Freelance: Mapping successful business plans and models

By Matt Perry

Successful freelancers often travel very different paths to find their distinct pots of gold.

At the same time, the three panelists from the Health Journalism 2012 panel “Mapping successful business plans and models” all shared a common theme: find the path that works for your unique personality and business.

The panel of independent journalists was moderated by San Francisco’s Heather Boerner, who first outlined the basics of business models and business plans.

Keys to freelance success, she said, are knowing the stories you want to write, your audience, what publications you want to write for, expected income streams, and anticipated expenses.

“The point is to get really clear on what you want and need.”

Boerner urged that no single client should provide more than 25 percent of a freelancer’s income. She also suggested that writers turn the phrase “client satisfaction” on its head: “How satisfied are you with your clients?”

Successful writers clearly define their business model and aren’t afraid to say “no” to work that doesn’t fit.

“It really changes who you are going to intentionally market to this year,” said Boerner, who suggested a freelance tune-up every six months. “Once you have your business plan it really means nothing unless you check in with it.”

Former beat reporter Lola Butcher offered the panel’s most focused business plan. Her sole topic: Medicare policy and how it affects physicians and hospital executives.

“I’m focused like a laser beam on one thing, and there’s a market for it,” she said.

Two of Butcher’s clients account for 70 percent of her revenue, and she treats them accordingly.

“I see myself as a staff member of those two clients.”

Butcher’s four other clients account for the remaining 30 percent of her income.

She feels most comfortable writing with this narrow focus “because there is so much fodder,” and that it fulfills an important business goal: know where her next $15,000 in assignments are coming from.

Butcher, who says she is paid $1,000 to $1,500 per assignment, offered this lucrative projection about her work: “I will milk this cow for the next 20 years.” 

Former Los Angeles Times reporter Irene Wielawski made what she termed a “soft landing” into the world of freelancing when she received a six-year research grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to interview uninsured citizens around the country.

Forced to create a business plan because her family had two children in expensive private colleges, Wielawski stood her ground in the freelance world.

Not only did she continue to write about the socioeconomic issues of poverty – “policy stories with a human face” – but she maintained a fiercely independent stance as an objective journalist even while writing for corporate, nonprofit clients.

“All my published works meets the standards of journalism,” she said. Her conclusions cannot be changed to satisfy a corporate goal. And she retains the right to remove her name from any piece that is changed.

At first, Wielawski struggled with pricing her services.  

“I finally got up the nerve to say ‘You may be a nonprofit, but I’m not.” 

While she often charges by the project, as soon as she hears a hint of confusion from her clients, she shifts them into an hourly rate to protect herself: $100 / hour at the low end, and $150 / hour the high.

“I’m just not going to work for less, because it’s very hard work.”

Wielawski cited all of the aspects that make journalism a huge challenge: researching, interviewing, creating, synthesizing and writing.

How did she arrive at her hourly rate? 

Here’s her formula: Start with an annual salary worthy of your work. Double that figure. Then divide the number by 52 weeks.  Divide it again by 40 – a standard work week.  The result is your hourly rate.

“You need to get paid for all the time you spend running your business,” she summarized: negotiating, creating, sick time and vacation.

The third speaker, Andrea King Collier, started freelancing 20 years ago and originally hoped to make all of her income writing for women’s magazines. Financial reality quickly steered her away from these “pretty clips.”

Today, Collier has created a business model with absolutely no competition.

“I am the brand,” she said. “I am absolutely my own brand. It’s very strategic. It’s multi-faceted. And it supports the kind of money I want to make.”

With admitted “career ADD,” Collier makes her income from several sources, never comfortable being solely a freelance writer.  At one time she wanted to call herself a “content-preneur… but nobody knew what that was,” she said.

Once loathe to work for free, Collier wanted to write political commentary, and so wrote a free piece for The Huffington Post. Although she didn’t receive a penny, it opened the door to this once-hidden market.

Her covert plan: “Will it advance what I want to do next if I can’t get it done any other way?”

About 30 percent of her $100,000 annual income comes from speeches. She’s now hired someone to handle her speaking engagements – which typically net her $5,000 per 30-minute appearance.

“To get to be a $5,000 or $10,000 speaker you have to know your content,” she said. “And you better be a damned good speaker.”

Collier no longer pitches stories but does what she calls “pitching light” or has “a brief conversation.” 

Financially, Collier wants to know where 80 percent of her income is coming from at the beginning of each year.

As a brand, “My goal is to have as many people that I want to work with come to me,” she says.

Collier finished the panel by offering three kernels of wisdom.

“Whatever your deficits are, plug a hole in them.”

“Be generous. Doors open up. Good karma comes to you when you’re generous.”

“I’m 55 and really interested in my authentic self showing up.”

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Matt Perry is an independent journalist based in Sacramento, Calif. He was a 2012 AHCJ-California Health Journalism Fellow.