How Business Owners Can Better Utilize Freelance Work

Published on: 28 May 2020 Last Updated on: 06 November 2024

Small businesses don’t always have a ton of cash or room to make costly mistakes, so every penny, every asset, every minute, counts.

Often, small businesses will turn to freelancers for certain projects where they need expert help, but that can also take a hit on your bank account, so ensuring the freelancer does good work is crucial.

Sometimes though, the freelance work falls short, leaving the small business low on funds with a deliverable that is unusable. So how do you avoid that? Let’s talk about a better way of finding freelance workers for your business.

Each freelancer can be paid differently. Some are paid upfront or given equity, others are paid a percentage of the final revenue, and some are paid when the job gets done.

Here’s the best thing a small business that is low on upstart funds can do when it comes to hiring a freelancer:

Adopt a revenue-sharing model.

What that means is the freelancer gets paid when you do. They’ll complete the project, deliver all final assets to the business owner, but they’ll only get paid if and when you start making money. There will be a percentage that is agreed upon by both parties before the project begins, and if your business starts bringing in revenue, you’ll then pay off the percentage owed to the freelancer. If your business never makes money, you do not have to pay the freelancer a dime.

Why is this a good idea?

First of all, it decreases the risk for the business by waiting to pay the freelancer until there is secure revenue coming in.

Second, with this idea in mind, freelancers can do some of their best work. They aren’t just getting paid to finish a job, there’s a higher expectation of their work. They understand that if their work is mediocre, there’s a lower chance of them getting paid. It’s in their best interest to do the best work they can, not only to help you as a business owner but to help themselves as well.

Develop a Relationship

Far too often, businesses pay freelancers for work only to be unsatisfied with the end product. Many times this is due to a lack of communication on one or both sides. To ensure that you are getting quality service delivered from a freelance worker, it’s important to have an understanding relationship. Here are a few tips on how to accomplish that:

Describe Your Communication Style

If you’re not sure what your communication style is, it’s not a bad idea to find out or develop a system that works for you. Some people have very blunt ways of communicating while others are timider. Talking about your preferred communication style with the freelancer you hired will help to avoid conflict, assumptions, and hard feelings.

Explain Your Needs

Don’t be afraid to express where there are gaps in understanding. The freelancer is there to be an expert in an area that you may not be familiar with. It’s okay to say things like, “I’m not sure I understand that, could you explain how that works?” The more you can understand the process, the better you’ll be able to communicate and get an end product you’re happy with.

Do Your Part

If you feel there are gaps in understanding, take a step back, and see if there is anything you might have left out in communication with the freelancer. Sometimes we get in our own bubble and assume other people understand what we are talking about when in reality we need to explain certain things in more depth.

Good Luck!

Some of these tips may seem like a no-brainer, but you’d be surprised how often business owners fail to communicate well with the freelancers they hire. If you can adopt these practices into your business model, your freelancers’ work will improve significantly and you won’t have to worry about an unfortunate loss of precious funds.

Read also:

Content Rally

Content Rally wrapped around an online publication where you can publish your own intellectuals. It is a publishing platform designed to make great stories by content creators. This is your era, your place to be online. So come forward share your views, thoughts and ideas via Content Rally.

View all posts

Top 5 Customer Experience Podcasts

We’re seeing increased digital penetration, rising competition for the same target audiences, and consumers with extremely high expectations. Right from the first time a consumer interacts with branded content on social media to the time they become a return customer, everything depends on customer experience. Every vertical of your organization needs to build on the customer experience. From upskilling your customer to encouraging your team to listen to customer experience podcasts, businesses should be looking to learn and improve the ecosystem at every opportunity. In this article, we are looking at the top five customer experience podcasts and how they can help brands. However, before we begin, let us look at how podcasts are redefining customer experience. Customer Experience Podcasts: What are they? In the past few years, many businesses have started to realize that for customers it’s all about the experience. Numerous other competitors are offering the same product or service at the same price points. Why then should consumers choose one over the other? This is where brands need to evolve a highly productive customer experience process. A customer experience podcast (CX Podcast) is a great way to help brand personnel understand the ins and outs of creating a successful strategy. These podcasts are hosted by brands that work on customer analytics software products. You can also find a lot of CX thought leaders and experts offer podcasts to help brands and aspiring professionals. Most of the content of these podcasts revolves around insights and inspirations to chart the perfect customer journeys. In the following section, we spoke to industry leaders and multiple brands and created a list of the top 5 customer experience podcasts in the industry. List of 5 Best Customer Experience Podcasts 1. SentiSum's Podcast SentiSum’s Podcast finds leaders in e-commerce, customer experience, and customer service and gets them to tell their stories. With an aim to unearth radically different ideas and to drive forward the customer experience space, the SentiSum podcast is a must-listen for CX leaders. SentiSum has been able to get together some of the brightest minds in the industry including Augie Ray from Gartner and Sean Mckee from Schuh. Their insights into how businesses need to be informed and take the appropriate decisions and steps are inspiring to say the least. 2. The Active Campaign Podcast As you might know, Active Campaign is a leader in email marketing and sales automation among other things. Active Campaign’s podcasts offer real-time customer stories of their successful campaigns. While some insights are great, others look to push the brand name forcibly into the discourse. This tends to take away all the attention from learning and knowing about customer experience, to simply be just another promotion tool. 3. C-Space Podcast C-Space CEO, Charles Trevail is one of the leading names in the CX podcast world. The success of the podcast is primarily due to the fact that it concentrates squarely on the consumer. The podcast talks about how consumers think about brands. This kind of reverse engineering of sorts helps brands understand consumers better. Routine interactions with business leaders, intelligentsia, and marketing studies create decent episodes. 4. (A) Podcast Series One of the best things about (A) podcasts is its emphasis on new technology. The episodes on the podcast are routinely intertwined with new tech like Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, etc. The podcasts also show the influence of these in business areas like Chatbots, Content Marketing strategies, CRM, etc. While all this information is great to have, it can sometimes drift away from offering solutions to CX issues and problems. 5. Roger Dooley’s Brainfluence Podcast Roger Dooley is a persuasion expert, who deals in complex neuroscience, brain-behavior, and psychology. This helps brands to understand CX from a biological and psychological standpoint. Roger Dooley frequently invites industry thought leaders and intertwines great discussions blending software, innovation, automation with human behavioral analysis. The podcasts are insightful, inspiring, and can help you understand human behavior. The Final Word There is a reason why brands like Coca-Cola, Nike, Apple, and others focus and invest billions of dollars in enriching customer experiences. They understand that giving the right experience to a customer can help in creating lifelong repeat ones. This does not only help in contributing to repeat purchases (sales) but also puts out a great word about the brand. If you are a business looking to engage with CX on a greater level, you can start asking your team members to listen to the above-mentioned five podcasts. Read Also: 5 Most Common Digital PR Mistakes And How To Avoid Them The 7 Steps to Create a Storybrand to Ensure Marketing that Works How Customer Success Can Help Grow Your Business Tips on How to Create Repeat Customers 7 Ways To Communicate With Customers In A Better Way!

Industrial Cleaning: Effective Solutions For Manufacturing Facilities

Manufacturing facilities can be hectic environments with heavy machinery that produce a lot of debris and dirt. Due to this, these workplaces require intense and extensive cleaning schedules that only qualified technicians can handle. ICE Cleaning is an industrial cleaning company that provides state-of-the-art solutions to suit your cleaning needs in manufacturing facilities. Its technicians are qualified to work on industrial sites and familiar with the latest health and safety regulations. Read on to learn more about how to keep your manufacturing plant clean with effective solutions. What Is Industrial Cleaning? Industrial cleaning is different from commercial cleaning for public spaces. It includes disposing of hazardous waste and decontaminating surfaces with strong chemicals, which domestic cleaners would not have access to. It is a specialized category of cleaning that adheres to strict and specific health and safety guidelines, working with industrial cleaning equipment. Some of these situations that industrial cleaners find themselves in could include chemical or oil spills. This type of cleaning also deals with more intense cleaning situations and hazardous environments, including: Mold Remediation Trauma cleaning Pest control Laboratory cleaning Factory cleaning Warehouse cleaning Does Cleanliness Improve Productivity? Clean manufacturing plants keep your environment safe and free of hazards and allow staff to do their job efficiently. When areas on the factory floor are clear with correct disposal methods, workers will feel less inclined to stop what they are doing to clean up. This provides your staff with an easily accessible storage system that is easy to navigate. When everything in the workplace is well-coordinated, everyone can continue to do their job safely without stopping or feeling distracted by the mess. A clean and organized environment improves productivity, keeping the costs of missing staff or prolonged tasks low and maintaining high morale. Why It Is Important To Keep Your Manufacturing Plant Clean Because manufacturing plants are busy environments with a large workforce always using heavy machinery, it could be hard to keep up with cleaning responsibilities. Outsourcing your cleaning needs for your manufacturing can be crucial in: Maintaining the factory floor Increasing efficiency Ensuring health and safety standards Preventing contamination Increasing the lifespan of the machinery Keeping the workspace organized Your factory staff will interact with heavy machinery and equipment daily, which exposes them to potential slip, trip, or fall hazards. They could also encounter some chemicals or oils that cause harm to those who touch, ingest, or inhale them. A clean factory floor minimizes the risk of accidents, spillages, and chronic workplace exposures. Adhering to a high standard of cleaning keeps everyone safe and healthy, and contract cleaning is integral in ensuring this. The Benefits Of Cleaning A Manufacturing Plant Did you know that industrial cleaning is beneficial in a lot of ways? Dusty and unhygienic areas in an industry can result in decreased efficiency, poor product quality, and increased costs. Let’s check out the advantages of cleaning a manufacturing plant: Speed You might be wrong if you think that unclean industries do not impact production speed. It significantly reduces efficiency as employees start finding the working conditions difficult. Also, the will to be productive at their best is gone in such cases. Accumulating dirt on equipment slows down production, resulting in a huge loss. There are chances you will have to hire an additional workforce to clean the industry, thereby increasing the costs. Quality Dusty and dirty areas might also result in decreased product quality since particles contaminate everything around them. Such contamination might result in adverse feedback from customers. You would definitely don’t want to experience reduced sales just because of dirt encompassing your industry. Contamination Industrial cleaning might also have a negative impact on the environment, especially when there is an inefficient cleanliness procedure. Factories undergoing cleaning must ensure that the contaminants are released in a safe place, not in the environment. Failing to do so will have an impact on product manufacturing, storage as well as handling. Dirt is caused when waste is transported from one corner of the factory to another. But there is absolutely nothing to worry about. You can reduce the negative environmental impact by making small efforts. Safety Furthermore, dirty industries might also produce increasing pollutants and harmful gases like carbon monoxide. This might eventually cause respiratory issues among everybody working in the factory. Cleaning the industry will lessen the workforce’s exposure to such pollutants. As a result, your workers’ health is protected, which causes them to be as productive as possible. And guess what, it costs a lot lesser than paying for their hospital expenses. Different Cleaning Procedures There are various ways to clean an industry based on the business’s needs. However, some common techniques include: Vacuum Cleaning One of the first methods of industrial cleaning comprised vacuum cleaners and other industrial machines. Their use will help in removing dust, dirt as well as other contaminants that will likely cause damage. Detergents With the help of sanitizers and detergents, cleaning operations can become a lot easier. As cost-effective as it sounds, using detergent is also a hassle-free solution. Such chemicals help remove germs from a surface for a long period of time. Clothes When it comes to cleaning, nothing beats the wiping formula. Using cloth for mopping or wiping work surfaces is a common yet effective method. A vacuum cleaner might reach the small surface where a cloth might. This is why we usually include this technique in common industrial cleaning methods. Mist Procedure Another useful tip is to use the water mist system that cleans high walls and areas. This particular approach is usually efficient when you cannot access a heightened area. However, it might not cause any potential damage if you properly control the procedure. Seek help from professionals while opting for this step. Summing It Up Cleaning is an indispensable step, no matter whether you do it at home, on the street, or in your industry. We hope our article on factorial cleaning came to your use. But that’s not all! If you are looking for an industrial cleaning company to handle your cleaning needs, look no further than ICE Cleaning. Its technicians hold qualifications with CSCS, IPAF, and IOSH, ensuring they are well-prepared to deep clean a factory site. Read Also: Why Is A Janitorial Service For Commercial Establishments? 10 Pro Tips To Minimize Commercial Door Repair & Maintenance Cost The Hidden Damages In Workspaces: 5 Steps To Reduce The Risk Of Workplace Injuries!

Use Structure-Style Tents to Expand Event Space

Do you rent out event space? Or are you a field manager for a company that is involved in a lot of exhibitions? Either way, a structure-style tent can provide you with a convenience that saves cost and makes your life a lot easier. You have lots of guests coming into the party, and when you need extra space to accommodate the influx, you shouldn't worry. You can make an addition by using Structure-Style Tents to Expand Event Space. These sturdy temporary structures can be customized, and you can even convert a parking lot or even a rooftop to an event space. There are many good reasons why you need to consider having a structured-style commercial canopy tent for your event space. Here are some suggestions below: Branding visibility Are you hosting an exhibition or a training workshop? Why not pitch a branded structured style canvas at the entrance. That is not only good PR but also good branding of the organizations. Most canvas manufacturers will have customized branding of your structured style canvas for companies that are keen on branding their merchandise and properties. Having a branded tent is not only free advertisement, but it also saves on the cost of requiring a banner every time you pitch one in a location. Its wall can have a well-printed brand message. Versatility (ideal for all events) A tent is not limited to a specific event only. From weddings to birthdays, reunions, and even barbeques, to name a few, a structured style tent will ideally expand your event space to make it comfortable as it can get. When planning for an event away from the office, one of the options that you should inquire about is the availability of tented spaces. Outdoors function is fun compared to when enclosed in a building. Also, the fee for gathering in a tented area is always affordable. Also, companies can have their own structured style canvas to be pitched in the garden or rooftop to hold group birthdays for their staff or event award parties. Ideal for any themed event Canvas is a blank canvas that gives you lots of room to play around with your creativity in terms of décor. It is more convenient to decorate a tent than it would be with a brick and mortar structure. With canvas, you have a blank slate, and you can customize the same from the ground up to realize your ideal theme. Tents have no solid walls or layouts compared to a building, which has its color, lighting, and floor design, among others. With a tent, you can quickly achieve your vision 100% without having to compromise to blend with the existing layouts as with events held indoors. Easy to manage spaces Tented spaces are easy to manage and organize. If you are a site manager using a structured style tent to expand the event's venue makes not only the area more significant, but it also makes your work even more relaxed. There is no floor space to clean. You only need to pick up the trash. If you instead rented out a ten, you can talk with the canvas company to clean the space as they pack the tent. It's that convenient. There is no wall, and moving furniture around to design a theme according to a client's needs is quite convenient. You can add or reduce event space by reducing the ground surface covered by the tent. Weatherproof The tent protects outdoor events guests from all sorts of climatic conditions. If it's cold, you can lower the canvas wall and let the guest have it warm inside the tent while feeling the ambiance of being outdoors. Same to when it rains. If it’s hot out, you can bring up the walls and let fresh air breeze through the crowd. Also, the tented rooftop is dome-shaped to reduce the heat from the scorching sun. What about the durability in all climatic conditions? You should know that anodized aluminum is used to make the skirtings and frames of the canvas to ensure they are corrosive resistant and durable. The structured style canvas nowadays is light but quite sturdy against strong wind and is not likely to tip over during an event. Read Also: How to Make Your Store Look More Put Together? Terrible mistakes you are likely to encounter in diamond painting and the way out

How Business Owners Can Better Utilize Freelance Work