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.
No comments:
Post a Comment