How to Find a Freelancer: Step 1

The first step in finding your freelancer seems a bit obvious, but I think it often gets overlooked.  Ask yourself this:  What do I need done?  (I said it was obvious.)  It is very important to know exactly what you need.  If you don’t, you might end up getting a freelancer that is single-faceted when you need someone working in ten different directions.

So, think about the job or jobs at hand.  Maybe you’re swamped with invoicing right now, and you can’t see the forest for the trees (or the debits for the credits, as the case may be).  So of course you’re thinking you need someone who has some good account reconciliation skills.  Great.  You run out, grab that person, have her start working, and once the pile of invoices starts to shrink, you can start thinking about the rest of the tasks on your plate.  You need someone to update your tired website.  You need someone to do some research on products you’d like to sell.  You’re a complete wreck when it comes to social media.

And now you’ve got multiple tasks, but you’ve just brought on one person who is extremely capable at one thing.  So, what do you do?  Your invoices will always be piled up, so you need to keep her.  But she doesn’t have the skills you need “technology-wise” to reign in the rest of your tasks.

Before we go on, I just want to say that I don’t believe that all, or even most, freelancers are single-faceted.  But many are.  Many have focused their skills on the niche they enjoy or feel comfortable in.  That’s not a bad thing.  That’s how people develop their expertise.  It's actually very necessary and very needed.  And if all you needed was just one expert to do one thing, you'd be fine and you wouldn't need to be reading this blog.

My point here is that if you write out a list of everything you’d like to get out of a person – a wish list – you’re going to be better off in the end because you’ll have been looking for someone who can assist you in all (or most) of your tasks.  It will be so much easier than having to hire one person for each task, and then trying to manage it all.  Too many cooks can spoil the pot!  (There is my cliché saying for the day!)

Ready for the next step?  Let's move on to Step 2, Where to Search for a Freelancer.