Building My Community

I started my writing company, Writer For Hire, in 1990 after being invited by a woman I met at my Temple to attend her LeTip networking group in Los Angeles. At that time, I was already ten years out of college and had been working as a radio news reporter and broadcaster all around New England. But when I moved to Los Angeles, my dream was to write for a record label or for Rolling Stone Magazine.

Well, that didn't happen, but I did achieve my goal of writing for print media over the next ten years, as a contributing writer to Los Angeles Business Journal, San Fernando Valley Business Journal, San Gabriel Business Journal, L.A. Times, Variety, Boxoffice, Music Connection, HITS, Southland Blues, Entertainment Today, Entertainment Weekly, and Pasadena Weekly, among others.

But what I decided to do on that day that I attended my first networking meeting, was to hang my own shingle (as they say) as a professional business writer. That was the beginning of my 34-year journey into being a solo practitioner and which has created a self-sustaining business for me all of these years.

One thing I learned in the process is "you can't do this alone." If you are in business for yourself, you need to create a network of people who support you with referrals to new clients, and who you similarly support with your referrals. Creating a community of like-minded professionals has been absolutely essential for my writing business.

For the first ten years of my Writer For Hire business, I mostly networked in small associations. These included several local Chamber of Congress, LeTip, NAWBO, Women's Referral Service, Independent Writers of Southern California, Entertainment Publicists Professional Society, and Women in Transportation. Unfortunately, these groups took up a vast amount of my time and financial resources, but I did not make long-lasting connections, nor did it generate business for me.

In the 2000's, I got very discouraged, and I wasn't sure I could afford to continue as a sole proprietor. I considered working for an ad agency or a PR agency - and I did get work from both industries. I actually wrote PR content for five different PR agencies and three ad agencies during that decade.

But it wasn't until I joined a networking association for business professionals called ProVisors that my business started to become self-sustaining. The motto of ProVisors is "Know, Like, Trust," which means that people first want to get to know you. After they start getting to know you (without you thrusting your business card at them), you develop a relationship where people trust you (hopefully!). And that's when the referrals start to come in.

I have been a member of ProVisors now for 19 years - I just renewed in July 2024. Today, I have a community of women and men who know what I have to offer and who pretty consistently contact me to create business and promotional content for them that they can use in their chosen marketplace.

Ten years ago, I added a new dimension to my writing services: senior and family memoirs. This came out of a conversation with another ProVisors member (Julie Sagatelian) about her family ancestry. That's when I realized that I didn't really know much about my mom's side of the family and I began doing my research. After about six months and 30 interviews with family members, I was able to write family histories for both sets of my grandparents, even though my maternal grandfather died long before I was born.

When my extended family members read the memoirs, they thanked me for sharing the stories I had accumulated, and they encouraged me to do this for other families. I have been writing senior and family memoirs and also family business histories for the past ten+ years and it has brought a lot of focus on my writing business because of this special service.

I do believe that my network of ProVisors members has been the best decision I have made for my business in terms of marketing, advertising, and networking. It is a great collection of business advisors who truly excel at what they do and who are committed to helping one another.

I know many people are struggling, financially, right now. I hope that you, too, find your community.