How to be an AWESOME Client... And Land & KEEP the BEST Freelancers

Turning to someone you have never met for help in making your business

succeed is a pretty terrifying move. By hiring a freelancer, specifically a customer-facing

freelancer, you are placing your reputation, your assets, your trade secrets and your

financial success in someone else’s hands. How can you possibly be comfortable in that

kind of situation? It’s not easy, but with the proper screening and hiring processes and

an open, nurturing business relationship with your freelancers, both your business and

your freelancer can thrive.


Just like hiring someone to work on-site in your business, it is essential to have

an effective screening and hiring process in place for freelancers. Determine what

you need from someone to successfully perform the job responsibilities. Figure out what

business behaviors, values and beliefs you want your freelancer to align with. Focus on

getting to know the person during the interview process and avoid focusing solely on

their resume and experiences. If you are looking to hire someone that will have access

to financial assets, it may be worthwhile to do a background check before officially

bringing the freelancer on board.


Once you have selected the right freelancer for you, it is important to immediately

make them feel included, informed and needed. Particularly after an extensive interview

process, a freelancer will be ready to work and begin making money. Get your

freelancer acclimated to your business by assigning them tasks that will allow them

to discover more about your business principles and offerings while helping

alleviate you of some extra work. One of my first jobs started me out with reformatting

and updating business documents, organizing Dropbox files and transferring information to a

new CRM platform. The great thing about these tasks was that they were fairly simple

tasks to get extra assistance from Google searches but they also allowed me to get

familiar with the business without having to ask a million questions.


As your freelancer gets comfortable with your business and you get comfortable

with your freelancer, you can begin assigning more in-depth, challenging, business

focused projects. The key to advancing your freelancer to this type of task is to have

clear communication. I had a client send me an email with a simple paragraph in it,

directed to one of her clients and she said “I need help developing a letter for

employees”. Fair enough, but what does that mean? I had just finished a few QC

projects for the same client, so I went through and proofed and reformatted the

paragraph, then sent it back to her, only to find out that what she really wanted was for

me to pull information from one of the documents I had proofed and combine that with

the paragraph she had written, then format that into a letter to send to employees

asking for them to complete a survey for management to hone in on areas of the

organization that need improvement. As you can imagine, it can be pretty frustrating for

a freelancer to get vague instructions, complete a project based on their interpretation

and then find out that the client wanted something completely different. The key

takeaway- be clear and communicate what you want up front and in detail.


Now that your freelancer knows what you want and how to do it, be realistic and

respectful. Be sure that the goals and deadlines you are setting for your freelancer are

attainable. Set your freelancer up for success. Make sure they have the tools and

resources to be able to succeed in what you ask them to do. If you want your freelancer

to book a certain number of sales, make sure they have all the information they will

need about the products, a list of warm leads to contact, any special deals you are

looking to run and a realistic goal to meet. No one likes to be faced with failure. Make

sure when you assign tasks to your freelancers that they are realistic. Along those same

lines, ensure your interactions with your freelancer are respectful. Your relationship with

your freelancer should be a professional relationship. It is important to maintain a

respectful, professional communication stream.


Freelancers are often taking on multiple jobs at once. I currently have three

clients I'm working with plus I am a work at home mom, a wife, a home renovator and a crafter. I am

more than willing to take on work, but be mindful that freelancers have other things

going on. We understand that things come up last minute sometimes, but try not to

make a habit of assigning last minute tasks with tight deadlines. It’s helpful to utilize an

online calendar with your freelancer, such as Google calendar, so you and your

freelancer can update your availability and both have access to the calendar to see

when the other is free.


Finally, pay your freelance what they are owed, on-time. Bottom line: freelancers

(just like everyone else), are working to make money. Your freelancer is expected to

complete tasks for you on-time, and you are expected to provide payment on-time.

Set up a payment schedule during the on-boarding process and be very clear, even to

the point of putting it in writing, when and how the freelancer will be paid. It is important

to determine if they will be paid per hour or per project. It is important to determine their

rate. It is important to specify how your freelancer is to report their hours/completed

projects to you and how you will deliver payment to them.


Taking on a freelancer can be a terrific business decision. Nurturing your

relationship with your freelancer by following the tips above can help both you and your

freelancer reach new levels of success.

Working FROM Home... without working AT Home

Seems like a pretty redundant concept, right? Quite the contrary... working FROM home is the same as working FROM an office or working FROM your place of employment. Working AT home is the same no matter where you perform the bulk of your work. It's putting in the extra time and neglecting to spend time with your loved ones or avoiding going out at night because you're "stuck" at home working. 

Separation of work and home is fairly simple when you have a designated "place" to work that's outside of your home. When your place of work IS your home, things can get a little more complex. It's important to realize that regardless of WHERE you work, you still need to allow yourself to have a personal life. Your family still needs you to be present and your productivity levels will actually improve if you allow yourself to take a break. 

So how can one do this? It's so easy when all you need to get your work done is a computer to just constantly be sucked in as soon as a new email pops up on your phone. It took me months of arguing with my husband about my working "too much" to realize that it wasn't benefitting anyone for me to be looking at my life as being constantly "on call".  

The first thing I did to "fix" my overarching work schedule, was create an ACTUAL schedule. Granted, depending on your industry of work your schedule may not quite reflect the typical "9-5" standard, but it's important for your own sanity, your family and your clients to know when to expect that you will be working and when you are NOT working. 

Next, stop treating your job like a hobby. Your job is exactly that, your job. I wish for you and PRAY for you that you enjoy your job as much as you would enjoy a hobby... but it's critical that you realize that your job requires dedication and, in most cases, routine. It is so easy when working from home to put off clocking in until after you vacuum the floors, do the grocery shopping, fold the laundry, weed the garden, etc. etc. etc. The trouble with this, is that you spend all day putting off work to take care of household chores, and then at night when your family is home, you're stuck finishing the work you put off all day. 

Another thing I have found incredibly helpful for making sure I'm spending time with my family when they're home, is to ensure we have dinner as a family. We either cook meals together (which I plan in advance to save us from the last minute "let's just have cereal for dinner" nights), go out to eat as a family, or plan a dinner with our parents/siblings/close friends/ etc. We make mealtime a priority. No computers allowed. No cellphones allowed. We spend time with each other. 

Along these same lines, we have begun a nightly "technological shutdown". After a certain point, technology gets turned off. This prevents me from checking those late night emails that flow in and feeling the need to jump on the computer right away to take care of it. If I happen to see an email come in on my phone (because let's face it... sometimes you just have to Pinterest yourself to sleep), I am way less likely to feel like I need to take care of it right away if I know I have to go fire up the computer and wait for it to restart. I simply flag the email in my inbox, and get to it when I clock in the next morning. 

Finally, don't let yourself become a hermit. It is SO INCREDIBLY EASY to sit at home on the couch, wearing your pajamas, not brushing your hair, working on the computer all day. This is dangerous. Not only for your physical health, but also for your family health AND your mental health. Inclusion is a basic need of humans. By forcing yourself to get dressed every day, do your hair and make-up, go for a walk, go to the gym and SCHEDULE recurring social gatherings with other people, you allow yourself the human interaction we (almost) all instinctively crave and you force yourself to step away from your computer.  

It's tough, especially when first starting out, to force yourself to turn down extra work and risk upsetting your new client by saying you'll get to something in the morning instead of right away, but in the long-run... it's critical to nourish your relationships with those closest to you and to allow yourself some "me-time" without feeling like you can't relax until all the work is done. 

Working from home is WONDERFUL... but don't let yourself fall victim to always working AT home.