You're ready to start, now you must attract clients. Put together a business card and a flyer and start tacking them up on every community bulletin board in town. Send them to large company personnel departments who may refer employees who are being laid off. Advertise in the classified of your local newspaper and in the smaller, often free publications that are circulated around town like the "Pennysaver". Tell friends and family members and give them your card/flyer. They can spread the word among friends -- someone's bound to need help. What should you charge? A simple one-page resume could be priced as low as $25. The more complicated the resume, the more you charge. Much depends on the amount of work you have to do. Keep track of the time it takes you to complete a resume -- the more work, the longer hours, the higher your price. WORKING WITH LOCAL BUSINESSES Now that you understand the idea of the versatility of freelance writing, let's turn our attention to organizations you will come in contact with through your resume services business. As individuals come to you with resumes, make a list of all the local company names you write on the resumes. This is your next prospecting list. Companies, particularly small ones, have a great need for writers. Think about it! Every day, a business is corresponding -- with a customer, a potential customer or a supplier. That correspondence often takes the written form. Well-written correspondence can make the difference between getting a job, landing a customer, increased growth in the business. Writing’s importance can never be over-looked. Yet the majority of people, even business people whose prosperity de------pends on customers, place little emphasis on good writing and spend very little time at it. Your opportunities here are many. Businesses write letters, create brochures, advertise their services, send out direct mail to potential customers; in short, they WRITE! You'll have to alter your Resume Services business card or, better yet, create a new business card to advertise your "all-purpose" writing services. Prepare samples of different type of writing you can do. Instead of throwing out that junk mail, save those letters and practice perfecting their idea -- to get a potential customer to respond to what's in the letter. Have a family member of a friend bring home samples of correspondence from their places of work. Read them and practice writing business letters. Go to the library and check the reference works on writing good letters. Read the newspapers and magazines for sample advertising copy. Take a product you like and write an advertisement for it. Practice! Practice! Practice! Correspondence: Your best clients here are small businesses, sole proprietors or partnerships who may not have the time to spend on their correspondence. Contract with them to do their written work. You can probably charge $25-100 for a letter. Businesses may have form letters they use, and you can redesign them for the better. The quality of correspondence is often an indicator, to a client or a potential client, of the company's professionalism. You can help businesses increase their sales simply by improving their correspondence.
|
All Rights Reserved © 2005 - 2007 www.ebook-retailers.com