In this episode we discuss finding and vetting freelancers, how to onboard them and communicate your expectations, and some potential pros and cons of working with freelancers.
In this Kitchen Side series we show you behind the curtain at our own agency, Omniscient Digital. In this episode, co-founder Alex Birkett and Head of Content, Allie Decker discuss hiring and managing freelance writers.
They bring their varied experiences to the conversation. Previously, Allie was a full-time freelance writer, while Alex has hired and worked with freelancers for in-house roles as well as for his personal website.
They cover how to find and vet freelancers, how to onboard them and communicate your expectations, and some potential pros and cons of working with freelancers.
Check out Allie's blog for a complete guide on hiring freelancers.
The Long Game is hosted by Alex Birkett and David Ly Khim who co-founded Omniscient Digital to help companies ranging from early-state to scale-ups with growth strategy, SEO, and content marketing. Allie Decker, Head of Content, joins the conversation as well.
Connect with Omniscient Digital on social:
Twitter: @beomniscient
Linkedin: Be Omniscient
Listen to more episodes of The Long Game podcast here:
https://beomniscient.com/podcast/
[00:00:00] Alex: [00:00:00] Hello, this is Alex Birkett, and you are listening to the long game podcast. This is an episode of our kitchen side series, where we show you the behind the curtain at our own agency. I'm mission digital. In this episode, my co-founder Allie and I are going to discuss, hiring, managing, and communicating with freelance writers.
[00:00:19] Now, obviously we do this a lot for our agency work, but our various experiences expand that in a few ways as well. First Allie was also previously a freelance writer full time, and second I've hired and worked with freelance writers for in-house roles as well as very recently for my personal blog. So in this episode, we're going to discuss how to find and vet freelancers.
[00:00:40] How to onboard them and communicate your expectations and style guidelines, how to pay them and some potential pros and cons of working with freelancers in general. Without further ado. Here's our kitchen side discussion on the long game podcast.
[00:01:08] [00:01:00] Karissa: [00:01:08] so we're here filming another episode of kitchen side, and we're talking about finding vetting and hiring freelance writers. This is going to be talked about with Allie who is head of content and admissions, and then co-founder Alex Burquette. So first let's talk about how and why having freelancers can help ramp out ramp up content production.
[00:01:30] How's that work?
[00:01:31] Allie: [00:01:31] Yeah, I can take this off the top of my head. I think that hiring freelancers can help with content production for just endless reasons. But my favorite ones are to be able to increase like production cadence. So get more out faster. Without having to personally turn churn I liked that working with a variety of people can bring in all kinds of experiences points of view.
[00:01:54] Like you can make sure to feature people with different experience levels and different creative ideas [00:02:00] of how to either approach a topic approach a keyword, or maybe feature your product or your brand in that piece. And then personally, I like it because I can focus on other things. I don't always have to be writing all the time, even though that is what I love.
[00:02:12] It can get tiring when you have a wealth of other responsibilities.
[00:02:17] Karissa: [00:02:17] Yeah, it makes
[00:02:18] Alex: [00:02:18] sense. What about UX? I'll echo the same things essentially and give examples. When I was at CXL I hired freelancers, not because I needed the extra resources, although that did help too. Cause then I could write fewer pieces and I could go up update older content or do other parts of my job, like experimentation.
[00:02:35] But I liked that part because I could get experts in their given niches. So I could get freelancers who focused on e-commerce on analytics, on, their specific fields. So I wouldn't have to dive deeply into every single area and I would get like unique, diverse, interesting. Thought pieces, but more so I think the more important thing is just like the resource constraints and like ramping up your content production.
[00:02:58] Every company is going to have to deal with [00:03:00] that, no matter what size whether it's like Intercom, HubSpot Unbounce level, or whether it's a small startup or even a solo blog. In fact, I'm going through this right now because I run an agency, a content agency and have a job. And I'm also trying to write content for my own personal website, which gets decent traffic and has been like a huge leverage for me.
[00:03:19] But I just don't have the time that I want to spend writing for my own site. If I had more time potentially, I would just do it all myself. And I'm still going to write an article or so a month myself. But at a certain point, I'm like, I got to hire some freelancers for this. If I want to actually make this into something, if I want to build a traffic base, if I want to bring visitors to the site, I have to hire freelancers.
[00:03:40] So I basically did it out of the necessity of simply not having the resources myself or myself. Yeah. So would you
[00:03:47] Karissa: [00:03:47] say that's one of the, like the pros of having freelancers versus having them in-house would be getting varied types of writers, like in all different kinds of styles? Would that be one, one good thing,
[00:04:00] [00:04:00] Allie: [00:04:00] freelancer?
[00:04:01] Yeah. I definitely think like freelance writers specifically You can tap on a bunch of different types of knowledge and experience levels without having to hire all of them, especially for teams with smaller budgets or maybe their content projects are temp. I don't want to say temporary, but they're just like a short-term project versus a long-term play.
[00:04:23] It may make sense to, bring on a bunch of freelancers instead of hiring a bunch of people. I also think that depending on the content type project, freelancers can be better at it than you can. And that's okay. I'm in my job right now. I have a limited scope of knowledge on. The subject matter that we're writing about.
[00:04:43]But I don't want that to hold back the entire progress of our content marketing. So instead of me taking the time to try to basically learn something new I can flex my content, marketing knowledge and hire folks who have that knowledge to contribute pieces that, tap into our [00:05:00] audience and connect with our target readers.
[00:05:02]So I think that, yeah, that's definitely a pro of working with freelancers is you have a lot of flexibility, a lot of folks to tap on depending on what you need and if you can do it yourself. Yeah.
[00:05:13] Karissa: [00:05:13] For sure. What would it be a con of that, of having a freelancer versus having someone
[00:05:17] Allie: [00:05:17] in-house? Speaking from experience when I was freelancing, And with the agency now, freelancers, don't always have a direct line to your product and your product growth, like roadmap and your overall strategy and just how your whole company works together.
[00:05:32]And I know we're going to talk about this later on, but without a thorough content brief or very well fleshed out deliverables, like freelancers are working in like a silo and it's your job to build that bridge. So over time, I think with. A very technical product or like a super long term long-term content play.
[00:05:52]You have to treat your feelings are somewhat as in-house like have a very extensive onboarding process and very thorough content briefs, or they're [00:06:00] just not going to be able to produce at the same
[00:06:04] Karissa: [00:06:04] quality.
[00:06:05] Allie: [00:06:05] I don't want to say quality. I'm thinking more of just like knowledge of the product and just how, or like your target audience is all the things that go into your company and your roadmap.
[00:06:16]I think that's the only con, but it can be fixed if you can, like maybe over communicate and create those like knowledge bridges. That's one way to counter that for sure.
[00:06:29] Karissa: [00:06:29] Anything to add Alex.
[00:06:31] Alex: [00:06:31] Yeah, I think freelancers are probably less reliable overall. I don't reliable. Maybe it's not the right word, but you could theoretically leave a company without saying anything.
[00:06:42] If you were an in-house employee, it doesn't happen that often, usually you put in two weeks, you help the person transition. And usually you're going to stay for at least a year more if you like the job. Not always the case, but with a freelancer, you don't really have those same obligations.
[00:06:56] I guess you could do a contract. You could, Stretch it out to a six month kind of [00:07:00] retainer or something like that. But generally speaking, you have a lot more, they have a lot more flexibility and you have a lot more flexibility. So that's both a pro and a con, depending on what you're going for.
[00:07:09]So that's the kind of the point on the pro side where like you have a lot more flexibility. You can get 10 different writers in, you can pick and choose who you want to work with. For which projects you can't do that with in-house employees that easily it's a longer-term investment. Yeah, it's like.
[00:07:23] For every pro there is a con I think that probably freelancers are more expensive. Yeah, you have that
[00:07:29] Karissa: [00:07:29] freelancers. You're not committed all the time. So you're buying for that flexibility. We're going to
[00:07:34] Alex: [00:07:34] get more out of a full-time right. If they're in house, like you're just like on a per article basis, Allie, when you've been in house, you've probably produced more value than you got paid for, but on a freelance basis, like you can charge rates, commiserate with the value that you're adding.
[00:07:48] And I think it's just, if you're a good high quality freelance writer, you're probably going to. Get paid more
[00:07:55] Allie: [00:07:55] to top before we move on to top on that question or the comment about the reliability [00:08:00] in terms of commitment levels. I would definitely say obviously in house, you just start more tightly tethered to your team, but in terms of like quality of content, I would actually argue from being on both sides of the coin, I would actually argue that like freelancers, if they're like flushed out hiring vet vetting, all that I know we'll get to that.
[00:08:19]You have the quality freelancers, I believe are better reliable for quality, because I think we talked about this in another conversation, but what they write is what they're known for. And that's how, like the, how did they get their next job? And that's how they earn new business.
[00:08:36] Karissa: [00:08:36] They're more likely to go after freelance gigs versus an in-house position, maybe because they can
[00:08:41] Allie: [00:08:41] write for different.
[00:08:43]I'm just saying like what they. What they write is it direct, has a direct line to their future work. So like they're not going to skimp on quality because they know that can specifically determine who they work for in the future and like how much they can charge or how much they [00:09:00] continue to charge in-house writers while they are reliable in terms of showing up.
[00:09:05] I think that they're in, like they've got the job and they know they're going to be producing on a pretty. I would say frequent levels. So I think the quality reliability there is more likely to suffer than for an ad hoc freelancer. Interesting. That
[00:09:18] Alex: [00:09:18] makes sense.
[00:09:21] Allie: [00:09:21] That's why you said I was trying to remember the way you phrased
[00:09:24] Alex: [00:09:24] it.
[00:09:24] Yeah, they're always trying to win the next stop for, not just like other clients, but for you too, because you could fire a freelancer at any moment. So it's like they produce two or three bad articles in a row. You're like that's it. Yeah. So you're always on
[00:09:36] Allie: [00:09:36] the line. I think there's a stronger safety net for in-house writers and some people might take advantage of that.
[00:09:42] I don't want to say this is not a blanket statement. I'm just saying I've been on both sides. I've seen both kinds of writers. In-house writers. Sometimes they just produce the bare minimum or just a little bit above that.
[00:09:53] Alex: [00:09:53] On the flip side of that, though, you mentioned this a little bit with regards to the kind of communication between the marketing manager and the writer. [00:10:00]
[00:10:00]If there's misalignment, I think you can have a lot more trouble with freelancers just because you're always like, yeah. Honeymoon stage. You're always in the first phase of the relationships. You don't quite understand how to communicate to the writer, what they say when they mean they're going to get it in on Friday or whatever, like you don't know, there.
[00:10:18]Their timetables and how they interact. And you don't know their quality. So it's very difficult over the first couple assignments. And you can mitigate a lot of that. If you have really good practices, like editorial calendars content briefs, if you use tools like clear scope and stuff that makes it pretty homogenized in terms of writing publication and like standards.
[00:10:34] But it's like the quote we always use, like play long-term game games with longterm people. Yeah. You build out a compound interest. If you work in house for a long time. And that knowledge that compounds as you work in house, that's hard to get if you're just a freelancer coming in or many different clients, like towards the end of the time at CXL.
[00:10:52] I, I knew I didn't need to do keyword research. I knew what topics were going to be popular. I knew how to write them. I knew who to reach out. That was all knowledge. That was just like [00:11:00] back of hands. I just accumulated that. And if somebody comes in that takes a long time to build that up.
[00:11:04] So I think that's also a trade off. So
[00:11:07] Karissa: [00:11:07] how do you bridge the knowledge gap between your business and your freelancers? Just to make sure that the content is fluid.
[00:11:15]Allie: [00:11:15] The first thing that I've done and I've learned my lesson on this is. I think that you should spend nearly as much time as you would hiring an in-house writer, hiring a freelancer.
[00:11:25] So I'm a pretty big like application window, lots of distribution, lots of, vetting conversations, test piece at paid, definitely paid test pieces. Because I think that would just weed out the folks who are either not interested, they're a bad fit. Now I don't know if people always have the time to do that.
[00:11:44] And depending on what project they're hiring for the agency, that's what I like to do because I think it saves time and energy down the line. And I did that for our blog. I think it really paid off for bringing someone on who would work with us for a long time. But let's say that's already done and they're [00:12:00] in.
[00:12:01]Extensive onboarding deck. We have it on the website as an offer explaining everything about your business, everything from like brand guidelines, to competitors, to what we can, what we consider to be our top content. What we consider to be our competitors, top content, like lots of examples, lots of things for them to reference and read a live conversation nowadays, just like a zoom call, 15 minutes.
[00:12:25] To connect. I think it's easier to at least set the ground work over a video call versus just a bunch of emails moving forward. It can be asynchronous, but I think to set the stage and then content briefs I've also written a long blog post on this, and we have an offer on it too, but really thorough content briefs.
[00:12:43]It takes a lot of work upfront. I know Alex just did a bunch for his blog and I'm sure it took him some time, but my opinion, you get those done and that's all you have to send them and they'd be like, okay, good. Got it. I'll see you in a week kind of thing. And to me, like all that upfront work is very worth it for a [00:13:00] seamless production cadence down the line.
[00:13:02] Karissa: [00:13:02] Sure. Yeah. So let's talk a little bit more about our process here at omniscient and touch on. You wrote a blog about this. Ellie can check it out on our website, but basically you narrowed it down to six steps. So first getting your shit together, right? Gathering info on your brain guidelines, content strategy.
[00:13:21] Anything else you want to add there?
[00:13:24]Allie: [00:13:24] I guess thinking about it in terms of when we brought someone on for our own blog, I wanted to have yeah. All of our strategy. Most of our strategy done certain deliverables, like why we were doing this. The things that the three of us as partners could tackle.
[00:13:41] So I knew I could set that stuff aside and focus on what would be appropriate for our writer. I would say that was the most important thing for me. And then thinking it in the context of people who might be listening everything from like brand guidelines, depending on how important that is to pulling together what I said for that onboarding deck, [00:14:00] I wrote that blog post through the lens of what information someone might need to build a really good onboarding deck for a freelancer.
[00:14:07] And that's just some of the content I thought of. So competitors Content you are really proud of on your site that you essentially would like to duplicate any important product features, benefits, offers, things like that. That should be reflected in the content. I think that stuff is just good to have, and it also helps your team get their shit together so that you're all aligned before you bring in someone externally.
[00:14:32]So at least, and funny enough, like when I was building our. Our information, I noticed what was missing and it was nice to have that kind of have noticed that before I came in and I was like, Oh, sorry, I need to fix this really quick before you can get started. So it's like a checks and balances thing before you bring someone in, who's expecting you to have everything together.
[00:14:52] Yeah, for sure.
[00:14:54]Karissa: [00:14:54] So the next step would be defining your content types and topics. So what do you need written, [00:15:00] is it an ebook? Is it a case study? Why is that important?
[00:15:03]Allie: [00:15:03] Alex,
[00:15:04] Alex: [00:15:04] were you going to say something? No, I was just going to, I was going to say that I probably index a little bit less heavily on having all those resources.
[00:15:11] I'm probably a little more, I find, I heard this term that I joined a writer's accountability group and a in writing fiction. There's a plotter and a pantser. You heard this before, but is it a plotter as somebody who writes the plot out entirely and they're very meticulous, like beforehand and a pantser is somebody who flies by, Oh, you're definitely the ladder.
[00:15:32] So I'm a pantser yes you are. But the materials that I always have in place for freelance writers or guest writers is editorial guide or principles or some sort of like. Statement that says, here's who we write for. Here's how we write. And here's like the exclusions. Here's what we don't do.
[00:15:49]I did that at CXL. I did that for my personal site. We did that from mission. It just shows Hey, this isn't going to be like a bullshit dumping ground for your bad content. This is, we have standards. So I [00:16:00] actually, I don't do a style guide ever. I don't that's where Allie and I are probably like on diametric.
[00:16:05] Opposite ends is I don't care where they, If they use passive voice or active voice, if it sounds good, that's it. I don't care. So if I can read it, that's fine. There's certain things that I don't like, I don't like when somebody does like a six paragraph introduction. So I always add to my principles, like cut to the chase.
[00:16:23]Don't tell me what you're going to say. Just say it. So little things like that, but actually, so all of this goes to say there's a hack when you're hiring freelance writers, right? Like that in the job description. So I did that on my pro blogger ad a couple of weeks ago, I put it out for my personal site and I didn't even try to do this.
[00:16:40] I just wrote it really informally because I frankly didn't have a lot of time. It was like 20 minutes. And I'm like, it's pure stream of conscious, like my voice, some couple of swear words. And then I had all of the criteria by which I filter for detail orientation. I always put like a Brown m&ms clause where it's like, fan Halen used to.
[00:16:58]Say that they don't want any [00:17:00] Brown m&ms in their dressing room. And if they find them, then they can void the contract, the cost of the promoter. So I like little items like that, where it's use this exact subject line or say your favorite album of all time in the email and anybody who doesn't follow those instructions.
[00:17:14] I just throw them out because I can't follow clear prompts, but other than that, I just wrote this Very informal in my voice thing. And not only, so I got really good content from it. Like the writers who wrote some articles from some tests, articles wrote in that style, which is amazing. But I just got really funny email responses.
[00:17:33] They're like, wow, I really resonated with like your voice here. It didn't sound like corporate. Yeah. And like jargony and bubbly,
[00:17:38] Karissa: [00:17:38] attracting
[00:17:39] Alex: [00:17:39] a certain kind of person. Yes, exactly. Bye bye. By putting myself out there like that. I attract similar people who want to write in that style. And I think you can do that implicitly.
[00:17:49] So I think you're can attract like good writers for your brand without doing all of the, like having the artifacts is great. But I think you can do it in all the manners in which you communicate too.
[00:17:59] Karissa: [00:17:59] What [00:18:00] you're saying. Cool. I like it. I'm still thinking about the plotter and the
[00:18:05] Alex: [00:18:05] pantser. I love that term, but really, yeah, a lot for me, let's go back
[00:18:12] Karissa: [00:18:12] to content types and topics.
[00:18:14] Why is it important to really what you need written? Is it making sure that maybe they are that's their niche?
[00:18:21] Allie: [00:18:21] Yeah. Figuring out what you need is definitely going to dictate who you look for. If you have an ebook project or white paper or blog posts or a, like an original research report, it might change who you look for and like how you do your research on someone or maybe how you ask for recommendations.
[00:18:38] I don't think that someone can write all of those things very well. I was going to ask, there's different purposes and different Formats. And I think, there's great writers out there, but there are specialists. And if you're going to outsource, I would definitely recommend outsourcing someone who could do something better than you.
[00:18:55] And same with the topics. You have someone you need to write an ebook about Cannabis [00:19:00] or blog posts about like email marketing. That's definitely going to dictate how you write your job ad or how you look for that writer. So again, it's just making sure you have all your ducks in a row beforehand.
[00:19:12] Hopefully Alex, you did that before you look for writers.
[00:19:16]Alex: [00:19:16] Yeah, I can add to that. I think it's not just the delineation between eBooks and content formats, but I'll also I don't know what you'd call this, but like types of content itself. So you can delineate different types of blogs posts. So I'm on my blog.
[00:19:28] I'm going to be writing these listicle they're like product listicles, like reviews of the top 10, like best affiliate marketing software or whatever. And then there's kind of comparison pages. Like MailChimp versus like mailer light. That's a content format. There's technical writing, which I like to do, frankly, like where it's like a lot of screenshots and The call-outs and like arrows and stuff like that.
[00:19:50] And you're not writing as much as you are, like showing how to do a process. So that's like another style that people I think can specialize in their thought leadership. So I think like you want a good writer [00:20:00] in whatever field that is. Like for me, like I'm right now, I'm trying to get better.
[00:20:04] I'm actually actively trying to train myself to become a better like SAS or like thought leadership writer, because that's not my back. My background is more of the technical stuff. So if I were, I dunno, smarter, I would probably hire somebody to just do that stuff. But yeah, I think you can basically hire based on that you can use
[00:20:20] Karissa: [00:20:20] down in many different.
[00:20:21] Alex: [00:20:21] Wait. Yeah. Cause I think there's more difference between that. Then there is like a, an ebook and a long form article. I think some long form articles could literally just be like designed and probably, put behind a gated lead magnet and just turned it into an ebook and nobody would notice. Yeah.
[00:20:38] Yeah. Interesting point. Okay.
[00:20:41]Karissa: [00:20:41] What about creating your onboarding flow? So like you were mentioning earlier, so slides with everything they need to know, sharing your content calendar. Why is all that important?
[00:20:52]Allie: [00:20:52] I think it just it's that same idea of just front-loading a lot of the communication.
[00:20:57] I think, when I was a freelancer, I didn't want to [00:21:00] hop on a call. I didn't want to one-on-one with my clients every week. And really starting. Starting the relationship on a very informational note, even if it might be more than what the freelancer needs in the moment, at least you've pulled all of it together in a single place.
[00:21:14] Like the onboarding deck that we have on our site. Everything from legal stuff to how they can invoice and get paid. And this also trims questions that back and forth that might happen after their first piece or as they're getting to the end of the first assignment. Like you can proactively answer all those questions.
[00:21:31]And I think providing all the information, like I said, from sound guy to personas, to subject matter experts. If you have all that together and that's something that you want to provide, it's I think better just to have it all up front and you get to meet them and chat with them and get to know them.
[00:21:47]If you want to build that comradery, like they are an in house person, that's there, if not all, does this serve just to provide a bunch of information and send them off right.
[00:21:58] Karissa: [00:21:58] Cool.
[00:22:00] [00:21:59] Alex: [00:21:59] Yeah. Oh, go ahead. I was going to say Allie, Allie is way better at that than I've ever been. But the one minimum that I would always do is basically I would put them on the same workflow that other writers were on.
[00:22:10] And I think that's more maybe of a content operations thing. Once you're dealing with enough freelance writers and enough in-house writers and enough guest writers. Is, there's just a million topics flying in every which direction. So not crossing hairs, not duplicating efforts and basically having the visibility for everybody on the board, I think is important.
[00:22:26] And especially for you as the editor of the content marketing manager that's crucial. So I've always done that. The onboarding packets, maybe less. So I usually get on for a call it like a one-on-one call. I know that's probably not, desired all the time, but like at least to like intro and, yeah.
[00:22:41] I met I met. Yeah,
[00:22:45] Allie: [00:22:45] no. But no, getting someone aligned with the broader workflow is definitely part of the onboarding deck. What tool do we use? How come here, let me add you to this really quick. Like, how do you use the tool? What do we expect for editing timelines and here how many days we [00:23:00] have for revisions?
[00:23:00] Like things like that. If that's an important part of your workflow, if you've got a lot of, like Alex said, like things just flying around, so part of our onboarding deck has places for all of that information. If that's something that you want to share.
[00:23:13] Alex: [00:23:13] Cool.
[00:23:14] Karissa: [00:23:14] So then let's talk about starting your freelance search.
[00:23:17] So what are some ways to find people referrals?
[00:23:22] Allie: [00:23:22] Yeah, referral is my favorite. I have built personally built like a pretty extensive network of either writers or people who work with them. So that's my personal go-to just because I always trust my network's recommendations. And it's usually Hey, we've worked with this person before.
[00:23:37] Here's some of their work they produce. Like we would highly recommend them. After that Sometimes, especially with the case of my latest role, where I lack that technical knowledge I actually found. The guy that I'm working with on medium. Cause I was reading some of his stuff to try to learn myself.
[00:23:54]And this is like a way that I didn't realize, I don't know why, but like just looking at who by-lines your favorite [00:24:00] content or content that when you're reading it, you're like, wow, this is really good. I want this on my site. Reach out to them. Maybe they will, right? Maybe not.
[00:24:07] This guy had never freelanced rate before, and I suggested it. We talked about terms and that was that, but I knew he had the knowledge and the passion for the topic because I was learning from him, right there. That's smart. Otherwise, I'm partisan freelance, Facebook groups.
[00:24:22] Twitter is always a good thing to tap on. If you have a well fleshed out network in the article, I recommend doing a Google search. That can go either way. If you know enough about what type of content you want, like Alex said a listicle or something, if you know what topic you want to write about, maybe you can hone the search in that way, because I think if you search freelance writer, you will just get so much difference.
[00:24:46] Twitter. I'm curious, how do I use Twitter? To find a freelancer. Honestly, given the place I'm personally at on Twitter, I usually just tweet does anybody know a freelance writer who writes X or who specializes in X? [00:25:00] That's
[00:25:00] Karissa: [00:25:00] if you have a following that could
[00:25:03] Alex: [00:25:03] there's advanced search I'm sure.
[00:25:06] Keywords, I don't know if that would filter for like freelance writers or more so just people talking about that topic.
[00:25:12]Allie: [00:25:12] I would say the first course of action. If you've never heard a feeling serious, definitely ask people who you admire or whose content you admire. Secondly, do some digging for content that you'd like to eventually write for yourself and see who bylined it.
[00:25:26]After that maybe social media It's not supposed to be an easy process. If it's easy, you probably aren't finding the right writer. That's where the vetting comes out. That's at the start. I think over time it will be easier as you build your network. I'm not saying it's always going to be hard, but it takes a little bit of time to find those
[00:25:43] Alex: [00:25:43] bedrooms.
[00:25:44] I think it should be. It's not easy, but it should be fun. Yeah. Like it is fun. First words in there, yes, exactly. So pro blogger is a great job or writers. I highly recommend trying to source people. If you don't have those other [00:26:00] sources, what you want at the core is somebody who you. Can see their work.
[00:26:05] You can see their past like the proof that they can write about the topic that you're wanting them to write about. So that's where like the referrals come in, especially if it's like a warm contact, somebody that you both trust, like that's something you're appealing to the authority and the respect and the trust of that person.
[00:26:20]So it's a credible referral. Pro blogger. If they have like links to stuff written on the topic, like I always prioritized those. Another way I like to do this is going on places that are a sort of passion. I don't know. I don't know how to describe this like forums and review sites and whatever, and people aren't paid to write, but they spend a lot of time they're writing these like really in-depth posts.
[00:26:41] So Quora, I found really good writers on Cora back at CXL anybody writing like long form stuff about AB testing and statistics. They're a good freelance writer or Slack groups or Facebook groups. There's a couple of guys. I know, like every day I see like these, my long Facebook comments on these really technical questions.
[00:27:00] [00:27:00] Like you should turn that into a blog post. That's amazing. So any like communities where there's like kind of passionate people in that subject area, they may not be like Polish writers, but that's why, you're an editor or you have an editor, like that's the purpose. So I love those places.
[00:27:16] That's a great idea.
[00:27:18] Karissa: [00:27:18] Cool. All right. Next is interviewing your shortlist. So what questions to ask, like what your niche is or asking for publication
[00:27:28] Allie: [00:27:28] samples? Yeah, I would say as you do your research to create a short list of like name, website, any niche or specialty that you can deduce from your research.
[00:27:40] And then I say, before you reach out for an interview, do research on their website, review their portfolio if they have their rates. That could be a way that they're either a good fit or they're not some people don't post their rates. But it's your responsibility to figure that stuff out before you contact them,
[00:27:57] Karissa: [00:27:57] find out the standard, what a standard rate is, cause [00:28:00] that
[00:28:00] Alex: [00:28:00] that's not like it depends on the industry and the writer and the quality it's.
[00:28:05] So the variance is way higher than I expected. I was like, it's tough.
[00:28:10]Allie: [00:28:10] I would say that's why I think in the whole part one, get your shit together. Like you have to know your budget, at least the starting point that you can start the conversation with. And so you don't leave it up to, I don't wanna, you leave it up to the writer, but if you know what you have to work with, especially if you're like not the department head or you don't have free reign of your budget, like you need to know what you can work with before you start talking to folks, because especially if their numbers are published and then you're like, Oh, I can't do that.
[00:28:35] They're probably like, why did you reach out to me?
[00:28:39] Alex: [00:28:39] I would say that's probably one of the most things in the pre-interview or like the first interview step is like getting the, their rates because you don't want to waste their time. I actually think negotiating for rates is stupid because if you get a better rate than they usually give, they're just going to feel.
[00:28:56] Resentful about that. They'll get a better client and you're going to be like, degraded [00:29:00] into the backburner client. So I, I'm not a huge fan of saying Oh, like you're usually $700 an article. Can we get that down to 500? No. I usually just pay what they want and make sure that I have my bands and my budget in place.
[00:29:12] And I'm only filtering for the people in that band. If they're too low, it's maybe I don't trust the quality. Yeah.
[00:29:18] Karissa: [00:29:18] The aim high knowing you might
[00:29:20] Allie: [00:29:20] negotiate. That's why I think it's worth maybe one, one question back because they can always say no, like when I was a freelancer, I always overshot knowing they would counter and the folks that didn't, I was like, woo, I just got way more than I thought I would.
[00:29:36] And then we landed where I wanted to be. So quality is My like my top thing for all of our client work and our blog work. Not that it isn't otherwise, but especially for our client work given the frequency of posts that come through and then I have to work with it's very important to me to know that they are near perfect right off the bat.
[00:29:54] And so for me, like I know that usually means a higher priced freelance writer, [00:30:00] especially someone that has that subject matter expertise. I always try to negotiate just once and I never want it to be like a, Oh, that's dumb. You charge that much. That's, I don't believe that. I believe that, you should charge whatever you want, but I'll usually negotiate with, Hey, we have X amount per month.
[00:30:16]Do you have a bulk fee or would you give me a discount for a piece? If I can promise you this many pieces? And usually folks are willing to, so I would say like one. Level of negotiation, possibly. If you are very adamant about that writer and their knowledge, it might be worth it.
[00:30:34] Alex: [00:30:34] Yeah. I think I maybe misphrased that or spoke to strongly I'll negotiate in terms of packages and like in, at the margins.
[00:30:41] But I'm saying like, if you know that you can't afford a thousand dollars for an article, you should make clear upfront. And if it's going to be like in the range of four to $600 and that's what you have in your mind, That should be out on the table and they should also put their kind of rates on the table.
[00:30:57] Otherwise I think it's a waste of time. So I [00:31:00] think that's pre-interview material. I think you want to see that they've published stuff in that niche and they can actually write about it. So I love having three pieces of content that you've published. It could be a ghost written thing. It could be something that I don't like when they send Google docs that haven't been published since why isn't that published kind of thing? I like to do by Brown M and M's clause. What else is a filtering mechanism on the application slash pre interview?
[00:31:24] Karissa: [00:31:24] Yeah. What are some red flags to look out for in someone? Just not having anything, like you said, the Google doc or.
[00:31:32] Allie: [00:31:32] I would say calling themselves like a content writer or like I can write about anything
[00:31:38] Alex: [00:31:38] or that's a big one.
[00:31:40] That's not
[00:31:41] Karissa: [00:31:41] a lot of,
[00:31:44]Alex: [00:31:44] If they, I've had applicants who, the only content they've written about and published is in like a completely different niche. It'll be about gardening. And they're like, I'm writing about like AB testing and stuff. It's like pretty like tactical. Like you need to know what you're talking about.
[00:31:59] And they're like, nah, I can [00:32:00] learn anything I can write about anything. And it's no, that's a clear, no.
[00:32:04] Allie: [00:32:04] Yeah. I actually wrote a personal piece on this. Like being a good writer, doesn't make you a good writer. And I've learned that from experience. Like I consider myself a good writer, but there are more topics than not that I would just avoid because It doesn't matter if you can write beautiful stuff, entonces, if you don't know what you're talking about, if you can't relate to the reader, if you can't show that you have like authority either on your own behalf or on behalf of the brand that you're writing for, like you're not a good fit and that's okay.
[00:32:33]There's so much to write about these days, you have to fit in everything.
[00:32:37] Alex: [00:32:37] Crap. I had something. I was going to say that I forgot.
[00:32:40] Allie: [00:32:40] Oh, going back to pre-interview stuff. If you can't find a writer's rates. Off the bat. Some folks do publish them. Some folks don't, if you're reaching out for an initial conversation, include your budget in that message, because they can weed you out.
[00:32:57]Let them realize like, Oh, they won't pay what I [00:33:00] want. And then they either will say that, or they won't get back to you. And bam save time. I wouldn't wait till the last part of the conversation to Oh, by the way, here's my budget. Because Alex said, you just waste wasted some time.
[00:33:11] Maybe you fell in love with them and their work, and then you can't afford it. It's definitely something you want to start out with. I think the only
[00:33:16] Karissa: [00:33:16] time that gets hurt is when a company doesn't really know what they should be offering because they
[00:33:21] Allie: [00:33:21] just spend, you can let the freelancer start the conversation.
[00:33:23] But if, for sure you have a budget and you can't budge from that budget, I would start with
[00:33:28] Alex: [00:33:28] that. Yeah, that actually is an interesting point. Carissa, in terms of the information gathering you can get from the first couple of conversations, if you were like, I don't know, totally clueless about content, which.
[00:33:39]You should probably do a little bit of homework before you start hiring a bunch of writers. But if you're like, Oh, I have no idea what people charge and you thought it was like a hundred bucks for an article and everybody's 800, 900. You're like, Oh shit. We should probably go back to the drawing board.
[00:33:52] If you go back to the boss and get more budget or something like that. So it could be a learning experience too. But another thing I thought is what if [00:34:00] what do you think about putting your budget? On the job ad or like on the initial email or something like that, like saying here's how much we want to pay.
[00:34:07] Yeah. Why not?
[00:34:09] Allie: [00:34:09] Yeah. I wish job listings would do that. I know, really, honestly, it's money is already a weird enough thing to talk about when you're over the phone or in, on the camera for some people. So I think it should just be put out there. I've, I didn't put that in my job. Add for omniscient, but I started every conversation with that.
[00:34:30]Hey, here's our budget per piece? What's your rate? Can we talk about it and knowing you would work with us for a while would you be willing to meet that? Some people countered, we ended up a little bit higher than what I thought, but. I think it's worth like adding it to the beginning of a conversation.
[00:34:47] Should they approve the job ad itself?
[00:34:49] Alex: [00:34:49] I think it's probably better. If you have a very clear idea in your head, the reason people don't is because they have a band of pay in their heads, whether that's like an HR department that a company or a company hiring [00:35:00] freelance writers, and they want the person to accept less than the top of that band.
[00:35:07]That's the whole the whole game there. And especially if the quality is the same or something, I think that's probably the justification. Yeah.
[00:35:15] Karissa: [00:35:15] All right. And then the last step of this process hiring and onboarding your writers. So going, heading and extending that offer, we talked about that.
[00:35:23] Anything else with that? With that point?
[00:35:27]Alex: [00:35:27] I always do a test article. I paid for it. But I always test about if I'm going to hire one or two hopefully for the longterm, then I'm going to test 10 and, say that's maybe not that same multiplication all the time. If I'm gonna hire five, I'm probably not going to test 50.
[00:35:45] But probably tests like 15, like I'm always going to test many more than a higher essentially. When I
[00:35:51] Allie: [00:35:51] was hiring for our blog I think I got 80 applicants and I talked with 20 tested [00:36:00] eight. Hired one. Wow. I did pay, no, I tested, I don't know. I tested six or something, but I did all paid pieces because then they were our content that was our content to keep and they were all great.
[00:36:14]It really came down to affordability and just the way that I liked how this person wrote But yeah. Paid test pieces for sure. I don't think people should do free test pieces, especially if they like keep the content after I think that's skeezy.
[00:36:27] Alex: [00:36:27] Yeah. I think it's unethical. And also like you were saying, you want to keep the content preferably you can edit it and make it into something worthwhile.
[00:36:34] Even if it's not like the highest quality that you were expecting, the test assignments. Cool. You can learn a lot, but the end goal, I think in my opinion, is to work with as few writers as you need. So essentially, if you can get by with one or two, that's what you should do because the more you have to deal with one, it's a bunch of paperwork.
[00:36:51]So just getting people in contractors and taxes and 10 99 and all that stuff, it's more to manage. It's just a complex thing to have to think about Oh, like [00:37:00] Steve's writing this and Sarah's writing this. And it's just more on your head versus one or two, a handful of people with all those assignments.
[00:37:07] And then also the fewer writers, the more they build up compound knowledge, the more they know who to link to who not to link to what competitors to avoid mentioning what topics to call back on. They start to build up that knowledge in the same way that an employee would. So you actually want to build for the, long-term definitely on the learning part.
[00:37:25] I'm already going through this with my personal site, but Allie, you probably noticed this, like some who come. And with a good recommendation or, they seem really awesome from the job ad you'll like, give them a test assignment, and then they like, ghost you, or handed in two weeks late and you're like Oh, okay.
[00:37:40] I got you. And then somebody else you didn't expect at all will hand in like a perfect draft, but the day early and you're like, Holy shit, let's go with this one. So there's things you can't learn until you actually like, you have skin in the game and you're actually working with them.
[00:37:52] And that test phase is a really good time to learn all that stuff. I would
[00:37:56] Allie: [00:37:56] say, even if someone has an extensive portfolio, [00:38:00] It's still helpful to see them in action. Because working with a freelancer is more than just a final draft. Like you onboard them, you chat with them, you edit them, so I think like Alex said, you could find someone else in that has some great by-lines and they're always late, or, they don't follow instructions or whatever
[00:38:20] Alex: [00:38:20] how they got feedback.
[00:38:22] Allie: [00:38:22] Yeah. Yeah. How they got published on those sites, maybe I don't know, but all that matters is if they can produce for you. And I think seeing that in action, as it applies to your relationship is really important.
[00:38:33] Alex: [00:38:33] That's a huge point. Actually I want to touch on is how they got published on this sites.
[00:38:38] So a good portfolio actually. Sometimes it's trustworthy, but you have to realize like some of these sites have teams of editors and it goes through multiple rounds of revisions. And in some cases I've dealt with this before. I'm not going to name names, but in my past of with re with writers, Who essentially wrote a piece and the piece that made it on the web was completely [00:39:00] different and it was completely rewritten by the editor, but they still put it in their portfolio and still their byline and they still got paid for it.
[00:39:06]So it is really hard to parse that out. I would say that's probably the rare. Rare cases. It's probably not the common it does happen though. So could you maybe in that
[00:39:14] Karissa: [00:39:14] case, ask for the Google doc, along with the published version.
[00:39:18] Alex: [00:39:18] Yeah, right? Yeah. Or the revision history or something? Yeah, I would say you're going to learn that during the test case, like they won't be able to fake it then, so yeah.
[00:39:28] Good.
[00:39:28] Karissa: [00:39:28] Good point. So for anyone who's listening, you can refer back to these six steps we just talked about in Allie's blog, which is on our website. Be emission.com. Anything else you guys want to add that maybe we didn't touch on finding betting, hiring freelancers. No.
[00:39:46]Allie: [00:39:46] The last thing is even if someone you tested like of the seven people that I tested and I chose one, like the other six were so great.
[00:39:55] I kept them in my little notion document. And I [00:40:00] said this earlier, but over time, this process can get easier. As you build up your network and build up your little like Rolodex of people that, and if freelance, if hiring freelance writers is something you plan to do for your company or your personal site, or just down the line, like it's always helpful to keep that information handy and keep up that like network of folks.
[00:40:18] And then over time, you won't even have to like, Ask for referrals cause you'll have a great list of people.
[00:40:24] Alex: [00:40:24] Yeah. That's actually a really great point building up the Rolodex of writers because you may actually find that like in a future project or future company a person that you passed on for this project.
[00:40:35]Actually it works out well for the next one or like some other companies asking for writer recommendations. You've got a handful and you can send those over. And that's a really cool value add too. So can we do a call to action? Have people sign up for our omniscient certified writers database?
[00:40:50] Yeah, we actually
[00:40:51] Allie: [00:40:51] started our own of some of our, I don't want to say favorite, but folks we've worked with personally, we can bet that we've vetted them and we can vouch for them [00:41:00] personally. Oh, hi biscuit.
[00:41:05] Alex: [00:41:05] Can't see this Alex's dog.
[00:41:07] Allie: [00:41:07] He's like staring at you. Yeah, so we have a air table. We update it pretty regularly with new folks as we find them and meet them.
[00:41:15]But it's successful on our website under the. A resources
[00:41:19] Karissa: [00:41:19] page and double
[00:41:20] Allie: [00:41:20] check it. That's right. Yup. Under resources and guides and templates. Great starting point bunch of different price points, bunch of different niches. So
[00:41:29] Karissa: [00:41:29] yeah. Check it out. Thanks guys. Thanks for taking the time and thanks for making an appearance.
[00:41:38] Alex: [00:41:38] I've been on calls all afternoon. So he's been real attention star .