Note from Jennifer: I’ve been overwhelmed by how many of you already signed up for my new class Improve Your Productivity with AI Writing Tools. Based on feedback, I’ve expanded it to talk about other AI writing tools. For the demonstrations I will use ChatGPT since its most advanced right now, but you can use whatever tool you want for your exercises. I also added in monthly live Q&A sessions via Zoom for 2023 as part of the course. The early-bird price of $99 is only available till Feb 20th when the course goes live and then it increases to $125.  I’m so excited about this class and helping us all navigate this new change in our profession. 

It’s happened to me twice so far this year. The first client sent me an email telling me she was laid off. And I learned about the second one when I saw her post on LinkedIn. My heart fell for both. It’s one thing to see headlines with big numbers of layoffs. And it’s another to have it hit close to home. Sadly, I’m pretty sure this is going to keep happening in the near future. 

When this happens, my goal is to get my ducks in a row first and then help my contact. However, you need to take quick action, often within an hour or so after finding out, since your contact’s email access will likely be cut off shortly if it wasn’t already.

Here are three things you need to do:

Make sure you will get paid

Three years ago, my client contact quit mid-project and I never got paid. It wasn’t a big enough amount to involve lawyers or small claim courts but ever since then, I’ve learned that the very first thing I need to do is make sure that I’m going to get paid. 

1. When you learn that your contact is laid off, look to see where you send your invoices. If you have been sending directly to Accounts Payable (AP) or in a payments system, then you are (probably) good and can move on to making sure you get future work. 
2. If you send the invoice directly to the editor, email your current contact who was laid off to get an email address to send the invoices. Hopefully, you will hear back and get an email address for their billing rep or another person on the content team who is taking over. 
3. If you do not hear back or their access has already been cut off, then look through other emails throughout the project to see if another employee at the company has been copied. If possible, find someone else you worked with and email them for the contact information. If not, email anyone who was copied on the emails. Odds are high that they will help you. 
4. If you none of these steps work, then call the company headquarters and ask for the Accounts Payable email address. Write an email explaining the situation and include both your invoice and contract. The AP departments job is to get vendors paid so they should respond quickly and help you. 

Get a new contact for future work

When your client contact leaves a company, you often lose the gig. Not always, but it’s a pretty big possibility, especially if the editor was laid off because the project was canceled. However, even if that is the case, the company may have new needs after laying off full-time people. 

You want to reach out to someone else as quickly as possible at the company to begin establishing a relationship. Ideally, the editor introduces you to your new contact at the company and the relationship continues smoothly. If not, then follow the same advice as above of looking through your emails to find someone else in their department and reach out. Yes, it may feel uncomfortable, but it’s business and they will more than likely be glad that you took the effort to reach out. And if you don’t hear back from them right away, I would reach out in a few weeks after the dust has settled to see if they need any help. 

Help Your Contact

As soon as I have protected myself, then I look for ways that I can help my editor in this tough time. Yes, the level at which I help or reach out depends on the relationship, but I pretty much always do the following. 

• Send a nice email. Getting laid off sucks. And it can be embarrassing. I always email the editor right away (or message them on LinkedIn) and share how much I enjoyed working with them and usually include a couple of specifics. I also ask for their personal emails to stay in touch. 
• Connect on LinkedIn. If we aren’t already connected on LinkedIn then I will send a LI request so we can stay connected. 
• Write a LinkedIn recommendation. Your editor will now be looking for a job and LinkedIn recommendations help them get interviews and jobs. I spend some time writing a very detailed recommendation that says more than just ‘they were good to work with.’ Instead, I try to include specifics about their strengths, such as ‘great at giving feedback’ or ‘excellent at editing stories.’ 
• Offer to help with their job search or freelancing. About a week or so after they are laid off, I usually reach out to see if they are going to freelance and would like me to chat with them about freelancing. I’ve done this several times with editors who were laid off and they genuinely appreciated it. I also ask if there is anything I could do to help with their job search, such as be a reference or keep a lookout for certain jobs with other clients. 

I help my editors because it is the right thing to do. And because I almost always end up friends with my clients, especially those who I’ve worked with for years. But it is also a smart business move as well. Your editors will likely land another job in the near future. And it’s very possible that they will be in the position to hire freelancers for that job as well. By building the relationship, helping them, and staying connected, they are likely to remember you next time they have a freelance project to assign. 

Have any of your client contacts been laid off this year? What else would you do after learning about a client layoff?