“You have given me so much confidence”

They were the words spoken to me by a client recently.  He’s writing his family memoirs and getting into a mess with trying to handle Table of Contents, indexing and even line spacing between paragraphs.

We spoke on the phone a few days ago and he emailed me his document.  I could see right away there was much work to be done so I sent back an outline of what I thought needed to be done and how, and what my rate would be.  I also suggested he speak to a local printer I know who could give him some ideas about the sizing of the document, ready for printing.  The document needed resizing so it could be correctly formatted and the indexing and table of contents would be accurate.

The client rang me to say that I was the first person he’s spoken to who actually made sense and he could see from my email that I knew what I was talking about. He’d been given so much conflicting advice that he was at a loss with his family project and whether he should be pursuing it. He’s decided now he is doing the right thing and is  handing the job over to me to look after things for him.

It helps that I have written and published my own books and I’ve also helped others with their memoirs in the past.  I’ve been there and knew what he would need to know and who he should be speaking to for the right advice.

It’s all very well for clients to seek out help in many quarters, often to try and save on expense, but the reality is, unless you engage someone who really has walked the talk, then you are going to experience some form of dissatisfaction or discontent.  And in the long run, probably waste a lot of time and spend more than you should, had you gone to the right person in the first place.