Communications consulting best practices: Part 2 of 3

Go forth and freelance (again)

Welcome to Part 2 of my three-part series on tips, tricks, and best practices for independent communications consultants. While this series is geared towards comms flacks who are considered or have recently made the jump to freelancing, those of you who’ve been doing this for years will find some counterintuitive ideas here.

In Part 1, we touched on the financials — why your number one priority should be making money, how to decide if getting paid hourly or by retainer is right for you, and why freelancers should be wary of project-based work.

In Part 2, I’m diving deep into three topics that will help you get off on the right foot with new clients, a motion that’s critical to get right if you want to build a thriving consulting business.

In the first few months of an engagement with a new client, you are bound to come across several “startup costs." They are hidden opportunity costs that freelancers only incur when working with a new client: You’re learning what your client’s product does and how its technology works; you’re learning about their overall market and sales motions, too. You’re gleaning communications and work styles of team members and managing the flow of projects you’re responsible for. All of these startup costs make you slower and less effective as a freelancer because they result in additional cognitive load beyond the work for which you are paid.

As time passes and an engagement matures, you know how a client’s product, technology, and team works, you’ve developed an intimate understanding of their market, and the programs for which you’re responsible are well-organized. You’re more engrained in the team; faster and more effective, too. But you can only reach this happy place if the first few weeks and months go well.

Here’s how to make that happen (and don’t forget to read tips one, two, and three here!).

Number four: Don’t start with communications goals

It might seem sensible to start a new business call by asking about your clients’ communications needs. I, for one, have had countless kickoff calls with founders and Heads of Marketing alike who immediately jump into telling me what communications programs they want — earned media or social, blogs or events, sales collateral or digital ads.

Talking comms at the outset (almost) never goes well; it’s putting the cart before the horse because the comms program doesn’t matter without the context of the business goals.

If you, as a comms consultant, understand what the organization is trying to achieve from an overall business perspective, you’ll be able to better recommend communications programs that best fit those goals and how to execute them well.

Comms goals are often misaligned with business goals because the person you are talking to is not, despite their protestations, a comms expert. The classic example is the startup that wants a feature in the Wall Street Journal or their funding announcement in TechCrunch, but can’t articulate why those outlets are good for their business. I’ve talked to more than a few startups who want to use communications as a way to raise brand awareness among prospects, and then promptly ignore the outlets their prospects read because they don’t have the requisite amount of perceived cache.

I’d say it’s like a round peg in a square hole, but that’s too rude to pegs and holes. So start with business goals, go from there, and thank me later.

Number five: Be flexible (and honest) with what you do

A lot of communications consultants have strict services that they provide. That might work for some freelancers, but it didn’t work for me.

Part of that is due to selection bias — I work with small startups and their needs are multiple. If I offer a narrow scope of services — say, only media relations — my opportunities are narrower (in that if a startup doesn’t want or need media, I have eliminated a business opportunity for myself).

The other piece of the puzzle, often underappreciated, is how truly variable communications skills are. Before I started freelancing, I never worked on anything that could be considered “marketing” — I was a PR person through and through.

I’m also a strong writer.¹ So when a client needed sales collateral like one pagers, I was honest: I don't have experience writing content like this before, but writing is writing is writing, so I’m confident in my ability to modulate an existing skill for a new application. That kept happening: I was asked to do something, and I used my adjacent but indirect experience to execute at a high level. Eventually I developed acumen for programs and projects with which I originally had little or no experience, growing as a professional as a result.

On the flip side, if I can't do something, I own it. I like to tell startups I work with that I can “keep the lights on” when it comes to a company’s social posts, but sophisticated social strategies for brand profiles aren’t my forte. I can dive into an analytics dashboard to manage a paid ads program , albeit only at a basic level. I would rather spend my time — and I am more valuable — doing other things.

The sum is credibility: I pick up a proverbial shovel and dig, helping solve the problems and execute the projects that are reasonably within my skillset, and I’m honest about the things I can’t do. My flexibility, variability, and honesty helps engagements go well — especially in the first few months. Startups’ advantage over incumbents is speed, but with speed often comes change. When a client needs something new done, they can rely on me to flex with them as new priorities emerge.

Number six: Eat the admin burden

Oh, admin work, both the bane of a consultant’s existence and a necessary evil.

When you’re kicking off with a client, there are a few different admin things you can do to make the early days of an engagement go well:

1. It doesn’t matter if you use your contract² or theirs. Obviously, read all legal documents carefully and get them into a place where you’re comfortable signing, but the entity that originates the contract isn’t really important.

2. Use whatever payroll system on whatever payment cadence they want. Getting paid monthly or semimonthly doesn’t matter. Submitting invoices on Fridays or on specific days every month to integrate with their payroll cadence doesn’t matter. Gusto or Ramp? Submitting invoices via email or payment portal? You guessed it — doesn’t matter.³

3. Use whatever chat and email systems the client wants. Regrettably, I’ve used Outlook and Teams in my day. I’ve used multiple computers and had three or four Gmail accounts at once.

When you do all three of these things, you are decidedly eating an administrative burden. It is kind of annoying to juggle a few emails, and yes, it can be a bit of a mental load to submit invoices for different clients on differing cadences.

However, the upshot is more than worthwhile: The tedium on your end removes friction from your relationship with the client, ultimately resulting in a healthier relationship and more work for you. You’ll have battles to pick with clients, but these tiny admin things? Don’t worry about ‘em.

Start strong and prosper

First impressions matter, and the initial weeks and months of an engagement with a client is make-or-break. If it goes well, you’ll be set up to not just obtain, but maintain long, fruitful relationships with clients. Build your comms program based on business goals, be upfront about what you can and can’t do, and make yourself easy to work with. If you do, you’ll succeed.

Agree? Disagree? Let me know 👇, and stay tuned for Part 3, where we’ll get into my secret tool for managing my entire consulting life.

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Shoutout to Emily Ann Hill for providing feedback and editing this essay. Check out Junetail Creative to see how Emily can help improve your writing and, for small businesses, develop an unforgettable brand experience.

1. You’re here, aren’t you?

2. If you need an Independent Contractor contract template, leave a comment or shoot me a DM. I’ll share mine.

3. The lone caveat is payment terms. Net 30, which means you’ll be paid within 30 days from submission, is most common. Net 15 is awesome. Never do net 45. Getting paid 45 days after submission is too long, and it sucks.