“Well, since you work at home, you can take a nap tomorrow.”
“Hey–you’ll be home tomorrow–can you run an errand for me?”
“Yeah, I work hard too. The other day I was ready to call it a day at 4:50, but I stuck it out ’til 5.”
“If I worked for myself, I’d go to the gym every morning.”
“You’re self-employed? Wow, that’s cool. I’d love to work at home–I’d sleep all day.”

More than once, I’ve found myself explaining that being self-employed is not the same thing as being unemployed (even though the pay is about the same). The truth is, having the ability to set your own hours means nothing when you have 23 hours of work to complete before tomorrow.

Of course, serious-minded entrepreneurs typically don’t have a problem working long hours. They actually have the opposite problem: if they’re not sleeping or eating, they’re working. While this lifestyle might help get a young business off the ground, it’s just not sustainable over the long-term. When you can’t afford to take an afternoon off or hire someone to help you, you aren’t an entrepreneur; you are a slave to your business. And that’s a bad place to be.

Achieving life/work balance takes discipline. And while you may feel like you don’t need another responsibility on top of managing your business, you do need to take care of yourself. Think of it this way. You want to build the value of your business right? If the business doesn’t function unless you work it 80-plus hours a week, it’s not worth anything. No one wants to pay money for the privilege of working 12 hours a day, seven days a week.

So here’s what you need to do.

1. Get over the perfectionism. Being a perfectionist keeps you from delegating tasks effectively. It also causes you to spend way too much time completing tasks and making decisions. Perfectionism makes you paranoid about everything you do, which in turn causes you to lose sleep unnecessarily. Try deep breathing, yoga or even hypnosis to get over the idea that the world will end if you make a mistake.
2. Learn to prioritize. Prioritize your daily and weekly tasks according to importance and time necessary to complete. Doing so keeps you from putting off a 5-minute job for three months and also reminds you of any upcoming deadlines. When you work ahead of deadlines, you don’t have to choose between losing sleep and losing a client.
3. Start delegating. Hire a freelancer or find a college student to do small jobs for you. If it frees up your time to sell more product or work more billable hours, the strategy pays for itself.
4. Get a hobby. Work can’t be your hobby. A sport would be ideal, because it relieves stress, but you could also make a smaller commitment–such as deciding to watch Glee every week.
5. Schedule your time off. Earlier this year, I made a verbal commitment to take one afternoon off every weekend. I figure, because I work long hours during the week, it wouldn’t be a big deal to stop working for four or five hours on Saturday or Sunday. But you know, I found that if I don’t schedule something for the designated four hours, I end up working anyway. So schedule yourself a game of racquetball, a wine tasting adventure or an afternoon of shopping. Put it on the calendar and do it.
6. Leave the country once a year. Schedule an annual trip to a place where you won’t get cell phone service and your air card won’t work. Trust me on this one. Taking the office with you on vacation is no getaway. Leave your technology at home, so you can get the R&R you need.

Sometimes, things just don’t work out the way you expect. Even if you interview a dozen freelance candidates, check references, and pour over work samples, you can still end up with a professional who isn’t compatible with you or with the project objectives. You should, of course, be taking steps to protect yourself from these situations: test out freelancers on smaller projects first, and obtain the contractual right to pay the freelancer for work completed and part ways, even if the contract is not 100% complete. These steps are important, because you really don’t know an individual’s working habits until after the project begins.

At that point, you can and should start watching for these freelancer red flags:

1. Your freelancer doesn’t listen/follow directions. This is a major problem if you are paying the freelancer on an hourly basis. Say you hire someone to create a graphic illustration of a fireman wearing red, standing next to a dog. You get the first draft of the file and the fireman is wearing yellow and standing next to a cat. Trust me, this happens. In this scenario, you owe your freelancer for the time it took him to create an image you didn’t ask for, plus you’ll have to pay him extra to create the image you originally requested.
2. Your freelancer doesn’t return messages. Unresponsiveness is always a bad sign. Often, it means the freelancer isn’t proceeding with the work at the agreed-upon pace.
3. Your freelancer doesn’t provide you with evidence of work in process. You should request evidence of the work completed periodically, and prior to releasing any progress payments.
4. Your freelancer misses deadlines. A conscientious freelancer doesn’t miss deadlines, period.
5. Your freelancer complains. Inexperienced freelancers often don’t understand the level of professionalism and compromise that’s involved in freelance work. This can lead them to complain about the time necessary to complete the project, the progress of the project, or the nature of your suggested revisions to the project. If the complaining is mild, you can try ignoring it to see the project through to completion. If the complaining becomes constant, to the point of tainting the working relationship, you may have to exercise your right to cancel the contract.
6. Your freelancer argues constantly. I know freelancers everywhere are going to disagree with me on this one, because freelancers argue for a reason: to help you benefit from their specific area of expertise. You actually want your freelancer to argue on occasion: remember that you hired him because he has expertise that you don’t have. If your way of doing things seems short-sighted, your freelancer should tell you that. However, some freelancers (and I’ve experienced this) will argue for argument’s sake. Worse, they’ll argue based on an incorrect assumption about your business or about the project objectives. This delays completion and causes untold frustration.

If you see one of these warning signs, have an open talk with your freelancer about your concerns. Hopefully the issue is just a misunderstanding and can  be easily remedied. In extreme cases, the two of you may have to agree upon an amicable divorce. If your project is half-finished, make sure you pay the freelancer in return for delivery of the work in process. Then, take that work and hand it over to another freelancer for completion.

You have a project to complete, and you’ve decided to find a freelancer to do it. Maybe you’ve collected a few phone numbers and you’re ready to start interviewing your prospects. Don’t do it until you are prepared! Before you pick up the phone, you must take the time to clarify the scope of your project and define your own expectations. The success of your project depends on it. Here are a few reasons why: 

• When you interview your prospects, you need to communicate exactly what you expect from them. If you don’t have the project scope and your expectations written down, you may communicate something slightly different to each prospective freelancer. This means the price quotes you collect may not be directly comparable.

• You don’t want to be shocked and surprised by the quotes you receive from freelancers. This tends to happen when you haven’t thoroughly analyzed the scope of the project. Your uncertainty leads you to magnify the scope, even as you are discussing it with prospective freelancers. You might hear yourself saying something like, “You know, it’d be really great if you could also…” This type of uncertainty gets expensive, because you could end up paying for more than you actually need.

• If you can clearly express what you need to the freelancer at the beginning, the freelancer is more likely to deliver what you want.

Identifying scope

To define the scope of your project, start by making a list of the project objectives. Then write down everything and anything that may be necessary to complete the project. Say, for example, that you want your Web site redesigned. You need to identify how the new site will be improved from your old site. You will also need to consider how you want the new site to function: as a lead generator, as a brochure, as a branding piece? To create this new site, the freelancer will need, at a minimum, artwork and copy. If you can have this information organized and ready to hand over to your freelancer, the process will go much more smoothly.

Alternatively, if you do not provide the freelancer with the necessary inputs upfront, you should expect the editing process to be lengthier. In this case, don’t feel discouraged if the first draft of your site (or press release or ad copy, etc.) isn’t exactly perfect. Once you provide some specific feedback, an experienced freelancer can then go back and make adjustments until the desired outcome is achieved.

Contract considerations

Once you select your freelancer, the two of you need to hammer out the details of your relationship. Before money changes hands, you and your freelancer need to agree on several items, including:

• The project fee and the billing schedule
• The number of revisions included in the project fee
• The timeline and specific deliverables of the project
• The ownership of the work
• Whether or not either party can cancel the agreement and, if so, how

Your freelancer should be proactive about discussing these items, but it will help the conversation if you’ve already considered these factors. Also, all of these items should be documented in a signed agreement. Typically, the freelancer would draft the agreement and present it to you for approval. When you are reviewing the agreement, look closely at the project scope. Make sure it specifically includes all the services you expect. Back to our Web site example, the project scope should define who will install the site, who will write the copy, who will upload the products into your online store, etc. You don’t want to be caught offguard by unexpected charges for services that are essential to the completion of the project. (Please note that this is not legal advice; you may need to consult with a qualified professional before signing any kind of contract.)

So the two rules here are: hammer out the expectations and details upfront, and recognize that the freelancer needs inputs from you (in the form of feedback and/or specific items to complete the project) to be successful.

Get referrals

Ask everyone you know for a referral to a qualified freelancer. Post a note about your search on your LinkedIn and Facebook accounts. Colleagues who’ve worked with an exceptional freelancer are usually happy to share information. If someone does pass on a name, press the referring individual for details. Questions to ask include:

1. What were the freelancer’s strengths? Weaknesses?
2. How well did the freelancer accept direction?
3. Was the freelancer able to work independently?
4. How quickly did the freelancer adopt the goals of the project?

Price shop

Finding a freelancer isn’t like getting a mortgage; you don’t need to get the lowest price out there. And that’s exactly the reason you need to price shop. A freelancer who low-balls the price may be radically underestimating what it takes to get your project done. That low price doesn’t help you if it leads to incomplete or substandard work. On the other hand, you may not need the most expensive freelancer in town either. Pricey freelancers tend to be more like small firms: they may have access to more resources, but they have higher overhead. Stay focused on being cost efficient, and only pay for what you need.

Select career freelancers

There are freelancers and then there are freelancers. More specifically, there are those who freelance while between jobs, and then there are those who have made a financially productive career out of freelancing. You can get quality work from someone in either group — but someone who is a long-standing, experienced freelancer is the far safer choice. This is because the job of a freelancer is worlds different from the job of an employee:

• Freelancers must be innately motivated to work, even when no one’s watching.
• Freelancers must wear many hats. There is no IT department to bail them out when the laptop blows up. There’s no co-worker to pick up the slack when they have the flu.

Someone who doesn’t have experience working indpendently and without corporate resources is more likely to get sidetracked or to underestimate the time and/or inputs required for your project. An experienced freelancer is comfortable tackling challenges, while still getting the work done — on time and to your exacting standards.

Ask for what you want

When interviewing prospective freelancers, be very clear about what you need. An experienced freelancer should ask you a lot of questions about your project, but he still only knows what you tell him. At a minimum, you need to share these details with your prospective freelancers:

1. What you want
2. How you want it
3. When you want it

For example, don’t ask for a Web site; ask for a dynamic, database-driven site that allows you to sell your products online. Share as many details as possible and then listen carefully to the prospective freelancer’s response. An experienced freelancer should ask questions and become engaged in the conversation.

Start small

Design a mini project that you can have two or three freelancers complete. Established freelancers won’t work for free, but the expense will be well worth it: there’s no better way to compare two freelancers directly. A starter project gives each freelancer the opportunity to show off his skill at interpreting your vision and producing cost-efficient results. You’ll get a taste for each freelancer’s working style, and you may learn a bit about yourself too. If you feel the urge to micro-manage the project, for example, you may realize you need an employee rather than an independent contractor.

Ultimately, you want to retain a professional you can trust. You don’t want to be worrying about the progress of the project or whether you are wasting your money. The best freelancers know that their role is to make your life easier. Find someone who’s genuinely committed to fulfilling that role, and you are already one step closer to a successful project completion.

Think about the progression of a regular work day in your life. You rise early, work long and hard throughout the day, have a few hurried meals, put out a few fires, and then go to bed thinking about all the things you didn’t get done. Am I close? You have too many tasks to accomplish in any given day. And you have trouble delegating, probably because you’ve learned the hard way that no one does things the way that you’d do them. You don’t feel great about paying an employee to do a shoddy job, when you can do a better job yourself. Trust me, I understand your perspective completely.

The thing is, doing everything yourself always eventually ends up being counterproductive. You work diligently to grow your business, and you end up with more customers to manage, more employees to lead, more inventory to buy, more dollars to watch, etc. The more successful you are at controlling every aspect of your business independently, the more likely it becomes that you will ultimately fail to keep up with your daily responsibilities. To avoid this, you have to get in the habit of moving your watchful eye to progressively higher levels of responsibility.

Of course, you will have a hard time doing this if you hold onto the notion that you can do everything better yourself. Remember before you opened your business, you had to put a considerable amount of thought into what would differentiate you among your competitors. You had to define your business’ focus, and then create a plan to pursue that focus. Well, the same concepts apply to you as a small business owner and leader. You cannot be all things to all people. You have to set your focus on growing your business and inspiring your customers. If you get bogged down with designing logos, writing content, calculating payroll deductions, and so on, your business ultimately suffers for two reasons. First, you don’t have enough time in the day to do it all. And second, the future of your business will be resting entirely on your ideas and expertise. You know what kind of risk is involved if you don’t diversify your portfolio, but have you thought about the consequences of failing to diversify the know-how that drives your business forward?

Advantages of Hiring an Independent Contractor or Freelancer

Here’s where independent contractors and freelancers come into play. A competent freelancer can free you up for more important tasks, while enhancing your business with a valuable outside perspective. I mention these two factors first, because both are directly linked to the ongoing health and longevity of your business. But there are other advantages as well, including:

• Independent contractors cost less than employees (you incur no payroll taxes or benefits costs)
• Independent contractors are business owners who value productivity, just like you
• Independent contractors will get the job done more quickly than you can
• Independent contractors charge less than large agencies
• Independent contractors want to work and want to earn your referrals

You can hire independent contractors to complete one-time projects like:

• Revamping your Web site content and/or design
• Overhauling your marketing messages
• Reviewing your marketing plan for inefficiencies/overlap
• Designing a new logo
• Adding new features to your Web site

Independent contractors can also be effective for longer-term arrangements, such as:

• Link-building campaigns
• Article marketing campaigns
• Bookkeeping tasks
• Web site or blog management
• Socia media campaigns

Next up, we’ll talk about how to select the right independent professional. Questions? Send them to us at questions@businessmorgue.com, and include your Web site link so we can post it on the site.