3 Ways to Set Freelancers for Success

Freelancers are like any other tool you use to complete tasks — their effectiveness depends on how you as a user operate them. You wouldn’t write with a dry pen and then blame the pen for not producing ink, would you?

Freelancers can be a great resource for your company. They can take a lot of work off your plate and offer a much-needed outsider perspective if you set them up for success.

So, here’s how to do it.

Empower them to make decisions

If you’re like me, you bring in freelancers to get the job done without the hassle of a full-time employee. This means giving them a longer bond than you would a full-time worker and empowering them to make decisions that most employees will try to leave to you.

So don’t treat them as disposable items — treat them like you’d treat an employee who’s been with your company for a long time and knows what will get your approval and what won’t. Train them the same way you would a normal employee and take the time to fully explain how you want the job done and what standards they will hold.

In my opinion, freelancers should only be hired if they can make your life easier. You don’t want another point of contact that you have to work through all of their workflow — you might just do it with the client as-is.

When you are looking for freelancers, look for them the same way you would for a full-time employee and check them for the same quality. You’ll want someone you only need to give direction to once and who will feel brave enough to make difficult creative decisions without consulting you every step of the way. Empowering them will reduce the number of edits, back and forth and misunderstandings while increasing their effectiveness on the projects you define.

Related: Here are the Benefits of Working as a Freelancer

Refine your onboarding process for their success

If your mind immediately goes to “Oh great, I need more guidelines and processes to write,” readjust your perspective.

Just look at it this way: you could spend several hours creating a comprehensive guide outlining their work and your expectations, or you could potentially waste thousands of dollars because you let your freelancer fail. Tough decision, I know.

Create an onboarding guide for your freelancers that helps put them on the right track to understanding your agency. Give them a comprehensive picture of the clients they will be working with so they can seamlessly transition into the team with the right understanding of the customer’s unique needs. And finally, take some time ahead of time — perhaps during the interview process — to try and understand your freelancer’s professional goals and how you can help them achieve what they want while still meeting your goals of hiring them.

As an agency owner, I’ve actually found that I have a similar mindset to most of the freelancers I bring with me. Like me, the freelancers I hire are hard workers who strive not only to understand the task, but also to find ways to contribute creatively to the campaign’s success.

Look for all the qualities that make you successful—after all, if you can’t hire yourself, who can you hire?

Related: 11 Best Websites to Find Freelance Jobs and Make Extra Money

Above all: communicate

The best advice I can give: communicate well, and learn to be aware when you’re not.

I have, admittedly, not always been the best communicator for a variety of reasons. One is that I think time is better spent just doing things myself than having to explain it to other people who may not be living my vision. Another thing is that I’ve developed a team that for the most part knows what I want so I can just say, “Get it done” and let it go.

However, when you work with a freelancer, especially in the early stages of a relationship, they won’t have the context for your work style or the tasks they’ll be tackling. So don’t just communicate — communicate too much. Describe things in twice the detail you do when talking to your full-time member of staff. You may feel like you’re talking to them like they’re babies, but when it comes to your company, they’re basically babies—so there’s no harm in doing that.

Describe your expectations and work process once in two details and encourage them to ask questions. If you do this and they’re still emailing and calling you with endless questions about things you’ve discussed, you could flag them as a bad listener and may not choose to work with them again.

Freelancers are tools you can use — not a cure-all or a guarantee for a creative genius to come and save your campaign. By conducting a thorough search for the right freelancer to match your company’s energy and workflow and the processes in place to help them work successfully, a freelancer can be an advantage for your agency. But without it, they are almost guaranteed to be a burden.

Also read: 6 Steps to Be a Successful Freelancer