Philip Goguen
It goes without saying that outsourcing some work outside your company is one of the most popular concepts in today’s world of business. According to many experts, this is a perfect step for many owners to expand their businesses even more. Furthermore, realizing the full potential of the business in hand needs to come from someone outside the company itself. The reason is that there are almost no companies who have members of their staff for every part of the job. Especially if there is an interest in expanding the business itself to completely new fields.
We are absolutely sure that every company in the world loves to do exactly this since it is always exciting to find something new to do and to have new personnel. In case you are interested in doing just that, you take a look at jointohire.com and take a look at some of the best professionals you can outsource your work to. Surely, you will be able to find someone competent enough. At the same time, if you are hiring a freelancer for the first time, there are some things you need to aware of. Therefore, we would like to present you with several ways you can communicate with freelancers in the best possible manner.
1. Don’t Consider Them Your Employees
The key difference between members of your staff and freelancers is that freelancers are not your employees. These people are usually completely independent, and they like it that way. So, what you shouldn’t do in communication with them is not to compromise their independence.
Naturally, you will provide them with a couple of points you would like to include in the project, and they will follow it, without a doubt. However, that doesn’t mean that you should try to overlook them whenever you have the chance. This is the most important thing you need to know if you are interested in having proper communication with freelancers, you can be sure of that.
2. Communicate in Writing
If you ask any freelancer about the way of communication they prefer, you will quickly see that they are interested only in writing communication. Sure, your writing takes a lot of effort and you will have to invest a lot of time into writing all the responses. However, this is much more helpful than having a talk.
The reason is, when freelancers have instructions in writing, he will be able to revisit them whenever he has the chance. Chances of freelancers forgetting something after a talk are pretty high. The only real advantage of verbal communication with freelancers is the process will be over much quicker. At the same time, it can happen that the other party is not as honest as you think. Therefore, write, and you will have no problems.
3. Don’t Waste Time on Irrelevant Communication
As you can imagine, communication plays a pivotal role in having a good and fruitful relationship with freelancers. However, what’s even more important is that you need to have a relevant communication. Don’t waste too much time on things that are not essential to the project you work on. As you know, communication without any valuable point, you will quickly see that these can be pretty annoying and tiring.
Even though Skype calls are great, and we absolutely think you should use them. However, you don’t need to take them too long since, to be completely honest, there is absolutely no need for it. When you understand the freelancer’s mindset, which says that the time is money, you need to respect their time.
4. Organize Weekly Meetings
As we’ve already mentioned, freelancers value their time and independence. So, you need to do your absolute best not to endanger these two elements. There is a couple of ways you can handle these. For example, you can organize weekly meetings where you will be able to discuss all the important elements of the project your freelancer works on.
Naturally, you can organize a couple of group meetings until the end of the project in question. Of course, you need to absolutely prepare yourself for this kind of meeting in order to avoid wasting time. In order to make the best out of these, you need to think about introducing these as some sort of habit. That way, you will be able to introduce a whole new mindset. Think about this one as part of your company’s activities.
5. Don’t Integrate Them too Much
We are absolutely sure that every business owner would like to include a freelancer in his staff further, especially if the professional has some impressive skills. At the same time, we can see that many business owners or team leaders put too much pressure on freelancers to integrate. We’ve already explained that freelancers value their independence more than anything.
So, instead of pushing them too hard, you need to connect them with members of your team, who are crucial for their work. You can be sure that they will integrate themselves in a proper way. So, unless they show an interest in becoming more integrated with your staff, you need to completely avoid pushing them towards this concept. They will reward you when you don’t push them too hard, believe us.
6. Careful Planning
The most important thing you need to do before you get in contact with a freelancer is that you need to have all the important points of your product prepared. In case you are not completely prepared for this task, chances that they will completely abandon the work are pretty high. At the same time, there are some times where you will not be able to get in touch with freelancers.
This is not anything that should concern you too much. This is how they work, and they are maybe working on some other projects at that moment when you need them. Be patient and you will see that they will provide you with some of the best results you’ve ever seen. If you’ve hired a skilled professional, of course.
