first started doing this. Right. Yeah, I think this is something other people can duplicate as well. So we're going to get into the nitty gritty but before we talk about that, why don't you give us a little bit of background. I know you are no stranger to my community, a lot of people know you. But tell us about, give us a bit about what you do, what kind of clients you work with, and a little bit about your business.

Okay. Well, my name is Liz Farr. I am a CPA that's a US Certified Public Accountant. And I write B2B copy for accountants and those who serve accountants. So I write blog posts, articles, case studies, web copy, white papers, and I'm actually right now working on a ghost writing a book for a client too.

Nice.

Yeah, yeah. And so I've written web copy for accountants and bookkeepers all over the English speaking world, so the uk, New Zealand, Australia, Canada and the US And I also write for a couple of software companies. I write for Intuit and a company called Flo Cast which serves accountants also.

Very nice. Now one of the things that you have had great success with is getting inbound leads, right? So these are prospects who come to you because they've heard of you and they want to talk about doing business. But the way you've done this is I think, a bit different from, from, from the way others have treated it. Why don't you give us a brief overview of what the strategy is about and then as we get into this, we'll drill down into some of the details.

Okay. The main thing that I've been using in my marketing for the last about two years has been writing bylined articles for accounting trade journals and other accounting content platforms. These are articles that have my name on them as the author. I get paid for them. Prospects find me by stumbling across these articles. You know, maybe it's a software company that needs a writer who knows about lease accounting. They find one of the articles I've written about that and then they reach out to me to write, do some work for them.

Very cool. Very good. Now what how did you tell me a bit about how did you come across this or how did you decide to start doing this? Was it an accident? Did you stumble into to it? Did you purposely go about it?

This was an accident. At the beginning of my career I was really struggling to find someone, anyone who would pay me to write for them. And I as a cpa, I subscribed to the Journal of Accountancy, which is the journal of record for accountants in in the US for the American Institute of C. CPAs. And every article in this online newsletter I get has a link to send comments to the editor so one article caught my eye. I think it might have been about working with millennials or something. I don't remember. But I sent a comment to the editor, and then as an afterthought, really just as an afterthought, I had no ambition of writing for the Journal of Accountancy at all. I said, oh, by the way, I'm a CPA and a freelance writer. Would it make sense for us to connect? And almost immediately, I got a response from the editor, and turns out that they were looking for writers who were also CPAs, because that gives them a little more credibility in the eyes of CPAs. CPAs tend to be a little protective and possessive about their designation. So seeing somebody else who's a CPA just gives the Journal a little more credibility in the world. So a couple months later, I wrote an article for the Journal of Accountancy, and the connections that I made through that article led me to some other people, and that just kind of springboarded me into getting paid to write about accounting.

So it's kind of created a chain reaction of sorts, right?

Yeah.

It's led to other opportunities that have created other opportunities for you and so on and so forth. I'm curious. I'm assuming the answer is yes, but I want to kind of dive into this a bit. Were these paying opportunities, these first opportunities for the Journal of Accountancy. Right. Or were they offering more of an exposure kind of situation for you?

The Journal of Accountancy was paid. And what really was a big ego boost for me is that the Journal of Accountancy pays pretty well. They pay a little bit higher than market rate, which they should, because writing those articles can be a huge amount of work. And we'll probably get into that a little later, but it's. It's a huge, huge amount of work.

Yeah. One of the things that I've noticed is, you know, you seem to have a couple of different camps of writers. You have those that want to make a living by pitching publications and trying to land some kind of article gig with them. They pitch an article idea, and then you have the other camp, which is content marketing. And they're not going after publications. They're going after direct clients who need content marketing, who are doing content marketing. They need marketing pieces written. And I guess there. There is a hybrid where. And this is something I did. My main target was companies that needed or doing content marketing. But I would try to get some exposure by writing free articles and very targeted publications that my prospects were reading. Right. So I wasn't trying to get Paid pieces for exposure. I was just doing it just strictly for the exposure, and I was doing it free. What I'm hearing here is this is also kind of a middle ground, but it's even a better option. Option D, let's say I was using option C. Option D is, yes, you're getting the exposure, but you're also getting paid in many cases. Getting paid.

Well, yeah. Yeah, I would say that about a third of my income last year was from bylined articles.

Wow.

So.

So, yeah, you've made it a. This is a source of income for you. And.

Yes.

And it gives you the exposure. Not just the exposure, but then the credibility that comes with. With it. Because you're going after some of the big players in your particular target market.

That's right. Yeah. And so when I go to accounting conferences, introduce myself as a CPA and a freelance writer and drop some of these names out, people's eyes just kind of bug open and they go, oh, my God, I need to work with you. Now, most of these don't pan out, but that's okay, because I'm really getting busy enough that I really can't take on everybody. Every little accounting firm that wants to work with me.

That's a great place to be. So a Journal of Accountancy, that kind of happened by accident. Walk us through a couple of the other ones that came about after that, because I'm curious how you found the other opportunities. Have you pitched them, and if so, how you pitch them? I'm curious, and I'd like to start getting more into the process, because if somebody's listening is thinking about trying the same approach, you know, I'd love to know. And I. If I were them. Okay. How can I try this in my particular market?

Okay, well, from my first article in the Journal of Accountancy, one of my sources gave me the name of one of the editors over at Intuit. And so I reached out to him and I wrote a couple of pro bono pieces for him just for exposure. Then they decided to start paying somebody to produce content regularly, and they really liked having a CPA who could write and who could write about a variety of accounting topics.

Liz, just real quick. Sorry to interrupt, but you're saying that one of the sources, as you were writing for that journal, gave you that content into it, but not necessarily. Was that a prospect referral? Hey, you should contact them. They might need some writers.

No, no, he just said, oh, you're a writer. You should. Do you know this guy? You should meet him. He's a really Great guy.

Ah, okay.

Yeah. And they just knew each other as friends, so it wasn't trying to help me get work. It was just a friendly connection.

Interesting. So you reach out to him and how did that go? I mean, what did you approach him with? Or how did you approach him?

I just said I wrote this article in the Journal of Accountancy, here's a link to it. And he recommended that I reach out to you. And I think that was about all I said in that initial email. So he got excited by that and reached out to me and asked me to write a couple of articles for him. And as I said, I did a couple of pro bono pieces for Intuit first, and then that turned into a paid writing gig. I've been writing for them for, oh, close to two years now. And that's just a monthly regular job. I produce a couple pieces of content and they pay me, and they pay me pretty well too. So. Yeah. And then that editor introduced me to editors at a couple other content platforms for accountants. He introduced me to the editor at Accounting Web, and then I started writing for them too. There are a couple other places, a couple other content platforms for accountants who would love to have me write for them, because I reached out to those editors, but some of them don't really pay a lot. And I'm also just getting too busy to pick up too much extra work.

Gotcha. So do you currently have several publications that are kind of regular? Sounds like Intuit is a regular one.

Yeah.

How many others?

Just Accounting Web and the Journal of Accountancy.

Okay.

The Journal of Accountancy is kind of irregular. It's, you know, maybe every other month, maybe every three or four months. It just depends. So that's something that I can't really depend on. But it's great for the exposure and the credibility and plus, everybody recognizes the Journal of Accountancy. It's got great cachet.

Yeah. Oh, absolutely. You know what? I my impression, tell me if you agree or disagree, but I think you're filling a void here that these publications have. Back in the day, they had staff writers, they had an editorial staff, and some of them might have been CPAs. So they filled most of those blocks, those articles, and then they had some, some guest writers as well. Many of them were ghost written pieces, but they were maybe some vendors and so forth today because they know these publications, the world has changed and they don't have staff, editorial staff anymore. So you're filling one of those slots, if you will.

Yes.

They still have guest writers, right? Guest pieces from guests yes. Contributors, I should say. But you're filling essentially that. That big one and the fact that you have that designation. So I think what I'm hearing is one of the things that has made this work so well for you is not only that you can write and write well, but first of all, you. You have the CPA designation field that really cares about that. It pays attention to it. It means something.

Yes.

And also you have the practical experience, I mean, which kind of goes along with that. But, like, you've been out there in the field, you get it. You can hit that the ground running. You don't need all this explanation. Kind of comes with a designation, but, you know, it's a little bit more than that.

Yeah, yeah. And sometimes in some of my articles, I end up educating the editors about the topic. I wrote one on value pricing, and I had to give the editors a little bit of a tutorial about how it worked, because some of the comments that they were that they had showed that they really had no clue what I was writing about. And so it's been very interesting.

Well, let's talk a little bit more.

About the multiplier effect. We've kind of gotten into this, but one of the great benefits of doing this is that it's created a chain reaction, like we talked about a little bit earlier, where by having this, it leads you to. It gives you the exposure that not only brings clients, but brings other opportunities, exposes you to other publications and so forth. Can you walk us through some of the things that have come out of this? And I know there's several dimensions to this, but I find it fascinating because when you think about the leverage. Let's talk about it. In terms of leverage, the leverage you've gotten from just doing these things, from landing these opportunities, it goes way beyond the money you earn from writing one piece. So walk us through some of the things that have happened.

Okay. Well, all of these publications have their own social media machines, and so they're always tweeting out or posting on LinkedIn. The articles that I write. The first time this happened to me, I was on vacation, and it was just bizarre that I was getting all these Twitter alerts that this article I'd written was out there and was getting liked and retweeted and commented on it was. It just kind of freaked me out. But this is free marketing. I don't have to do this. They do it for me. They spread my name out across their networks, which are much bigger than mine. And sometimes I retweet some of those articles as well, or I share them on LinkedIn. And so that gets me exposure to people who really didn't know about me. And I met accountants from all over the world just through that. Then it also gives me expert status because they see that, oh yes, she knows what she's writing about, she understands this, and she's been on the front lines, so she's one of us. So that, that gives me credibility. And these articles, I also use them in my own marketing collateral. When I get a query from a prospect, then I also will send them links to some of the pieces that I've written. I have a whole document that just has links to the articles I've written. And so I'll pick a couple out that seem most relevant and send those. And I'm also getting paid to do this, so that's, that's all also good. Yeah, yeah. And it also has connected me with a lot of thought leaders and influencers, you know, so right now I'm working with a couple of really well known thought leaders in the accounting space. These are people that I never would have met if I had stayed in the world of public accounting. So that's really fun. Another way that it's been a multiplier is that sometimes when I've written an article featuring one of these experts, that expert has turned around and hired me. And so I'm writing ghost writing articles for some of these thought leaders and then getting those placed in publications for them to help them improve their credibility and to get their name out more. And one of these thought leaders actually just hired me to help him on a white paper that he's writing for the aicpa. So. So it's kind of come full circle. And another thing, this was pointed out to me when I mentioned it to a lawyer as something that he thought was just amazing. As a cpa, I have to get a certain number of continuing professional education hours every year. And in New Mexico I can use some of my writing as my cpe. So I'm getting paid for my cpe instead of having to pay for it. I get paid for it. And it's part of my marketing.

I love it.

Yeah, I love it.

It's also one you. Well, it's kind of implied, we've talked about it, but it's also exposed you to other publications who have approached you and said, hey, would you be willing to write for us? And in many cases you haven't because you're so busy. But that's yet another one.

Right, right. And one of the articles that I wrote in the Journal of Accountancy led me to one of my big software clients right now. In an article that I wrote, I downloaded a white paper of theirs as part of my research. And then I mentioned that white paper in my article for the Journal of Accountancy. So downloading that white paper put me into their marketing funnel. Then I responded and said, well, no, I'm really not a prospect for your product, but I am a freelance writer. And I sent them a link to that article when it came out and they immediately wanted me to work for them. So I've done just a ton of work for them. I've done articles, I wrote one that ended up being published in Forbes, done case studies, and I'm also ghost writing a book for them right now. So it's, it's been a lot of fun. And the person that I work with there is one of the more well known influencers in the accounting space. So it's, it's really fun to be able to work with somebody who's that smart and that well known.

Yeah, that's definitely an important intangible, isn't it, that the fact that you've been, like you said earlier, you've been able to develop relationships with people that you would have never. I shouldn't say never. That would have been very difficult to do it the hard way, which is to try to get in there with nothing. Right. And just trying to wed yourself into the. Into the conversation.

Yeah.

I love this. When you think about it, one thing that comes to mind, Liz, is that this is probably the highest leverage activity in your business is landing an article. Getting an article assignment from the Journal of Accountancy, for instance, next week is probably the most important thing you could do in your business because it has such a huge multiplier effect and it can lead to so many different things that you know that when you're spending time doing that, that's. That's the most important time you could spend in your business.

Yes. Yeah. And I have been so busy writing for all my clients that this is pretty much my. This is about 90% of my marketing right now and it is keeping me very busy.

Now I want to know if we could maybe reverse engineer some of this or this is the sort of thing that, let's face it, there's some serendipity involved. But if I'm very interested in trying this for myself, I'm listening to this right now. What steps should I follow? I mean, how do I turn this into something that I can Repeat, not necessarily replicate everything you've done, but what steps are replicable in what you did?

Okay, well, the first thing you need to do is establish a connection with somebody at one of these trade publications or online publishing platforms. And the first step to that really is to find these trade publications or platforms. And this works really well if you have some kind of specialty or industry experience, say you're a lawyer or an electrician or you have something like that. Architecture health, alternative health. And I would start by Googling trade publications for this industry. And you might also look for industry associations. They also frequently have their own trade publications. So, for example, I also write a monthly column for the New Mexico Society of CPAs. And so you might find trade associations that are also looking for content to fill their publications. Then once you've found these, read a few, subscribe to them, and read issues for the last couple of months, maybe a year, and see what kinds of content they include. Look at the length of the articles, the style, and what sorts of. And see if you can get some ideas for. For holes in their content. You want to make sure that there's not really an overlap between what you might want to write about and something that they just ran a couple of months ago. Sometimes you can even find an editorial calendar online. So look at that and see if you can come up with a couple of ideas. The trickiest part can be finding out how to get in touch with the editorial staff. Now, a lot of these publications are really starving for content, and so they really, they don't make it too difficult. They may also have some guidelines for how they want pitches to be sent to them. Mostly they don't want you to send a completed article, but just four to six bullet points summarizing the articles. So it's best not to go to the trouble of writing something and then pitching it, but just put out an idea. Now, our colleague Steve Sloan White, who also does this kind of work, recommends having two pitches ready. So if they don't like the first one, then you've got another one that you can send to them. And if they say no to both, then take those to somebody else. And you've also got to let them know that you've done your homework, that you're familiar with their readership and with the content and with the ideas. And I would also, if you have some kind of specialized and relevant experience, then I would also include that if you have some examples of things that you have written, that's also a good thing to include in your pitch. Just as an example of your writing style. Sometimes just seeing an example of your writing will really help them help to seal the deal.

You know, I'm going to add something else, Liz. I think that's a very, very thorough list and I couldn't agree more. Don't wait until everything's perfect to start. No, I think too many of us wait until. Well, I just got to make sure everything's right and everything's perfect before I make my first outreach. And you know what? You'll never feel 100% ready. I would say just go for it. Do your homework. You know, don't, don't just wing it. Do your homework and then just go. And you know, what if you get rejected or if you don't get an answer, which is one of the most common scenarios, so what? It doesn't mean that you can't try again with that publication or that individual later. It's not. You don't have one shot in life. You know, you need to just try again and try, try another one.

That's right. And you know, if nobody likes what you're pitching to them, then just take a step back and maybe you don't quite understand their audience or maybe you're pitching something that they don't care about. There's always options.

Yeah. I recently, I'm embarrassed to say, I pitched someone on doing something similar as a series of small workshops. It was for exposure and I thought I had a pretty good handle on what they were doing. But I'm ashamed to admit I didn't dig deep enough. And looking back, she rejected both of them. Looking back, I realized, you know what? Now I see what topic she's really kind of going after. I started seeing the pattern. So I acted a little bit too early. I didn't do enough of my homework. But now does that mean I can't try again? No. I mean, I was a little embarrassed, but I will try again and this time I know a little bit better. Okay.

Yeah, yeah. And even when I pitch articles to Accounting Web, I usually give my editor two to three ideas for articles. They're just a one sentence summaries of what I like to write about. And he usually surprises me and picks one that I didn't think think he'd be interested in. Yeah. And so that's very interesting. Now something that people should be aware of is that the process can vary quite a bit across publications. For example, with Accounting Web, my articles get a very light edit and they're usually published within 24 hours. They go live almost Immediately. And so that's instant gratification. That's one end of the extreme. And then at the other end is the Journal of accountancy. Now, since CPAs are pretty detail oriented and are quite picky, the Journal of Accountancy is also extremely detail oriented, and it can be almost painful to go through their process. The last article that I wrote, I started on in October. It's early April, and that student still hasn't gone live yet. It is. It's ready to go, but it went through at least 24 versions on their end.

Wow. Yeah. So that's a very extreme case.

Yeah. So, yeah, I'm just glad that I've been paid for it.

A lot of it was on their end, though. Right. So not back and forth between you and them.

Oh, there. There was quite a bit of back and forth. And some of that was because they didn't really. They. They had a hard time figuring out what they wanted me to write about, so I kept getting contradictory editorial directions.

So. Well, at that rate, the tax law is going to change again and then they're going to have to go back to the drawing board.

Yeah, exactly. Yeah.

Well, Liz, this has been really, really informative. I'm just really inspired by what you've done. I 100% believe that this is something other people can duplicate. I do just agree that there's so much of this is about serendipity, but the way you make serendipity happen is by moving forward and being strategic about this and being mindful, purposeful, intentional. You've done all these things and look at all this magic that you've created. And of course, this is just the beginning for you. So congratulations on your success. Really, really happy for you.

Thank you, Ed. It's been a lot of fun, and I just can't wait to see what's going to happen to me next.

Well, for those who want to check you out and see what you're doing, where can I send them? If they want to learn a little bit more about you and your business?

You can go to my website, which is Far Communications. You can also follow me on LinkedIn or Twitter, though. On Twitter, mostly what I do is engage with other accountants. So if you're not an accountant, it might not be too interesting.

So accounting jokes, that I wouldn't understand, right?

Exactly. Yeah.

Those are always funny when. When you find them funny. If you're laughing, I'm laughing with you, Liz. Awesome. Well, thanks again for. For coming on the show, Liz, and sharing so much of your insights and wisdom. With us. Appreciate it.

Oh, you're welcome. Thank you, Ed.

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