An award-winning journalist started hiring freelancers, and learned more about freelancing than she ever had before.
Hiring freelancers isn’t something I do often, but when I do I get to play client for a few days. Each and every time it gives me new insight into what my own clients may want and whether or not I’m delivering on expectations.
It’s basic research, really, if you choose to look at it that way. When we want to write books, we read books. When we want to sell e-courses, we take e-courses, when we want to set up websites, we look at examples of websites that work.
So when we want to freelance, it’s a very good idea that we learn from the successes and mistakes of others by hiring freelancers and seeing how much (or how little) they can deliver.
Here are some lessons I’ve learned from hiring freelancers:
1. Reliability is important. You don’t need to be in touch 24/7, but if the client has e-mailed you a question, you need to answer as soon as you can or ask for more time to be able to provide an answer. Just don’t ignore them.
2. Don’t go missing and then post on Facebook and Twitter about your night out or what you’re currently working on.
3. As soon as you start going over budget, let the client know. Don’t surprise her with the final bill that’s three times what you discussed.
4. Set deadlines even if the client doesn’t because it helps match your client’s expectations to your schedule. Otherwise, when the project scope gets wider and wider, both your client and you are going to hate each other.
5. Late is bad. On time is good. Early is absolutely freaking fantastic.
6. Communicate. “Got your e-mail, will get back to you on this tomorrow,” is far far better than simply replying tomorrow.
7. Understand that when someone hires you for their product brochure or website content or ghostwriting a book, it is the most important thing in the world to them. Your job is to treat it that way. To say, your image is my image and my job is to make you look good. Your job is to make an editor look good in front of her superiors, a website owner to look good in front of her visitors, a company to look good in front of the people that pick up their marketing materials. If you make them feel like you care, they’re more likely to forgive mistakes and much more likely to recommend you to everyone they know for being amazing.
8. After someone has worked with you, they need to feel like they saved time and money, not wasted it.
9. Be a perfectionist. You have no business being a freelancer if you lack attention to detail. That’s what people hire you for.
That’s it. Now go out and be awesome.
FREE RESOURCE:
How to Pitch: Pitching guidelines for 200+ publications
We know that finding markets to pitch your story ideas, understanding what they’re looking for, and making sure they pay an amount you’re comfortable with can be the most time-consuming and frustrating part of the job. So we’ve tried to make it easier for you.
Here’s a list of publications, organized by subject and with a note of their pay rates, each with a link to their guidelines.
Happy pitching!
Natasha Khullar Relph
Publisher, The Wordling
Natasha Khullar Relph is an award-winning journalist and author with bylines in The New York Times, TIME CNN, BBC, ABC News, Ms. Marie Claire, Vogue, and more.
She is the publisher of The Wordling, a weekly business newsletter for journalists, authors, and content creators.
Natasha has mentored over 1,000 writers, helping them break into dream publications and build six-figure careers. She is the author of Shut Up and Write: The No-Nonsense, No B.S. Guide to Getting Words on the Page and several other books.
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