How Much of an Expert do you Need?

I was asked the other day whether or not I would turn a potential client away if I wasn't an expert in the field I was being asked to write in. It's an interesting question, because it goes right to the reason why so many outsourced communication projects are only marginally successful at best, particularly in more complex industries.

Many writers I know have the attitude that the value they add is in their craft, and the subject matter is just raw material which they pick up as they go. This is usually an unfortunate way to approach things in business and marketing writing and shows in the end result. When I've hired writers in the past, I've often found myself in the situation of rewriting the final version after trying to provide feedback on way too many drafts from the writer.

So now as a freelancer myself, I'm very careful about the projects I do so I don't become "that guy" working on revision number (insert double digit here). Not only is this frustrating for the client, but it wastes my time and hurts my business too.

But the other extreme is also problematic. I know that if I limited myself to writing only about things in which I was an expert, I wouldn't write much at all. It would be pretty exceptional if I were as much of an expert as each of my clients in their own fields.

So should I turn clients away? Each case is different and requires a judgment call. As a rule of thumb, I don't ask myself if I know as much about the subject as the client. Instead I ask whether or not I know as much about the subject as the intended audience, or can learn quickly enough without impacting the project schedule.

In some ways this is more useful to the client, because I can avoid the potential myopia marketers can develop for their own products, avoid jargon their intended audience doesn't share, and focus on what's important to the customer instead of what's important to the seller.

If I can get myself into the target audience's frame of mind, understand their basic business and technical environment, and understand how the project relates to their priorities and concerns, that's generally enough to be confident that a final product can be achieved in one or two drafts at most.

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