#278: How ‘Original Research’ Projects Create a Wellspring of Profitable Writing Assignments

Welcome to the High Income Business Writing Podcast, helping propel your writing business to a whole new level. And now, here's your host, Ed Gandia. Well, hello there and welcome to another episode of the High Income Business Writing Podcast, the number one podcast for business writers and copywriters who want to earn more and less time doing work they love for better clients. With over 1 million downloads from listeners just like you across 101 countries, one of the big challenges writers face is having to continually find new clients in writing assignments. The cycle just never seems to end. Unless all your clients, or most of your clients feed you a ton of work every month, you have to constantly hustle for new opportunities. Now, there are, of course, several proven strategies for breaking the cycle, and adding original research to your service repertoire is one of them. Not only do original research projects enable you to earn a very handsome fee for helping the client with the research project itself, but these original research projects also create a wellspring of new writing assignments that can keep you very busy for months. Now, we've talked about original research on the show before with Sarah Griesenbach, the founder of the B2B Writing Institute, which I recommend you check out. And that was a super informative talk. But it's been a couple of years since we've touched on this, so I wanted to revisit the topic and I'm thrilled to be joined today by Michelle Lynn, the co founder and chief strategy officer for Mantis Research. In this episode, Michelle talks about how she got into the original research arena, what the work entails, why it's rewarding, what kind of writers are best suited for this type of work, how she finds and lands clients, and how much these projects can command, among other really useful information that she's going to be sharing with us now. Best of all, she explains how one original research project can quickly turn into many individual writing assignments that will keep you very busy for a while. Hope you enjoy this discussion with Michelle Lin. Michelle, welcome to the show. Great to be talking with you today.

Thanks so much for having me, Ed.

I like to always start these discussions by just getting a little bit of background on the person. I think it's important for people to understand a bit of your origin story, how you got here, and then, of course, at that point, also tell us, you know, what it is you do, what kind of clients you work with, and so forth.

Yeah, absolutely. So I have been in the marketing world for more years than I'd like to remember. I think 1997, I joined the workforce and started in marketing. So, long story short, I did corporate product marketing for many years, and I left that traditional job in 2008 because I wanted to be a freelance writer like so many of the people who you serve. And I wanted the flexibility and I wanted to set my own hours and find clients that I loved. And what ended up happening is I ended up starting this blog when blogs were becoming this new thing in 2010ish, 2009ish with this group of women, it was called. The blog was called Savvy B2B Marketing. And we learned the blog and I was getting clients through blogging. So I was like, wow, this is really cool. And I realized what I was doing was content marketing. So I was getting a lot of clients that way. And long story short, I connected with Joe Polizi, who founded the Content Marketing Institute, which some of your users, some of your audience might know. Oh, yeah, I started working for him right as he launched cmi. So I was the first person he hired back in the day, in 2010. So for many years I've been talking about content marketing, doing content marketing, writing about content marketing and so forth. And one of the projects that I always love, that we did with DMI starting way back in 2010, was their annual original research project. So they went out and they surveyed all these marketers to understand if and how they're using content marketing. And it was always a really fun project to work on, as well as a really high performing, oftentimes the best performing piece of content that we put out all year long. So Fast forward to 2017 ish, where I left CMI. They were sold and I wanted to go off and do my own thing again. So I started Mantis Research, where we specifically help marketers conduct and publish their own original research. Because I think this is an area that is super fun and not a lot of people are talking about how to do it and how to do it well. That's why I landed where I did and that's what I'm doing to this day.

Man, it was so cool to find out that you were behind that annual research report that CMI was doing, because I can't tell you how many times I've mentioned that in this podcast over the years. So then to find, you know, like the key person behind it, it's very cool.

And for what it's worth, I mean, a really quick shout out to Lisa Merton Beach. She has been their research director there for many years. So she has taken the reins and she's run with it but it was a project I was always involved at during all my years there. So it's a great, great project.

It is. It was fantastic because it gave us real data and a really good sense for what our target market as, you know, as writers and copywriters, what our audience is really thinking, you know, in aggregate. Right. We could kind of guess based on working with several clients. But it was so nice to have that kind of insight. And it's weird because, you know, like you talk about original research, I know we're going to kind of unpack that, but I never thought of it as original research. I mean, even though that's what it is. Right. I just thought as really cool content. And I know Michael Stelzner was social media examiner was doing something similar at the time. Right. And he's still doing it. I think his annual report on social media world and what's new and the trends and the data. And I always look forward to reading this stuff because it was interesting to see year to year how things were changing and what the sentiment was like. So let's get into that. How would you define original research? I think we can. That's kind of a common term now. It's become much more common. I think based on what we just talked about. People can kind of connect the dots. But how would you define it?

Yeah, I mean, I actually have a love hate term with the word original research because I think it does mean a lot of different things to a lot of people. The way that I define original research is any type of research that a company does, that either is survey based research where they go out and they survey people and it's original, it's very proprietary to their brand. But it can also be things. These are things we're not going to talk about today. But it could also be things like digging into your user data to find stories. It can be doing any kind of data analysis that is original, that's unique to your brand, that you're putting out a data driven story that no one else can or no one else has.

Got it. Got it. So thought leadership is not necessarily original research, but you can draw out thought leadership content from original research, right?

Absolutely, absolutely.

So if I'm writing about what I feel is the state of the industry where things are heading, for example, then that's my opinion. But it's not data driven. There's nothing back in it. It's just an opinion.

Exactly. So original research is data driven research and you can a brand. If you're trying to get started, you can certainly curate other research out there and that can be really well received. But original research is anything that your brand conducts new and in a different way. So you're putting something new out into the market that's data driven.

Got it. Okay. Why do you feel. Because I'm hearing it everywhere and we actually talked about it in the show a couple years ago. Sarah Griesenbach, who I know you've worked with, came on and she gave us kind of a download on a lot of this because she loves it. But why has it become so popular over the past few years?

So I mean, as you and I can probably attest, Ed, I'm sure you have a similar experience with content. Content marketing works well if you do it correctly. And I think the doing it correctly has changed over the years when you used to be able to publish a blog post and get, you know, traffic or, you know what I mean. But now the space that so many of us live in is so very noisy and crowded that just publishing any old content is not going to cut it. So I think that original research is so popular just because by its very nature it's original, it's unique. And even though so many more people are doing original research, I think that you have to find that like your unique niche in that area still to make it really stand out. But I think because you're putting something new into the market, it can work really, really well.

Yeah. Now I'm assuming that you've seen pretty much a wide spectrum of quality. Right? Because just because it's original doesn't mean.

That it's good a hundred percent. So again, like, so you and I are talking specifically about survey based original research where you go out and you survey a group of people to understand what they believe. Very similar to what cmi, that CMI example. But yeah, I mean I take surveys all the time and I think marketers are very well intentioned, but I think it's very easy to make mistakes that just result in poor data or just, it's just not quite right. So I see a lot of bad examples of how the surveys are conducted or how they're published and so forth. But I personally think most of it's just because marketers are trying their best and it's just they just haven't learned better yet.

Well, so let's, let's talk a little bit about that because I'm curious what, you know, who's. I'm sure there's no set of standards out there. Right. But how can you judge original research in an effective manner. So if I'm a marketer, let's say, and I know the value of doing this, I want to do something other than looking at things that seem that I like, that I've seen other marketers put out. You know, how do I know if my idea and the way I'm going to do it, it's going to be a good one, that it's going to be well received when I start, you know, want to publish my findings?

So I think that, I mean, it's always hard to know. Like with the research, you don't know. You have a hypothesis, you have ideas, you don't know what's going to come back. I'm a very, very, very big believer in being curious. You're trying to prove and disprove what you believe. You're not trying to create the data to validate the thing that you believe to be true. You know what I mean? I think that's just yucky. So you don't know what it's going to come back to be. But I think that if you're trying to figure out, you know, does this idea have legs? The top thing I would tell people to do is to research the other research that's already in their space. Similar to what you said, Ed. But I talk to marketers still today and they're like, you know what, I'm in content marketing, or I'm in B2B video, or I'm in these really crowded spaces and they want to do research on that crowded space. And typically those spaces, they're not only they're full. Like, you know, people have already covered all that research. So you always have to find your own unique niche. So for instance, I was working with this client typeset out of Australia. They're a content marketing agency and they did a project all around writing effectiveness. Like, what does effective writing look like? And so I think it's just like sometimes it's taking that idea, finding on how you're going to be different and moving forth. So it's finding that idea and then the next stage, which I know we'll be talking about, is just figuring out how to, you know, write really good survey questions and how to publish it in a way that's going to, you know, look very compelling and so forth. So there's a lot of different steps you have to take to make sure that that research works well.

You know, one thing I. So I did original research again back before I knew that it was called that. I think for three years running, I put Together the, what I call the freelance industry report. It's kind of like a state of the industry for freelance writers and copywriters. And down. I'm sure I made a lot of mistakes because this is just basically me and my team would put it together, but I would survey my audience and typically get 1500, 1800 responses on a bunch of different topics, such as pricing, what kind of clients they work with, what kind of work they do, challenges and so forth. And we would. I mean, I would spend weeks just kind of sorting through the results. But what I'm getting at is I ask questions. And then I published information in that report on the things I knew my audience was desperately trying to learn more about in terms of what their peers were doing. Because we, as you know, Michelle, as solo professionals, were typically very isolated, and we may know and have a network of some peers, and we can ask them, hey, what are you doing here? Or what do you charge for that? But for the most part, you know, we have a limited set of people. So I kind of started that process by just asking myself, what does my audience really want to know? Like, what are they asking themselves all the time that they can't find the answers to? So I don't know if that was. That's part of what you advise clients to do or not.

Absolutely. So when we kick off research project, one of the questions I always ask client is, what is that data that you want? Like, what is that piece of data that you would love to be associated with you, that people are asking questions about that they don't yet have the answer to? So, like, just like you said, so what questions does my audience have that they would love the data to back up? I know Angie Crestedina, if you know Andy, he calls that find the stat. So, like, what's that stat in your industry that if you had that, people would be drawn to looking at your research? And I think that's one out of many ways to make research really, really compelling and effective.

Well, let's get into under the hood here in terms of the components and what these projects involve. Can you walk us through kind of the key elements of an original research project?

Yes. I mean, there's a lot of different steps in the process, but if you're thinking about what's most important, and let me just couch this too, by saying, I mean, I think a lot of people are like you, and like I was back in 2010 with starting with the original research, and you're doing the best you can. And I think that that's perfectly fine. It's not bad to DIY this. Everyone's learning and we learn as we go. It's what we do is everything but the big things. I would say that marketers should focus on the big components are. The first one is having credible data. So that includes, you know, making sure that the people you are asking are the people who they say they are. If you have an organic list like you do ad typically that's not an issue. But a lot of marketers I know like to reach out to panel companies, which are companies that can source people to respond to surveys for you. So you need to make sure that the data you're getting back from those panel companies are actually indeed quality data. That's a huge issue. The other thing that you need to make sure if you want credible data is that you're asking questions in a way that there's little fear of those questions getting misinterpreted. So the data you get back is very straightforward. The second thing I always tell people they need is a really compelling story. So not only do you want to ask those find the stat types of questions to be that source of data in your industry, but to find to ask questions that will reveal opportunities for your audience or uncover gaps or exposed disconnects. So things that can really be a lot more interesting than these, like inventory or benchmark stats, which are useful, but I think surveys can be so much more than just that. And then the third thing I always tell clients to think about is to have a plan for their findings. So how are they going to launch it? How are they going to amplify it? How are they going to get life out of this project? Like you said, that takes so much time to do and to do well. So what could companies do to get a lot of life out of this?

I like that kind of thinking about it in those three ways that makes it a little bit more. I can kind of wrap my arms around that. So the credible data, compelling story, have a plan for the findings. You mentioned something under the credible data that scared me off a little bit with panel companies and so forth. So if I'm a writer and this is starting to sound like something I would love to offer my clients, I don't know anything about panel companies. I mean, do I have to be the one who has those relationships, knows who to go to, how does that work?

Yeah. So if you work with a client and your client wants to use a panel company, I will be honest. I would tread carefully. So if you want to work on A consumer study like you want to survey a thousand US adults about xyz. Those panels are relatively easy to come by and they're relatively inexpensive. The thing that you need to make sure that you do is put different quality checks in the data. Because what can happen is you can get bots answering surveys, you can get people who aren't paying attention answering surveys, you can just get. And then if you are trying to do a survey of B2B professionals, like something that's anything that's even remotely specialized, you need to have quality checks in there to test that you're finding the right person. And then that person has at least a base, minimal knowledge of what the topic is that you're actually talking about. So for instance, if we run a survey of marketers, I'll ask the question something like, what's the marketing tactic in which you share marketing on. Like you share content on LinkedIn and Twitter and there'd be like, things like social media marketing, SEO, account based marketing. You'll be surprised how many people don't get that question question right. And obviously they're not part of your target audience. So I could talk for a long time about how to build in these different quality checks into your survey and if I'm happy to give examples, if you're curious or have people reach out to me. But there's a lot of different types of questions that you can ask just to test that people are paying attention and have a basic knowledge.

So basically, if your client, so you're the writer, your client doesn't have a good sizable organic list and they have to go to a panel company. Are you the one who's got to point them to the right one or is that something the client needs to figure out how to do?

So the client can definitely figure that out. I mean, my preferred, the panel company that I it's my go to panel company is called Rep Data. Rep Data. I have found that they're very good to work with. They're responsive, they're quick. They work with me as like if I'm seeing quality issues, you know, and I'm disqualifying a lot of responses for not, you know, being a quality respondent. They're very easy to work with.

Okay. And even, they can even help you within B2B audiences because I know like you said, those are tough. I mean if I need to talk to 100 VP of IT and hospital systems, that's a very narrow audience.

Yes. And so Rec Data will, they'll be, they're great about saying, yep, I can reach this audience or no, I can't reach this audience. I reached out to other panel providers and I feel like sometimes or I've heard other people tell stories of they work with someone and they said, yes, we can get, you know, 100 of XYZ specific people, and they just can't. And I think if you have any level of quality control in your survey, you're going to be getting rid of a lot of people. So it's going to be harder to reach that set number of people that you're going after.

Got it.

But the other thing I would mention, Ed, is I also tell people when you're doing a survey, the people that you're surveying do not have your insider baseball knowledge like you do in your head. I mean, these are like mass people across the, you know, United States or globally. And even if you're looking at marketers, they're not necessarily marketers who think like you do or have the level of training that you and your organization does. So you really have to think like, I don't want to say least common denominator, but you can't expect a lot of specialized skill and panels or so is my experience.

Got it. I can see that. Okay, tell me about drafting the survey questions. Is that something you, as the writer needs to be able to do, or is that something you can outsource, or does your client need to do that?

So I talk with clients who do research all the time or marketers who do research all the time. And sometimes they work with companies, research companies, and the research company wants them to come to them with a formed idea of here's what we're going to study, here's the questions we're going to ask, and so forth. So that's one option. The way that I work with clients is I always help them figure out, what are you going to study, what's your unique angle? And then I write the survey questions for them. And I don't say that in a way that I'll pitch, but as the writer, you have to decide which route you want to go. I have found it to be very beneficial to be writing the survey questions for clients because I just think they don't have a good sense on how to do it and. Or they're too jargony or they're, they're too leading. So my preference is always to work with clients to write those survey questions. And that's what I would recommend for writers to do.

Is there a resource you recommend? Because I've been Asked this before to learn how to write great surveys because it's not just the questions, it's the choices you give for each answer in a multiple choice scenario, the order in which you ask the questions. Have you found something really useful?

So you can certainly google you know how to ask different survey questions. And again, I don't say this at all to pitch, but I'm actually, I know I haven't found a good resource for that, for people who are putting together surveys. So I'm actually launching a pilot course in early 22 that walks client that walks people through how to create great surveys.

That's awesome.

I haven't found a good resource for that in all.

Transparency for everybody, just full disclosure. I had no idea you had that. So I think that's awesome. So I wasn't leading you in any way, Michelle, and you know that there's no way I would have known. I know you told me you were working on some new stuff, but that's awesome because I get asked that all the time and I don't know, I mean, I know there's an art to this, but getting it wrong, I mean, could give you a completely different set of data.

Yes, it completely does. And if, and even just like here's just one quick tip. I mean, I could again talk about this for an entire podcast, but if you even just like I take an Excel spreadsheet and I just write all the questions without the options and then I write like why you're asking that question, what you want to get out of that question. That can even just be a really helpful getting started things. So you're like, oh, I really don't need this, or what am I going to learn? Or I actually want to ask it this way. So that's just one getting started tip. But to your point, Ned, there's a whole art and science and how to write survey questions, especially survey questions, if you want to get a story that you can use for thought leadership and content marketing and so forth.

Got it. Okay, so there's that whole bit about what are we going to ask, when to whom and all that. The compelling story piece, of course, it's based on what questions you ask, but I'm assuming that part of it is your ability to kind of connect dots and see great possibilities from some of the answers and some of the data that came in.

Absolutely. So a lot of it is thinking ahead of time. Like for instance, I was working on a survey with Typeset, for instance, and one of the questions we asked was, do you plan to invest more in your writing in the next 12 months, which is moderately interesting. But then we ask, does your organization plan to invest more in writing over the next 12 months? No surprise. People want it to write more but not invest more. I'm sure you see that all the time. But like that makes it an interesting story. So like thinking ahead of time, like, how can I ask these different questions that are gonna possibly, you know, I can find some friction is really helpful.

That's really cool.

And the other thing I would also say is if you have enough responses to look at different segments. So how do different segments answer questions differently that can provide really, really meaningful stories. And cleaning those segments up front, knowing what you're trying to understand is something you have to do to get at that.

I totally found that when I was doing this research kind of in the freelance marketplace. I got answers. But then let's slice that by their income level or by part time versus full time, or by whether they specialize or not. And it was just fascinating to see how the answers change. You could really see the trends there. All kinds of story possibilities come out of that.

Yeah, I.

Tell me a little bit about that third area. Have plans for their findings. I'm assuming that with. One of the cool things about this kind of work is, you know, not only could these. These are big projects, right? So you command high fees, they're very involved. But then they can lead to all kinds of splintered content projects from there. So once you have everything, I'm assuming you could create white papers from this. You could create all kinds of blog posts, webinars. I mean it just possibilities, I'm assuming are endless.

Absolutely. And this is why I think this type of project is so exciting for the writers who you work with is because if you create this upfront project, well, there is a wealth of content that can be created on the back end from just one survey. So like you said, it's a ton of upfront work. But like you said, blog posts, guest written articles, you know, and other publications you can do webinars. If leads is a big goal of your research, if you do a webinar to launch it, you get a ton of leads that way. And I'm also seeing a lot of organizations doing so many things which is a little bit more advanced, but with like interactive dashboards and data where users can actually go in and slice and dice that data, or landing pages that talk about the key findings and provide a lot of different, like prescriptive insights of. Now that you've read this report. Here's what you should actually do with the data. So there are so many possibilities of what one person could do with all this data. And it's a great, great revenue opportunity for the writers out there, even if they only want to take on just that part of the project, not even the upfront survey work. I mean, that is a great opportunity.

Yeah. So basically partnering with a client who's already done the original research and now they need to be able to create content about it.

Absolutely, absolutely.

So let's talk a little bit about. I'm very curious, what fee ranges are for, again, in terms of a writer, for helping a client, working with a client on the original research project. Because, I mean, in terms of content that comes out of it, that's a totally different thing. But what would you say you're seeing out there? And I'm sure there's a lot of it depends. But talk to us a little bit about fee ranges.

Yeah, there's a huge amount of it depends, like you said. And there's gonna be some people who want to DIY it. So it's not really going to be a great opportunity for the writer unless they can get on the back end and do all of those extra, you know, things to get the findings out there. But I will say just, you know, when I first started doing this work, I used to charge $10,000 to do, you know, all of, like, the research strategy, all of the survey design, the programming, the data collection and analysis and so forth. And my fees now start at 15,000 just because I've been doing this longer. But I think as a writer, if you're trying to get started, like, that could be a good range. And that does not include the actual report that comes out of it. Like, that's just the upfront data collection, you know, running all the segments, understanding the key editorial themes and so forth.

And it does not include hiring the panel company. The client needs to do that themselves and pay them separately. Correct?

That is a great point, Ed. Yes. So, yes, that does not include the panel. Company panels are tricky, like we've talked about briefly, but I actually have clients pay me for the panel directly. And ideally the client pays prior to that panel getting launched, and then I charge a fee to manage that panel because there's a lot of back and forth, there's a lot of like, clean out the bad data and so forth. So I would definitely recommending an additional fee to manage that panel unless the client wants to do it on their own. But I've never met A client who wants to manage a panel.

Yeah. So, yeah, we're talking, you know, this is very attractive just looking at the fee on its own, 10 to $15,000. And then the potential work that can come out of that for months from this particular client. I mean, you could be very busy. Two or three of these a year can keep you well fed, basically, it sounds like.

Absolutely.

I'm curious what your take is on the kind of writer this kind of work is well suited for. Because, look, let's face it, we all look at big numbers like that and go, oh, I would love that, but this is not for everybody. So what kind of attributes, qualities, skill sets would you say are required to do this well and to actually enjoy it as well?

Yeah, so I think that. So I'm a writer by trade. I've written for many, many years. And I'll be honest, I got burnt out on writing, which is why I love doing research. So, I mean, if you're a writer who just loves to write and that's like your thing all day long, you might want to partner with someone like me or someone else who can do the research and then focus on the back end. But if you are a writer who likes to do different things, who likes to use your brain in the right brain, left brain kind of way, or, you know, I talk with a lot of people, and I think this work is well suited for people who kind of like to put together a big puzzle. Like, clients, like, tell you all of these different things and, you know, and you have to, like, take all those things and make sense of them and present them back in a way it says, okay, all the stuff you're telling me. I think your research strategy focuses on this. This is how we're going to approach it, and so forth. And so many clients are like, I realize I told you that, but I never saw this coming out of that. So it's those writers who kind of like to put together the strategies and the puzzles. I think that's a really important attribute. And the other thing I would say is just someone who is detail oriented and patient and who wants to deal with all of the pieces and parts of the process, or someone who wants to find someone who wants to deal with all those pieces and parts, because you can certainly outsource parts of these other projects too.

You know, I just wrote this down. Strategic versus detail oriented. Those don't typically come in a package. Right. So I see people who are very strategic, big picture thinkers. They can synthesize information really well, but they're not. Maybe detail oriented is not the right word, but there's a lot of tactical pieces and a lot of project management that goes into this. Do you think it's. Are these skill sets compatible or are we looking for someone who, you know, kind of a unicorn?

You know what? I love this question. I never thought about it like that, but you're kind of right that it takes both sides of your brain. I like doing both parts. I like the strategic and I like putting together the process. So right now what I'm doing now is I have a very set process I use for every client that I'm starting to outsource into. So I don't have to do all of the detailed work, but I'll be. That's a good question, Ed, and I'm not answering it, but I think it's a really interesting question because maybe that's why it's really tough to find people, people to do this kind of work because it does take such different parts of your brain to do it.

Well, maybe the answer is just, you know, how many things in life do you do it right? Because you are attracted to one element of it. Once you start doing it, you realize, okay, the element that drew me to it is awesome. But then there's this other stuff that I absolutely hate. I think what separates the winners from the losers, just to use something a common term, is those who. You'll have people who will figure out, okay, I'm not going to drop this just because I don't like the bad stuff. I'm going to figure out a way to get other people to help me there. And which is what sounds like what you're doing. And I think that's a better solution in many cases than to say, well, yeah, but I don't like this aspect of it, so I'm just going to drop it.

Absolutely. And I think I also am a believer of if I'm going to offer this to clients, I almost need to go through through it myself. So I understand it and I can speak the language of all pieces and parts. So it's someone who knows it's going to be painful at first, but then you can get help once you understand what you need help with.

Yeah, totally.

There are certain things you can outsource right off, like the programming and stuff like that, but some of the stuff I just think you just have to do so you truly understand it.

Yeah, it's like taxes. I always tell people, look, you should do your taxes for several years and outsource it because Then you can have a smart conversation with your accountant because you've done it. You've changed your oil in the car. And by the way, I want to clarify something. I'm not saying that if you end up doing this and it doesn't work out for you, that means you're a loser. And that's not at all probably a bad choice of words. What I'm saying is sometimes that's maybe the first thing to think about. It's like, okay, how can I start? I've done it all in these parts. I hated. How can I outsource some of that? And in some cases. And listen, I've talked to several people and I have a couple of coaching clients who have said, even when I think about outsourcing some of this, it's just, I realize that it's not for me where I've had other people say, I absolutely love this and not every part of it, but the parts that are good are really, really good and nobody's right or wrong. You just have to make your own decision. It sounds like you found the perfect thing for you based on your skill sets and your strengths. In terms of misconceptions about this kind of work, what do you find? People get wrong, either writers or even clients who are trying to do this. What are some common misconceptions?

So, I mean, one thing from a writer perspective is I think sometimes people get scared off with the process because they think that they need to be like a math whiz or a stats whiz, and you don't. I think if you have a basic understanding of how to use Excel, like, you're good. I haven't taken stats since, I don't know, 1993 or something. And I am not a stats person, but there are tools that run all the stats for me that I can then use easily and take that to interpret data. So don't let your fear of math scare you off from this. And I think that when you're talking to clients, I mean, I think that people underestimate how difficult it is to write the survey. I think they just think, let me just write some questions, get it out there, get some responses. It's going to be really easy. But like we talked about, I think if you're going to get help with one part of the process, get help with the survey. Because if you get that wrong, like you said, Ed, that's your whole project kind of fails from there. So I would not underestimate the time in this survey that it takes to put A good survey together.

Very cool. I think that makes a lot of sense in terms of finding clients for this kind of work. I'm curious, what's worked best for you, Michelle? What have you done to land clients who want to do this?

Yeah, I mean, I think like many people, a lot of your writers have been written for a long time. I think their best opportunities very well could be with their existing clients with word and with word of mouth. But I think that's kind of a non answer because it's nice if you have that network and it's a non answer if you don't. But so one of the things I've done and I want to actually do more of is I used to reach out to people who are doing research that I really thought highly of. So I'd reach out, you know, via LinkedIn and say, hey, you know, I saw you publish this project. I really admire it. I'm in the same. I'm working with clients to publish research too. Zero sales pitch, but would you get on the phone with me for 30 minutes? I would love to learn about your process and, you know, what worked and what didn't. Just. Just so I can get ideas to help serve my clients better. And I think maybe one. I didn't hear back from one of those, but everyone else said, sure. And we got on the phone and we talked. And not only did I learn, but I haven't done the math. But from one conversation I had with someone a few years ago, she referred me to other people who then became clients. Those people saw Mantis Research was doing that survey, so then they reached out. So it was just like crazy whirlwind of clients that came through that one conversation. And then that person actually is now a client of mine too. So it's not a fast way to get clients, but it's been a really effective way to get clients. And for me, it feels like an authentic, good way. It feels helpful and genuine, not.

Well, what I love about that is you're going where they already get it. That's what I'm hearing. It's like, hey, they've already done it. They're already doing it. Let me just. I don't have to talk them into the idea. I don't have to sell them the value of doing original research. And let's just start a conversation with clients. The advantage there, existing clients, is there's already trust, there's mutual respect, so you can get an audience and maybe pitch them the idea and they'll be open to you talking to them about it. But there may need to be a lot of education and maybe the expectations are way out of whack because they're not savvy in this department. So that could take a lot. And then I guess another category would be cold prospects. Just going out there and doing a marketing type, you know, do sending out warm emails or connecting with people on LinkedIn and trying to pitch this. That seems to be like. Might be the most difficult one.

I do think that's the most difficult one as well. Only because I think for a lot of times these projects, because they do cost so much money, you almost need to find those people who want to do this and are excited about it. I mean, this makes sense. But those clients close so much faster and. Yeah, because they're already ready to try to educate someone. I think, at least from my experience, has been difficult. I mean, your writers might have a different experience, but I think it's better to find those who want to do it. If you can.

Yeah. Go to the.

Try to educate someone.

Sure. No, that makes sense. So that. I'm glad you said that. I didn't realize that that's what worked best for you. That makes perfect sense when it comes to something like this. This has been awesome, Michelle. I appreciate you coming to talk to us about it. Fascinating stuff. I can see and I can sense the passion that you have for this. I'm curious where I can send listeners to learn more about you, more about Mantis. And I know IGA you're working on some really cool things. Where can I point them to?

Yeah, so my website is Mantis M A N T I S research dot com. When you go there, you can sign up for emails. I send out a monthly email that just includes tips of how to do better research, examples of research that I admire, and so forth. Or you can connect with me on LinkedIn. It's Michelle with one L M I C H E L E Last name Lynn. L I N N I love connecting with people on LinkedIn. I think LinkedIn is a great way to connect with your audience too. I've just been very quiet there lately, but that's another great mechanism.

Yeah. Now that you mentioned that having the term original research writer in your LinkedIn headline could even help because this is a thing, right? This is a term that clients or potential clients are actually searching for on LinkedIn.

Yes. Another quick note. If there are writers out there who would love to write these kind of projects and do all the amplification, feel free to reach out to me. Because I love the upfront work of doing it, getting all the data and so forth. So it's not uncommon where I'm looking for writers to help with other parts of the process.

Be careful you ask for on this show, Michelle. You're going to get a lot of responses.

That's totally fine.

Very cool. Thanks for that offer. I love that kind of setup where you know, you know what you enjoy, you know what you're really good at, and then you find others who love the other stuff that you're not really interested in doing. Again, thanks for coming on. This has been fascinating and I appreciate you sharing your experience and your wisdom with us.

Thank you so much, Ed. This was fun.

Well, that's it for today. I hope you enjoyed the episode. And just a quick reminder to grab your free copy of my latest book, Burn More in Less Time the Proven Mindset, Strategies and Actions to Prosper as a Freelance writer. You can get your free copy@b2b launcher.com or you you will also find the detail show notes to this and all my other episodes. Enjoy and have a great day.