Collecting the RIGHT information from clients can streamline and speed up your writing.

If you email tedious questionnaires, you know those take the client 1-3 hours to complete. Several additional challenges arise when emailing questionnaires to clients, too.

First, the client gives too much or too little info. Second, the client goes MIA because the questionnaire process is daunting. Third, the client eventually resurfaces, but only when an open job with a pressing close date is looming.

Have you considered doing client intakes by phone? The client talks, and you type.

With this approach to project management, you control what and how much information is displayed on the screen. Conducting the intake by phone enables you to customize questions to fit each client, thereby generating richer answers that make the resume-writing process easier for both you and the client.

The best way to get anyone to talk about their position is to ask a fundamental, open-ended question: Tell me about X position. What consumes most of your time and energy in this role?

From there, you can customize your questions to fit the client. For example, maybe your client, a controller with an energy company, conducts due diligence for company acquisitions rather than the typical accounting functions you might have first considered.

In this case, a standard list of accounting questions wouldn’t be the best fit for this client.

Some follow-up questions could then be:

• What have been the most significant 3 company acquisitions you’ve been involved with? (Be sure to get purchase prices, sizes of infrastructure, # of employees)
• As part of the due diligence process, who do you generally work with? Attorneys? Auditing firms?
• What’s your role after the company has been acquired?

By asking customized questions, you learn what’s important to write about. And, by scheduling an intake call, you keep the client committed to proceeding with the project without any disappearing acts or time delays.