When it comes to on-boarding freelancers, one of the most frustrating and time-consuming things for both the business owner and the freelancer is getting past that learning curve. It doesn’t matter how much of an expert the freelancer is in their field (Virtual Assistant, Website Designer, Copywriter, etc.) there will inevitably be some amount of time spent with the business owner needing to relay the nitty gritty of their business and what they are needing done.
Here are 5 tips for lessening the pain of the process and getting through the learning curve to a successful project completion that leaves both parties feeling like the project was time well spent.
- Have a document detailing your business – your vision, your mission statement, your industry/market, your product/service, your ideal client, and most importantly – what pain/problem your product/service solves for your ideal client. Really, you should have this anyway as a business owner – it’s a critical component of your success and your ability to create marketing materials and campaigns that convert prospects into customers/clients!
- Depending on what type of freelancer you’re hiring, have examples for them of content you like – websites, emails you’ve received, web copy, blogs, ads, reports, etc. WARNING: Keep in mind your budget when doing this – as much as we’d all love to have someone make a comparable website to a Fortune 500 company for less than $500 – it’s probably not going to happen.
- Create templates – If you’re going to have someone handling customer support, have templates ready with the questions you receive the most often and your normal reply. Work with your freelancer to add to it as new issues arise. This will save you a lot of headaches in the long run and ensure that your customer support answers all have the same tone and content and your seal of approval. It will also ensure an easy transition if you have to switch freelancers for whatever reason and can be used to create a FAQ page for your website.
- Keep an open mind – your freelancer may be able to suggest alternatives to your current plan that could save you time and money or convert more sales.
- End Goal – I can’t stress enough how important this is. There needs to be an end goal that has been well thought out, agreed upon in advance, that details what the project with the freelancer is supposed to accomplish. If you don’t know this, how can you tell if the project was successful or not?
Make sure to keep your project scope and budget in mind when creating your documents/steps for your project. With these tips in mind, the only thing left is for you, the business owner, to decide what you need done to help grow your business and get busy hiring that perfect freelancer to get it done for you! I would be absolutely remiss to not offer the services of Create 2 Sell at this point, so consider this my shameless plug.
Until next time, here’s to your success!
Paige Jackson
Create 2 Sell