A relationship with a freelancer can be one of the best business partnerships you can have. When done right, it can be a long-lasting successful relationship that can turn into full-time employment or even a business partnership. Sounds good enough, right? Let’s see what not to do when hiring a freelancer-8 common mistakes business owners do.
Well, not quite.
Not all relationships between business owners and freelancers go as smoothly as you might think. It takes time, clear communication, and a lot of patience to build a great partnership. And sometimes, even under these conditions, some business partnerships may fail.
Who’s to blame? Sometimes, a failed business collaboration is due to wrong expectations or decisions made by business owners. That’s why in today’s article, we’ll talk about those mistakes, so you can learn how to avoid them.
Let’s dive in.
Table of Contents
1. Lower Your Expectations
As business owners, it’s normal that you’re excited about your project or idea. It’s your project after all and you’re the one investing in it.
However, if you decide to collaborate with freelancers to get the project done, don’t expect the same enthusiasm and passion from them. Sure, the experienced freelancers will try to understand your background story in order to provide exceptional service, but that’s only about certain job roles that require such information as marketing roles, brand roles, copywriting roles, etc. You don’t need to tell a freelance developer about the entire process of receiving an investor’s money, isn’t it?
For most freelancers, your project is just another part of their resume – harsh truth, we know. However, it’s crucial for you not to eliminate anyone who seems unexcited about your project. The important part is them doing the job well and on time, the rest of it is not really important.
2. Don’t Hire The Cheapest Freelancer
This is one of the most common mistakes business owners make. To avoid spending too much money on someone who they don’t know, the majority of business owners decide that it’s much better to spend less and test the waters.
If it’s a low-risk job when there’s plenty of time to fix the outcome in case anything goes wrong, then it’s not a problem to hire the freelancer who asks for less. But, problems occur when you hire the cheapest freelancer, they bring you nothing but troubles with their late response, irresponsible working, and, on top of that, you don’t even receive the outcome that you agree upon.
That’s when you or other employees of yours will need to spend some of their time trying to fix the work of your freelancer. That’s double the amount of time needed to get the job done.
The lesson with this is simple – don’t always go with the cheapest option. You might end up paying a lot more than you previously agreed to – and we’re not talking about money. But if you’re looking to find affordable freelancers who are exceptional at their job, visit Brybe Freelancer Marketplace, a platform that connects freelancers and business owners and help them build stable and successful business relationships.
3. Know When To Hire A Freelancers
Time is one of the most important assets in your search for the ideal freelancer. If you decide to give a chance to a freelancer, don’t do it at the last minute. You’ll feel the pressure on you, and you might end up with a lot worse choice.
The best time to hire a freelancer is when you don’t have any urgent projects waiting to be launched. This way, you’ll take your time posting a detailed job ad, and you’ll have time reviewing the applicants. Also, you can do some research on your own to discover how much other freelancers are charging for the same skills set and the same job position. You’ll be able to send test jobs and review the work of your applicants, so you’ll make a worthy decision.
The worst thing you can do is look for freelancers when you’re already late with the project. You might end up with the worst deal of your life, the freelancer will feel the pressure of the deadline and it’s not going to end up good for either side.
Always consider the timing when posting a job ad for freelancers!
4. Not Knowing Your Goals
When reaching out to a freelancer, you don’t necessarily need to explain every detail of your business journey, nor your mission or vision. Some freelancers are more curious and outgoing, so they might be interested in hearing more about your past successes. However, many of them are interested in the job only, and how they can reach the goals related to their work.
This is where you should point out your focus. The only goals you should be discussing with your freelancer are the ones related to their responsibilities and job role. They want to know how you measure success in their work, so they can achieve it and hopefully, reach the promotion they are looking for.
But if you don’t have any goals, how will the freelancer know the effect of their work, or how will they measure the success of their job? It’s quite stressful to work without any goals, and although that might work for some time, after a while, a pointless job can bring anyone down.
When you’ve decided on a freelancer, discuss your business goals with them.
5. Constantly Asking For More Work Without Changing The Working Agreements
We’re way past the unappreciative work at this point and age. People are not afraid to leave a job nowadays, because the demand and the supply are huge. Constantly giving new responsibilities without discussing the payment it’s just exploitation.
Freelancers are aware of their value and are not afraid to ask for more if they know that they deserve it. If you continue to add more work to your freelancer, they’ll ask for a raise. If you meet them halfway, great. But if not, don’t be surprised if they leave you.
Whenever you add more responsibilities, be sure to increase the salary as well.
6. Everything Can’t Be That Urgent
This might be even worse than not discussing the payment over changed responsibilities.
If you’re one of those clients that whenever something needs to be done it’s always urgent, you’re going to have problems keeping skilled freelancers on your team.
Everything can’t be that urgent.
If you’re constantly finding yourself in a position when everything needs to be done at the last moment, you might need a better manager or you need to learn how to plan accordingly.
Of course, the business world is unpredictable, but your business ain’t. Take your time to plan the projects, the activities, and each job role so there’s enough time for everyone to do their job.
7. Not Treating Freelancers With Respect
Successful business relationships take time, just like any other business. However, one way that definitely won’t get you good points with your freelancer is this one – lack of respect.
If you always respond with few days delay to your freelancer’s messages without even an apology, if you constantly treat them as an option, if you don’t respect their off time, or even worse – if you insult them or borderline fight with them, don’t expect them to work for you the next day.
Freelancers are just like any other human beings. Just because they aren’t your full-time employees, doesn’t mean that they don’t deserve to be treated with respect. Every human on this planet deserves respect and in order to receive respect, you have to give it.
Treat your freelancers the way you want to be treated.
8. Not Paying On Time
Finally, the money issue. Even if all goes according to the plan, you’re having a wonderful relationship with your freelancer, the work they do is exceptional, all of them are working for money. And yes, problems may occur for a payment to be late, the bank may have some issues with it if it’s international payment it may be late too – all of this is understandable. Freelancers are familiar with these things because they’re used to them, so their tolerance is a bit higher.
However, if this constantly happens, expect them to raise this issue at the next meeting. Just like yourself, they have bills to pay and food to buy, which is why late payment is never fun.
If you’re experiencing some problems and you know that the payment will be late this month, discuss that with them, let them know. They’ll appreciate you much more for it.
But, if this thing constantly happens, they may stop the collaboration, and rightfully so.
There are other problems as well between freelancers and business owners, but these are the most common ones.
Remember, freelancers are not robots nor slaves – they’re human beings who are just trying to build their way up in this world, just like anyone else.
Each one of these mistakes can be easily fixed with clear communication and an active approach to improving relationships. So just be mindful to consider your wrongdoings and acknowledge them, in order to have long-lasting collaboration with your freelancers.
