Ed Gandia discusses how to price and manage projects when clients hand you a partially written draft to revise. Susan shares a real situation where a client's existing work complicates the scope and timeline, and Gandia walks through how to set expectations and charge fairly for the extra work involved.
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 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, this episode is much shorter than usual. Rather than my typical 45 minute format. Today I'm sharing a quick tip with you. This is part of the audio insights I publish for my private coaching clients every weekday and I thought you'd find it helpful.
So here we go.
Hope you enjoy it.
What do you do when a client or prospect has a piece of long form content they've already written internally and they want your help finishing it? What do you quote? How do you approach that kind of project? That's a question that Susan recently brought up in her situation. The client approached her with a report that was about 70% written and included lots of comments from various team members. They wanted her to incorporate all the comments and do a total edit for consistent tone and voice. Now, that 70% finished figure was the client's estimation. And when Susan looked at what they had, she agreed with their assessment after just a quick review. But she also admitted that until she really dug into the draft, she wouldn't know exactly how much work it would take to get it to the finish line. So she was a little concerned and that's why she brought the question to the group. And that question that she brought up sparked a number of excellent ideas from other team members, other boardroom members. My objective today is not to run through a summary of those ideas, but rather to focus on the core question here. When a client has something already started, how can you determine how much more work there is to do? So logic would dictate that if the project is 70% there, we only have about 30% left to go. So from a pricing standpoint, it would seem that if you would normally charge, say, $5,000 to complete a similar project, start to finish, then you would quote the client 30% of that number to finish what they started. So in our example, 30% of 5000 is $1500. You would just quote $1500 and it sounds reasonable, doesn't it? Well, I found that it rarely works out that way. My friend and colleague Gordon Graham told me a joke many years ago that I've never forgotten. A guy calls a painting Contractor to come give him an estimate to paint the exterior of his house. Contractor walks around the house and gives the homeowner a $4,000 estimate. The homeowner is shocked by the number. He says, $4,000. Look, I have two sons in their 20s. What if they and I helped you paint? How much would you charge me? Then the contractor replied, well, if I do it, it's $4,000. If you and your sons help me, it's $6,000. So I think you get the point. Here's the thing. When you're dealing with something that's already started, that doesn't mean that it's good to go. Too often the draft has structural and developmental problems that aren't easily fixed with some minor editing. It requires a significant overhaul, and before you get into that overhaul, requires significant discussions, a lot of back and forth between you and the client because what you're suggesting they change or shift is major. And then that creates all kinds of problems. And then the project stalls and then you end up doing a ton of extra work. And then in this particular scenario, you get into all the comments and all the input that's already in the draft from various parties. Now, those may seem harmless, but that often involves conflicting ideas that can quickly get out of control. And of course, there's the issue of it not being your work. So you have to work around pre existing elements, any of which could present a problem or two, if not more. These factors alone make a 70% finished estimate overly optimistic, even if the draft appears to be mostly done on on the surface. Now, I won't tell the client that they're wrong and that I'm going to treat this as more of a 50% done job. That's what I do internally. To estimate my fee, I give myself at least a 20% margin. By 20%, I mean 20 percentage points. And in this case I treat it as just say 50% that the project, the draft is about 50% there. And then I apply that multiplier to my estimate. I factor in other things, other variables, but that's kind of the major driver of what my number was going to end up being. To avert any potential objections or surprises, I then explained in my quote that picking up an existing piece of work someone else has created is a much more complex undertaking than it sounds. There's a lot of initial work required up front to understand everything that's been done, to understand the objectives of the piece, what the client likes and doesn't like about it right now, how we're going to resolve conflicting comments and suggestions from multiple parties and what's missing from the draft. But it's not just about effort. Now. It takes a skilled writer to really understand the current state, compare that to the desired future state of the piece, and know how to bridge that gap masterfully. Now, not every client's going to go for this. Some are going to think, well, it's almost done. Why would we pay that much to finish it? I mean, for that number, we'll just keep it in house, right? And we've all heard that, and that's definitely a possibility. If that's how they feel, I say that's fine. Your job is not to close the deal at all costs. Your job is to close only what's closable and is a good deal for both parties, not just for them. 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 or 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 where you will also find the detailed show notes to this and all my other episodes. Enjoy and have a great day.
