Hiring Archives - Kenny Soto

What You Should Do Before Your Freelance Marketer Leaves Your Team

Make sure that there is a clear transition period for documenting the process

As a small business owner, you may not have the available funds to hire a digital marketer on a full-time position. Instead, you have developed several relationships with freelancers throughout the years, asking for help on specific projects to help sustain and grow your business.

However, the reality of hiring a freelancer is that you usually end up having to choose between officially hiring them as a member of your team or phasing them out, whether because they found a new job opportunity or you no longer require their services. Once you give them the notice that their services will no longer be required, there is one a crucial step that needs to occur during the transition period before they leave.

You need to give time for the freelancer to leave as much documentation as possible so that you can hand off any pending or future assignments to your next marketer with ease.

Why is this important?

Whenever you have a new hire there is an inherent cost in the time it takes for that new team member to get caught up to speed on your current business processes. If the goal is for them to provide a stellar service, there has to be documentation that they can refer to when beginning their relationship with you.

Do you have past work that you can show them? Do you have strategy decks and campaign planning documents that they can look at to get a better understanding of where your business was and where you are heading? Can you show them process maps, customer studies, or the performance of previous campaigns?

The more documentation you have on hand, the faster your new hire can work. So this goes without saying that when your current freelance marketer is leaving your team, you have to make sure they set the next marketer up for success. Even if its just a one-page document that summarizes the marketer’s daily routine, tools regularly used, and account credentials to make the learning curve faster—this is better than having your new hire dive in without anything to learn from.

If these types of documents aren’t made, you will take on a cost on time spent having to train your new hire—even if the training is in the form of several strategy calls that could have been condensed into just one initial session if documents were readily available.

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Don’t Hire A Freelance Digital Marketer If They Can’t Do This

If a marketer isn’t organized, run away

When hiring a freelancer marketer, you have to ensure that you are hiring someone who is reliable. The organizational skills directly correlate to how reliable they are.

If they can show you campaign reports and data, create a system for file management, manage naming conventions, and create and manage your processes—you’ve found a winner. Yet, it is difficult to showcase this organizational ability without references.

Case studies, a resume, and a portfolio won’t be able to show you if the person you’re about to hire is organized. Even references can be skewed. Also, the previous client’s overall knowledge can be limited and they can also be unorganized. People tend to remember how they felt at the time, rather than the specific daily details that occurred when the services were provided.

This can paint the wrong picture on the quality of a marketer’s performance.

You can only test a marketer’s organizational skill in the moment, during a probationary period. Notice how they send documents, how they manage their calendar, how they provide access to documents and folders. If they seem to be all over the place in one interaction, a pattern may be hidden underneath. If you’re paying for quality, make sure they’re organized.

Related: How To Fail As A Freelancer

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Here’s The Best Way To Know If Your Freelance Marketer Is Worth The Money

Have they asked you any questions?

If you don’t have the budget to hire a full-time marketer for your small business, finding the right freelance marketer can cause a lot of stress. Whether you’re hiring this marketer to help you with your social media advertising, to manage your blog, create a logo, or to do market research for you—you want to make sure your money is going to the right person.

There are many articles and Youtube videos online talking about how to “Hire Freelancers Without Losing Your Mind” or “The case for hiring a freelance marketer.” However, these posts only gloss over the reason why you need a freelance marketer. Chances are, if you’re already searching for someone to help you with your marketing, you already know that you can’t do it on your own and that there are several ways a freelance marketer can help you grow your business.

What you really need is an easy solution to know whether or not your potential hire is up-to-snuff. The easiest way to know whether or not your time and money are going to be wasted is to note what questions the freelancer is asking you.

The right questions lead to the right solutions

After vetting several marketplaces and individual freelancers, you’ll eventually come upon two to three that seem capable of solving your marketing problems. When you’re interviewing them, take note of the questions they are asking you.

Of course, they will most likely start by giving you a background of their skills and why they’re qualified for the job, but if they are being interviewed by you—you already know they are qualified. What you really want to know is if they are attentive enough to get the job done without any miscommunication.

If all the candidate does is boast about their skills and expertise, warning sirens should start going off in your head. You will want to hire a freelance marketer that asks you:

Who is your target customer (age, gender, location, job role, etc.)?
What do you want people to do when they visit your site? What is the #1 thing?
What are the key features of your product or service?
Describe your current process of making a sale to your ideal client, right from prospecting through to completion of a deal. Be as specific as possible.
What are your current content assets?
Do you have direct competitors that you want to outperform?

Depending on the specific tasks you want to give them, the more direct these questions are to the problem at hand, the more confidence you can have in your decision to hire them. The wording might end up being different, but questions like these are what you should be looking for before asking for an invoice and a contract.

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