Tips for writing professionals working with rich, powerful people

As your editing and ghostwriting career grows, you may find yourself working with senior executives, CEOs, celebrities, or other rich and powerful people. This can be intimidating. But it doesn’t have to be, if you keep a few principles in mind.

The key thing to remember is that although this is an asymmetric relationship, it’s not necessarily one-sided. True, your client or potential client likely has high visibility, plenty of money, and a great deal of experience negotiating major deals — qualities you probably lack. But you know far more about writing, editing, publishing, and books than they do. That’s why they want to work with you, and it’s how you can even the balance of power.

How to increase the chances of a successful relationship with a powerful client

As an analyst, I often found myself across the table from CEOs of companies like Comcast, Hearst, CBS, News Corp., and Sony. What I learned is that if you know what you’re talking about — and they know that you know — you have a chance to make an impression. Directness, data, and clarity make all the difference. Respect is essential, but so is interacting with folks like this from a position of knowledge and insight. They tend to be impatient, but they didn’t get where they are by failing to listen.

Embracing that attitude will get you started as a writing professional interacting with a powerful client. Here are a few principles that will enable you to succeed:

• Listen. Nothing will get you rejected quicker than failing to listen carefully to a client like this or worse yet, interrupting them. After you’ve heard what they have to say, summarize and restate it to show you’ve understood.
• Learn to speak briefly and clearly. Get right to the point. Learn as quickly as possible what the client needs and how you can help them.
• Communicate well in writing. As a writing professional, this is your strength. Answer questions quickly and clearly with a minimum of supporting detail. Describe your offerings as succinctly as possible with a clear statement of process and deliverables.
• Freely share knowledge about writing, publishing, and books. This is where you have experience and they don’t. Explaining how these fields work is valuable to the client and boosts your credibility. Don’t charge for this — it’s your entrée to begin the real paid work of editing or writing.
• Don’t be coy about money. You should be proactive in describing what you do and how much it costs. State your prices clearly and unequivocally. People like this are used to talking money and paying what things are worth. They want to know what they’re going to get from you, why it is valuable, and how much it costs.
• Be clear about scope as well. Rich people tend to assume that others will take care of whatever they need taken care of. That means you may end up asked to do work that would be better suited to a graphic designer, personal assistant, publicist, or community manager. You must be clear at all stages what’s included and what’s beyond scope and will either cost extra or require hiring somebody else.
• Respect their time. Powerful people are always short of time. Never waste it. Be efficient in meetings. Communicate asynchronously, for example with email. Be clear about what you need from them. Write agendas before meetings and recaps afterwards.
• Take it in stages. Do something small first, so you and the client can get to know each other. You’ll learn how they like to work; they’ll learn what you’re good at. That’s a firm foundation for getting paid what you’re worth when you get to the bigger and more costly parts of the project.
• Use the communication tools they want, not the ones you like best. You won’t get far telling a CEO to use your favorite toolset. If they like email, use it; if they prefer Slack or Notion, use that. If they’re a fan of Microsoft Word, so are you now — and the same applies if they’re a lover of Google Docs. I’m currently ghostwriting a book in Coda, which I’d never used before this project — the client insisted, so I learned it and have quickly become adept with it.
• Manage the project. Whenever possible, you should manage schedules, storage directories, interactions with publishers, and anything else within the scope of the project. Yes, that’s more work than just behaving as a writing or editing resource. But it’s how you gain visibility into the goals of the project and make sure you’re not surprised by unexpected developments from other parts of the organization or partners.
• Beware intermediaries. If everything you do has to go through a personal assistant or PR counsel, you’re going to get a filtered and distorted view of what your client needs. If at all possible, deal with the client directly.
• Be alert for outside reviewers. Famous and powerful people have lots of smart friends and colleagues. They love to say things like, “Let’s show this manuscript to my friends Barack and Michelle!” Pretty soon you’re reacting to feedback from a growing set of meddlers. Throughout the project, keep track of who the reviewers are, warn the client that they can’t bring people in at the end, and manage the feedback so that you can handle it all at once, not dribbled in at inconvenient moments.
• Get paid as you go. You should be getting paid at regular intervals on hitting milestones, so you don’t end up deep in the project in the vulnerable position where all the compensation is due in the future. And straighten out the payment mechanisms early. You don’t want to waste time wrangling with your CEO’s accounting department every time you send an invoice.
• Carefully create and negotiate a contract, and don’t work until it’s signed. If you get embroiled in a disagreement with the client, you’re at a serious disadvantage, because they have better and more intimidating lawyers than you’ll ever have. So get the details of your arrangement in writing, with a careful focus on schedules, scope of work, and liability for errors. If it’s not written in the contract, you’re at their mercy.

Rich and powerful people have two things you’d really benefit from more of: money, and influence. It’s worth it to work with them, and their projects are often fascinating. Once you’re seen as a partner, not a freelance lackey, you’ll have a far better chance of succeeding.