I realized while finishing up my book over the past month that we haven’t talked a lot about anchor clients and how to find these type of clients on the blog. So today I wanted to address the topic head on. I have always been fascinated about the reasons why one writer earns a high income and another struggles to make ends meet. Over the past few years, I have found that almost all high income writers have anchor clients and I think that this is a huge factor in making a high income.

Anchor clients are long-term clients who provide regular work each month, usually a substantial amount. My anchor clients include two content marketing agencies and two direct businesses. I am on retainer with one of these clients for a set amount of work each month. The other three clients send me regular work throughout the month. A few years ago one of my anchor clients was a trade publication that assigned me several stories a month. In my opinion, you should aim to have at least two anchor clients.

Here are three benefits that I’ve found to having anchor clients

• Less pitching and marketing – Because marketing is not billable time, it is almost impossible to earn a high income if you are constantly trying to land another project. While you do have to pitch with some anchor clients, it’s typically just sending over a few ideas with a few sentences each instead of fully fleshed out pitches. If you spend less time marketing, then you are going to have more time to take on paying work.
• Higher hourly rate – No, anchor clients don’t always pay the highest rates. But each time you do a project for a new client, it almost inevitably takes longer than the tenth project you do for that client, meaning you make less per hour on the initial projects. With an anchor client, you already know the client’s expectations, the subject matter and the tone, which means it takes you less time and usually means fewer revisions.
• Opportunity for new niches and types of writing – A brand new client is not likely to hire you to write your first whitepaper. But a client you have worked with for two years may very well be interested in hiring you for a first run because they know your work and you know their company. Once you have an anchor client, think about ways to get new experience and expertise. Since breaking into a new niche is often very hard, keep a close eye on ways to do this within your clients. For example, an agency you work with may have a client or a business launching a new product in an area you’d like to cover.

How to Find Anchor Clients

This is the million dollar question. It’s more that clients become anchor clients than you find anchor clients. Late last year I decided that I wanted to add a new anchor client. But the first two new clients that I thought would fit that bill didn’t turn out for various reasons. But I recently took on a new client that I am pretty sure is going to be an anchor client in 2018. However, it will take me a few more months of working with them to know for certain. Finding anchor clients is more of a process than a transaction.

The key is that when you look for new clients, you should consciously look for clients that have anchor client potential. Here are three things to look for:

• Ongoing projects – I recently talked to a potential client on the phone who wanted to hire me to write a whitepaper. I told her that I am looking for long-term clients and asked about the possibility of future work. She laughed and said, “Oh, don’t worry. If this works out, we have many whitepapers that we need written.” She then added that she was also looking for a long-term freelancer, not someone to do just one assignment. This is exactly the type of answer I am looking for when I ask about long-term work.
• Matching Strengths – A client is only going to become an anchor client if they think you do a great job. But that means that your strengths need to match up with the skills that they are looking for. During the initial call, I listen for the words “detail oriented” and if I hear this mentioned then I usually don’t take the client, because as hard as I try this is never going to describe me. On the other hand, if the client mentions that they want a writer to be part of the team, help with content strategy and come up with ideas – then I know that I could very well be the writer that they are looking for.
• Personality – A few years ago when I lost three anchor clients and was panicking, I made a list of every anchor client I had ever had and tried to find the pattern. I realized pretty quickly that if we lived in the same town that I would be personal friends with every single one of them. With an anchor client, you become part of the client’s team and a good part of this depends on having a personality that mixes well with the other people on the team.

There is one downside to anchor clients: it’s easy to have a large portion of your income tied up in a single client. And while that’s good when the work is plentiful, we all know that clients come and go. I think that it’s important to try to make sure that a single client isn’t responsible for more income than you can either do without or make up in a short period. For me that amount is about 20 percent. If I lose an anchor client that makes up for 20 percent of my income, I can make do with 80 percent of my income while I replace the client. I also know that I can usually get work to cover 20 percent of my income relatively quickly. Each writer’s situation is different but I think it’s important to actively manage how much income comes from a single client.

Tell us about your anchor clients. What benefits have you found from having anchor clients? How did you find your anchor clients?