About the Author
Nancee Moster, principal of Nancee Moster Enterprises, Inc., began offering technical services to high-tech businesses (particularly software development and telecommunications companies) in 1982.
Nancee’s business experience includes co-founding/managing a software development company, and designing/developing a software product that became one of the top three in its vertical market; founding/managing a technical communications consulting company; and co-founding/ managing a virtual outsourcing company for organizations that have a temporary or periodic need for special communications or training expertise.
She draws on all her business, technical, authoring, and training experience and expertise to understand and solve the problems of, and communicate effectively with, business managers, technical resources, customers, and prospects.
Ms. Moster graduated summa cum laude from Washington University, St. Louis. She is a senior member of the Society for Technical Communication, and served as President of the Central Illinois chapter for many years.
Introduction
by
This chapter focuses on:
- Types of technical communication work I know (from personal experience) to be available to consultants and independent contractors
- Strategies for proving to your clients that you're the right person to deliver that work
- The skills you possess as a technical communicator that are readily transferable to designing and creating non-traditional deliverables
Your Goal
It’s your job to convince your clients and prospective clients that you’re an indispensable and irreplaceable asset who:
- Understands their business problems, products, customers, and niche markets
- Can save them time and money
- Can help them compete in today's marketplace
It is also your job to:
- Make money
- Stay challenged
- Feel creative
Your Strategy
Just how do you pull of this miracle?
- First off, make sure your clients and prospective clients understand the difference between a technical communicator and a techno-junkie.
- Trust me on this: Anyone can master an HTML editor to produce a web page. Even you! But not everyone can produce a usable, interesting, well-organized, well-formatted (I know that is an oxymoron in HTML-land) Web page that surfers return to again and again because it offers easy-to-find answers to their questions.
- You’re selling your technical communication expertise — not your ability to make some development tool do cartwheels. If you don’t already understand and accept this important distinction yourself, you’ll forever compete against hackers who gladly accept pennies for the opportunity to play!
- Analyze your clients’ needs—whether they want you to or not!
- If you can’t get your clients to buy into a full-blown, formal, analysis effort, just start talking to people. Wander over to the marketing department. Chat with the human resources director or a sales person over coffee. Take the president’s secretary out to lunch.
- Look for ways to save your clients time and money.
- No, this does not slit your own throat. Everything that goes around comes around. Seek opportunities to design and create technical documentation that can do double or triple duty. Try to shorten the publication cycle. Pursue strategies to shorten the product release cycle.
- Find related audiences in your clients’ organization who can benefit from your product knowledge and technical communication expertise so that you can cross over to more work.
