Episode Summary
There are more and more companies that are deciding to work with freelancers instead of traditional full-time employees. And we can expect the need for freelancers to continue to grow even in the years to come. It’s pretty obvious why this partnership model is so appealing to both businesses and contractors: greater independence and flexibility are just some of the perks.
But anyone that has either been a freelancer or hired one knows it’s not all rainbows and unicorns. Just like any business relationship, freelancing demands hard work, time, and dedication. And it requires a commitment on behalf of both parties.
In this episode of the Content Logistics podcast, Camille Trent introduces Brooklin Nash, the Head of Content at Sales Hacker and Outreach. During his 7+ years of content marketing experience, Brooklin has been both a freelancer and an employer. Camille and Brooklin discuss the most common mistakes businesses make when hiring freelancers, why some partnerships go wrong, and how to hire good freelancers for your projects.
Guest Profile
- Name: Brooklin Nash
- What he does: He's the Head of Content at Sales Hacker, the leading community for the next generation of salespeople.
- Company: Outreach
- Noteworthy: Brooklin has 7+ years of content marketing experience. He has both freelancing and in-house experience, which gives him a unique perspective on freelancer partnerships.
Key Insights
- Context is key. When hiring external partners, it's essential to provide them with as much context as possible. The more project background, the better the project outcome. Freelancers need context to do their job effectively. According to Brooklin, instead of rushing the hiring process, you should take your time to create a freelancer program or capacity. "Give as many resources, not overloading, but give as many resources as possible for sure. And then for freelancers, ask for it. You're totally right; you can do such a better job when you have all the context, sign an NDA, whatever you need to do to get all that context, and start asking your new clients for it."
- How to find a good freelancer? The key to hiring reliable and professional freelancers is to set aside enough time for the hiring process. Take your time until you find the perfect fit because it will pay off in the long run. Brooklin says to look for these must-haves: talent, trustworthiness, organization skills, industry experience. "I'm not looking for a subject matter expert. I'm looking for a great writer, whether in the past, they were in e-commerce or D2C or B2C instead of B2B; as long as they're a great writer, you can train in the other pieces of content marketing. It's a lot harder to train somebody on just the writing element. So number one, having a writing sample that I just love and maybe feels like it's better written than I could write it."
- Treat your freelancer partnership as long-term as opposed to a one-time thing. Brooklin stresses the importance of taking your time to hire the right freelancers for your company. Whether you need them only for only one gig or more, you never know what the future holds, so treat every freelancer that you like as a long-term investment. "Take more space, take more time, go into it more slowly. The reason is you can build yourself up for long-term success by doing that. I'm always tempted to just make changes myself when I get a draft back, but instead of doing that, taking the time to go through and do track changes and leave comments, and instead of changing the phrasing, leave a comment that points them in the right direction."
Episode Highlights
Anyone can benefit from hiring freelancers
“I think nearly any marketer could benefit from outsourcing some pieces to a freelancer or multiple freelancers if they have the budget. I mean, if you’re a marketing team of one, you can scale yourself. Exactly what I was talking about, spend some time putting thought into who to work with and how to work with them, and then after a few months, you’re off to the races. If you’re a large marketing team, likely, you have all of these different channels. […].
So even then, a content marketing manager would benefit from outsourcing to freelance writers, demand gen would benefit from having a designer to outsource things too. So I think nearly anybody would benefit.”
The importance of a comprehensive writer’s guide
“I think before you bring it, maybe not before, but at least alongside you bring in a freelancer on board, you should have a writer’s guide or editorial guidelines in place. So it’s not just, ‘Here’s the brief for this piece.’ It’s, ‘Here’s everything you need to be a successful writer at Sales Hacker, with Outreach. […] It covers resources that they can look at internally. It covers top blog posts, it covers audience and messaging and tone and voice, and all these pieces that I think to set a new freelancer up for success, you need to have in place. You need to be able to point them in the right direction for getting up to speed with the broader picture and not just what the parameters of the initial project are.”
Inconsistency is a deal-breaker for freelancers
“If we say this project is for two articles a month, and then after the sixth or seventh month, I have to ping them, by the 10th or 11th of the month and be like, ‘Hey, are we still moving forward with the content this week, this month?’ If I have to do that too many times, then that would typically make me leave ’cause I just needed consistency, and I know what my bandwidth is, and I feel my bandwidth up, and that’s what it is. So then, all of a sudden, if there’s a gap there, it’s not worth it on my end.”
Give positive feedback to freelancers too
“Anytime there’s a little comment, that’s like, ‘Oh, this is great!’ Or, ‘I love this phrase.’ If you’ve never been a freelancer, I cannot tell you, that makes my day and sometimes my week every time that happens. Because we rarely get that kind of feedback. Even if we get great feedback for the overall project, it’s not like, ‘Oh, I love this phrase.’ And if you’re a freelance writer, that’s why you got into writing, and you enjoy those pieces of it.”
