5 Reasons Professional Service Providers Offer Steady, Predictable Writing Income
By Michael Katz

I never intended to work for myself. There is no entrepreneurial anything in my family.

My dad worked for the same company — in the same building — for his entire career. I have one brother who is a tenured college professor and another who is a partner in a law firm. We are not risk-taking people, and I was on the same path: I was at my last company for 12 years.

I’d still be there today, except … the internet happened. I was captivated by it and wanted to be a part of it. So in 2000, I left to start my own company building websites (the hot new thing back then).

I’ll spare you the details, but it was a colossal failure. But, since I was paying a lot of attention to the internet, I started writing about what was happening. Even before I went off on my own, every two weeks I sent a bulk email (there was no such thing as an email newsletter back then) to about 40 people in my company. When I left, I kept doing it.

The list grew quickly as people asked to be added. Eventually, some people and companies started asking me to help them do something similar. After about a year, I realized that quite by accident, I had stumbled onto a great business: email newsletters.

About a year after that, I narrowed my focus to working with small professional service firms.

What Are Professional Service Firms?

These are organizations (sometimes just individuals) that you probably encounter every day. I bet you’ve even hired some of them.

They tend to offer services that require a high degree of training, advanced degrees, and (often) certification.

Examples include attorneys, accountants, financial planners, leadership coaches, management consultants, recruiters, cybersecurity experts, and a wide range of health care professionals.

They have “clients,” not “customers,” and depending on what they offer, their clients may be consumers or other businesses (or both).

What Makes Them So Attractive as Clients?

1. There are a lot of them. According to a recent industry report, there are more than a million professional service firms in the United States alone. And it gets better. According to the Business Research Company, that number is expected to grow by 7% each year.

2. They are easy to find. Not only do you already know many of these people — your veterinarian, your accountant, your eye doctor — but also, they tend to gather and interact in groups with other members of their profession. They have conventions, they hold networking events, they have dedicated LinkedIn groups, they read publications specific to their industry.

While you may start out working with professionals you know, your clients don’t need to be local. Even before the pandemic, I had never met half of my clients — they don’t live near me, and the work I do for them doesn’t require a face-to-face meeting. Now that remote work has become the norm, I don’t even see my local clients, except for the occasional coffee or lunch.

3. They don’t know much about marketing. While professional service providers tend to be highly educated and experts in their particular industries, they often know very little about how to get clients and grow their respective businesses. After all, no marketing knowledge is required to become a certified public accountant (CPA) or a certified financial planner (CFP), and they don’t teach marketing in law school or medical school.

And so, these people need help — your help. Help gaining visibility, establishing themselves as experts, and building trust. They are eager to find someone who can step in.

4. They depend on referrals and word of mouth. Have you ever sought the services of a pediatrician, an estate attorney, or a life coach? If you are like most people, you didn’t start with Google. Rather, you asked friends and family if they could recommend one of these professionals. You used word of mouth.

That’s how we all do it. When hiring a professional service provider or firm, we ask around, hoping to find someone capable we can trust. Which means that for this population, word of mouth and referrals are the primary source of clients (by far).

But here again, they’ve got a challenge. They don’t spend money on Super Bowl ads, billboards, or Facebook advertising. That’s not how people find professionals, so those things don’t tend to work. They get clients one at a time through reputation and relationship. The content you help them create, in the form of newsletters and other things, is a big part of what makes that happen.

5. They know too much. Many professionals suffer from what is known as the “curse of knowledge.” They are so experienced, educated, and expert in their respective fields that it’s hard for them to communicate that knowledge to nonexperts. That makes content development in particular, and marketing more broadly, difficult. That’s where you come in, effectively “translating” their expertise into plain language that can be understood by their target clients.

Repeating, Predictable Income

One of the best things about being in the email newsletter business is that with this model, clients come on board, publish monthly (generally), and keep paying you, month after month, until they say “stop” (which tends to be a long time in the future).

I’ve had three clients stay with me for more than 15 years, another two for more than 10, and several between five and 10 years. And every time they publish, I get paid.

Can they leave? Absolutely. But they tend not to. And even when they do, it doesn’t all happen at once. As a result, my monthly income is extremely steady and predictable.

Compare that with doing project-based work. Even if you have a large client or two, when one leaves or the engagement ends, the money stops, and you’re out looking for more again. Having several newsletter clients smooths the bumps and relieves you from always chasing the next dollar.

The Front Door to Much More

There is another huge benefit to the subscription model of newsletters, one that I didn’t realize at first — I interact with each of my clients several times a month: developing the topic, writing the newsletter, formatting the final draft, discussing the results.

I am always top of mind. Which means that anytime they have a need for something involving words, I am the logical choice.

Remember, these individuals and small firms don’t have any in-house marketing support. So when they need help with a website, special report, social media, presentation development, podcast, e-book, or anything else that requires quality writing, they look to me.

They don’t put these other projects out to bid or shop them around in any way. They ask me if I can do X, I suggest a fee, and if they are satisfied with that, we move forward.

It really is that easy!

The model is simple: The newsletters are published on a regular schedule, providing predictable income. The one-off writing projects pop up from these existing clients, adding variety to your work and plenty of additional revenue.

Fun, Interesting, and Lucrative

I can’t imagine a better way to earn a good living as a writer than specializing in email newsletters for professional service firms. Your income will grow as your stable of clients expands, and the predictable, steady pace of work removes the feast-or-famine nature that is so typical of freelance work.

As you spend more and more time with your clients over the months and years, you will develop strong, enjoyable relationships with people who come to depend on you to grow and improve their respective businesses.