Today we’d like to introduce you to Cindy Childress.
Cindy, let’s start with your story. We’d love to hear how you got started and how the journey has been so far.
I have a Ph. D. in English, but after I finished my degree, I followed my husband’s job in oil and gas to Southeast Asia. We lived in Malaysia and Indonesia for seven years, and I was the President of two expatriate women’s groups where I learned about marketing, memberships, corporate relations and project management.
When I returned to the U.S., I didn’t want to publish my way back into Academia, but because of my education, I was overqualified for the entry-level marketing jobs I applied for. It was a very upsetting transition, because I knew I was a brilliant writer who should be helping people, but I couldn’t find a way to do it if no one would give me a chance to prove myself.
I bought my website and ordered business cards for my writing business to develop a portfolio. Within months, I had so much business that I needed to bring in help, and now I have a staff of four, so I pivoted from being a freelance writer to managing a writing and communication firm. I created the job that I wanted, and now I am helping other creative, professional writers connect with business who needs their skills. It’s amazing.
Has it been a smooth road?
At first, I tried to be everything to everyone and I offered every single kind of writing I had ever done for money. Then I took Marie Forleo’s B-School through Sue B. Zimmerman’s affiliate program, and I re-examined the services I enjoyed providing the most, which my clients most appreciated and desperately needed.
That’s how I discovered that my niche is writing and editing for subject matter experts who lack the time, ability, or confidence to write for their businesses.
Before that, I was trying to sell technical writing alongside sales writing, and I wasn’t targeting one size of business.
I was also ignoring my biggest asset, my Ph. D. And who needs that the most? Not a mid-sized company that needs a procedural manual. The people who need my expertise are experts in their field who need their messaging to sound as great as their ideas are.
So let’s switch gears a bit and go into the Childress Business Communication story. Tell us more about the business.
We are a team of experts. I have a Ph. D. in English and my team includes an M.B.A., a J.D., a published poet, and a social media expert.
We offer concierge writing services, which can range from website copy and social media content strategy to full-length book manuscript writing and editing. The consistent thread through all those mediums is our concern about who we are targeting with the messages and what the calls to action are. At every step, we know why we are writing every word, relative to the client’s goals. If it’s an Instagram post, we wrote it to drive traffic to your blog, and if it’s a book, we wrote it to encourage people to sign up for your coaching course, etc.
We are known for our “Fairy Godmother Editing,” wherein we rewrite your drafts and make them sound so much better that you don’t even recognize the words, but you see your ideas elevated to a whole new level of clarity and persuasion.
I am most proud of my wonderful team and our level of creative, professional service.
We are different from other writing firms in a few key ways:
1. We don’t offer coaching or critiques. We are a “done for you” firm for people who just want their writing done and want it to sound amazing.
2. We give flat rates for all services when we submit agreements, so you never pay for writer’s block.
3. We never give you cookie cutter content. Everything you order, from blogs to books, is written just for you in your voice. We don’t recycle ideas or repackage the same information for multiple clients.
How do you think the industry will change over the next decade?
This industry is just going to grow as content marketing continues to dominate the digital space. Long form content, in the shape of eBooks and PDF downloads is going to keep getting bigger. Even in video, we offer coaching, script writing and video content strategy, so that space has a lot of room for writing, too. Email content marketing continues to matter, although it’s getting tougher to write emails that get opened, that remains the best way to convert your audience into customers.
Indie publishing and subject matter experts publishing your own books is also going to continue to rise because that’s a long-form content marketing strategy that still opens a lot of doors to speaking gigs and interviews that grow your audience. We are such a long way from that market being glutted. There’s a lot of room for growth.
Contact Info:
- Website:www.childresscommunication.com
- Phone:713-277-8298
- Email:Cindy@childresscommunication.com
- Instagram:https://www.instagram.com/childressbusinesscommunication/
- Facebook:https://www.facebook.com/cynthia.childressbusinesscommunication/
Image Credit:
Diana Simonetta and Kimberly Buchanan
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