How to choose the right freelancer for your Amazon FBA business is usually the question sellers ask themselves, when realizing that Amazon presents a great opportunity for entrepreneurs with their FBA business program.
With every business opportunity, however, there are roadblocks and challenges to overcome. With the Amazon FBA business opportunity, there is the myriad of things to do in order to launch and grow your business on Amazon.
This is why many entrepreneurs want to know how to choose the right freelancer to help grow their business on Amazon.
The reason most small business owners and self-employed professionals remain one-man operations is because they don’t do a great job of delegating tasks that they should, even if it would help them grow their business faster.
Making the wrong freelancer choice can cost you a ton of money, time, and headaches in trying to fix what’s messed up and get them on the right track, or because you’ve put money behind bad ideas. It’s not that a new contractor should be expected to come out the gate hitting home runs, but you want to avoid making contractor choices that can’t hit the ball.
That’s why we’re going to outline a path that helps you choose the right freelancer to help grow your Amazon FBA business.
Step 1: Create a Role
The first thing you need to do in order to start the process of choosing the right freelancer for the task you have is outlining precisely what you need help with. A lot of entrepreneurs will go into hiring a candidate half-cocked.
In other words, they don’t have a clear picture of exactly what they need help with. It’s important to map out a scope of tasks and specific roles for every area you need filled.
Of course, we are talking about how to choose the right freelancer, but still, you need to have clarity around what you need help with.
Step 2: Put Out a Request
Once you have clarity around a specific task – whether short term, long-term or one time – you can move on to this next step.
The next step you need to take to choose the right freelancer is to create a request for the freelancer that you’re looking to help with your FBA business.
You can list the task that you would like to find a freelancer for on top marketplaces such as FreeeUp, Upwork, and Zirtual.
For instance, if you are looking for the help of a copywriter to write SEO and compelling descriptions of all of your products, then you can post your well-written task description on the network and expect a response from qualified candidates.
It’s important to outline what you are looking for as well as what you don’t want in candidates.
Step 3: Interview the Candidates
As you get responses from candidates to your well written and clear project request, then you should promptly set up interviews with the candidates who respond.
Not everyone is a good interviewer, so you must prepare for a successful interview. Now, you may not be looking to contract with someone full time. You may just want help with one project, or ongoing help in a relatively small role.
So you should prepare your lists of questions accordingly. High quality, top-shelf freelancers don’t want to go through a four-interview process knowing that you’re looking for help on one project that will take a week to complete.
On the other hand, if you’re looking for help 40 hours a week for a big role, you can justify a more elaborate fielding process.
Prepare a list of questions. It’s important to have a set of questions that gets to the heart of hiring someone for the task you most need help with.
Be early to your interviews to set a standard. Such poor practices spoil the good character of candidates, so don’t set a bad example.
Share a brief background of you, your company, and the position you’re seeking to fill.
Step 4: Perform Good Due Diligence
Some entrepreneurs see themselves as demigods with the uncanny ability to spot a winner 10 miles away – as they’ve just got a nose for top talent.
Truth is, most of us can’t just look at a gift box and guess what’s inside. Neither can we predict from a single short meeting what we’re getting with a new freelancer? That’s why it’s so important to perform good due diligence.
We’ve all heard the horror stories, and many of us have experienced the horrible situation of watching a perceived great contractor relationship turn terribly bad, fast.
To perform good due diligence, you should ask questions about each candidate’s experience, past clients, communication methods, and estimates on the work (if needed) to get a sense of who will be best for your business and culture.
Prepare a list of criteria, hard skills, and soft skills you’re looking for to help you choose the right freelancer for the task.
Prepare a list of proofs you’d like to see. This may include sample work, resume, testimonials, case studies, and the like.
Respect the time of candidates. It’s a bad practice to tie up an hour of a freelancer that you may not even work with. The entire interview process should not take more than 15 minutes.
Respect the expertise of candidates. It’s a bad practice to expect candidates to perform tasks for free. You should strengthen your interview process instead of expecting freelancers to spend their valuable time and expertise doing a sample project. Don’t expect them to work for free.
Step 5: Hire the Best Candidate!
Contract the best fit based on the interviews and set up an agreement on a test basis to make sure all works out. Set clear expectations about how to communicate and bill hours.
Great communication and leadership are critical to the success of your business. Freelancers are not owners of your business. So you should take the lead and properly manage every freelancer that works for you.
This process should help you easily choose the right freelancer to help grow your Amazon FBA business. You should start your search for the best freelancer for your Amazon FBA business today.
