Thursday 20th October 2022
Every company director would love her staff to be at maximum productivity for every penny spent. Hiring a freelance eCommerce Consultant gives your business precisely that.
When you enter into a contract with a freelancer, you pay for precisely what you get. You don't pay for time - for coffee breaks, for sickness, or for slow days - you pay for results.
You know that, the freelancer knows that, that's the agreement.
Employing staff on a permanent basis is great for long term experience and development, great for team building and having someone potentially buy into the company's dream. But we are all human - your employees will have good and bad days.
Employing a freelancer on a project basis means that you are paying for results, or specific tasks - a far better use of your company budget. You are also hiring a freelancer for their accumulated experience - often 10+ years in their specialist area.
If you are managing a freelancer based on their output (and not their time sitting at a desk), then you need to be clear about the inputs.
Inputs are the tasks which the freelance eCommerce consultant is to complete - that is, their To Do List.
Your role now is to create/discuss TASKS which need to be completed, and associate both total working time (for billing reasons), and deadlines so there is clarity between both parties.
Using list management apps like Trello, Asana or Taskworld will allow you both to
for improved clarity and workflow management. Don't worry, there's loads of these task management and collaboration tools available.
Once the tasks have been created and allocated to the right people, you're going to wonder how to manage the follow-up:
Clear specifications of work are the key here. If you give clear ABCs then you will get ABCs completed. You may get an experienced freelancer who will help you build these tasks lists with any items you might have missed - this is where a Retainer Agreement will help.
Although your tasks will often have a finite collection of tasks (do this, do that), there should be a clear communication from the worker of when these will be completed. Some tasks however may run into issues due to software constraints, people constraints or other issues, but communication should always be clear.
As with many things, costs will reflect your freelancers experience and expertise. There is no external go-to board for costs other than you hunting across multiple freelancers and finding a market rate. Ultimately, you will need to agree on and sign off against costs that you are happy with.
In digital marketing or eCommerce development, the completion of one task may lead to additional recommended tasks. The creation of a Google Ads campaign may result in a list of organic SEO recommendations - but it is your choice to proceed or not. And the list of SEO recommendations may result in a recommendation to develop new website content or features - again optional, yet always in your best interests.
For small businesses, it is easy to be fearful of freelancer arrangements - a fear that you'll be take advantage of because you don't know what you're doing.
I am happy to offer free consultation or a 1 day workshop to help explore any questions or concerns you have.
Remember this though - any work given to a freelance consultant, marketer or developer is done on a contract basis (of which you are one half). It is an agreement that you enter into, and one which will move your business forward.