You’ve got your list of freelancers. But don’t hire anyone just yet. That’s because the next thing you need to do is sort through these prospective candidates in order to uncover those who’re most suitable for the job.
Before we get into the details of this process, let me make a couple points:
Spending time upfront saves you time and money down the road.
Yes, this process does take some time upfront as you do your due diligence and perhaps even go through an interview process. However, the time you spend now will save you time, money and frustration down the road.
You see, some business owners simply skip this process and instead assume that anyone advertising as a professional freelancer must be reputable professional who’ll produce good work. However, that’s not always true.
Some freelancers can’t seem to keep projects on track, meaning they’re always missing deadlines (and thus derailing major parts of your business).
Some freelancers simply aren’t very good at what they do. And worse yet, some freelancers are actually scammers, meaning their goal is to take your money without any intention of doing the work.
As such, it’s extremely important that you go through the due diligence process. Consider it a good investment of your time.
Make the process proportionate to the job and the relationship.
You’ll want to do your research and due diligence every time you hire a freelancer. However, you don’t necessarily need to do the same amount of research for every freelancer.
Instead, you’ll need to keep the amount of research you do in proportion to the relationship you expect to have as well as the cost of the project.
Good freelancers for others may not be good for you.
Another thing to keep in mind is that just because a freelancer has great feedback and comes highly recommended, that doesn’t mean this person will work well with you. You’ll learn more about this important factor just a bit later.
Don’t shop around based on price alone.
Finally, don’t base your research on price alone. High prices don’t necessarily mean better quality work. Low prices don’t necessarily mean inferior work. You’ll need to do your full due diligence and research in order to determine how well suited a particular candidate is for your specific project.
Point is, while there are legitimate reasons for spectacular freelancers to have dirtcheap prices, there’s a good chance that the prices won’t stay low forever.
So, that means you either need to be prepared to pay higher prices or you need to spend an incredible amount of time constantly looking for new freelancers at discounted rates.
Truth is, you waste a lot of time and money if your freelancing team is constantly turning over. It’s better to either find a good freelancer upfront (even if she/he charges more) or pay a good freelancer’s higher prices if he/she starts raising them. In other words, it’s not always a good deal to constantly be seeking out low-price freelancers.
***********************************************************
All posts in the “Grow Your Business with Freelancers” Series:
[catlist id=76 orderby=id order=asc numberposts=-1]
