Freelancer Profile: Sara Miller
Sara Miller
Boise, ID
Zasio.com
Q: What types of projects are you hiring for, and how often?
A: For full-time roles, we’re hiring support specialists, & sales executives. We don’t outsource roles such as these because of how nuanced our industry is and how small the company is (lots of questions getting asked all the time).
We do hire freelancers for more complex graphic design projects (in fact, we have a regular freelancer that works with us on that) we don’t have a graphic designer on staff. We use the freelancer’s services on-demand. It is usually once every couple of months but used to be weekly. Now, between our copywriter and me, we have enough graphic design skills to get by.
We hired a UI/UX designer on Upworks, and she was fantastic. She worked out the payment scheme, so it made sense to us (she was listed as hourly, but the scope of her project shifted our payment into a flat rate). She set milestones to receive payment. That was a great experience.
We hired a freelancer web developer for the redesign of our website, and that was a great success! They gave us a flat rate, a timeline, they stayed within budget, and we now have the website we want. We will probably use their services about once a year for crucial design updates.
After that, we freelanced with a local SEO expert. He charged an extravagant amount of money, but we found that he took a month off, so we had to disengage from that relationship. We are now doing SEO in-house and don’t anticipate using a freelancer for this service again.
We freelanced with Marketing professionals in the past, but that hasn’t gone well since I’ve been here. In the creative field, we sometimes run into trouble with people not devoting adequate time to the job, working on other projects, etc. So, we make do without a marketing team. We’ve seen about 5 in my time; they would last about six months and be gone.
Before we hired our copywriter, we freelanced with a copywriter for about a year. She charged per hour, but after 12 months, she increased her price by $7/hour, so we thought it best to hire a part-time employee for that role.
We freelance with a local video production specialist. He provides us with a proposal, and we either accept that price or not. I haven’t seen a lot of negotiation in my experience. Either we’re willing to pay what you think your work is worth or we’re not. This guy is great though, and if we reject a proposal, he will find ways to make the project more affordable. He typically proposes a rate for filming and one for editing.
“Bid low, but not so low it seems you don’t have confidence in your abilities. It is VERY obvious if you Google “what should I be paid” and use that rate when you talk to a prospective client. ”
Q: What are the most important considerations for you in hiring a freelancer?
A: Experience, sincere referrals (especially if they are public on LinkedIn, which shows some confidence from the person giving the referral), and an impressive portfolio/resume. Because of our small team and big-name clients, we don’t have a lot of patience for mediocrity.
Q: How does your payment structure work? (Do people bid, do you pay a flat rate, etc.)
A: I’ll answer this in a roundabout way, but provide more details as part of the answers to your other questions. For freelancers, we occasionally reach out via LinkedIn for candidates that look promising and then bring them in for an interview and ask them what they’re looking to be paid. Sometimes, we perform a Google search for local candidates and go with whatever rates they provide us with (sometimes on their website, sometimes not). Upwork lists prices, but we’ve found there is some room for negotiation there, which we don’t mind (on Upwork, you can require someone to record their screen as proof they worked, but we’re happy enough to have milestones they’re meeting as evidence). We want to know people are working!
Q: What are three key pieces of advice you'd give to someone just starting out freelancing?
A: Three key pieces of advice are:
Bid low, but not so low it seems you don’t have confidence in your abilities. It is VERY obvious if you Google “what should I be paid” and use that rate when you talk to a prospective client. We do the same thing when we hire to estimate what our costs will be. Also: if you feel like you’ve landed the job and it could be a good fit, don’t try to milk the client for money—do the work, make them happy, get a good review, charge more next time.
Set milestones and meet them. Deadlines are important. We hired you because we don’t have the time to do it ourselves and we don’t have the time to micromanage. Show us you are self-driven, show us your very best work in a reasonable timeframe. Don’t say “I can have that done in 2 days” and then send over trash. Be upfront about how long a described project will take and then do it in that amount of time. No one expects fast perfection.
Be responsive and kind. Simply being a pleasure to work with can land you a job next time. If you’re rude/abrupt/abrasive, you better be damn talented, because most of us aren’t willing to deal with that for the sake of a typical project. Your reputation is your most important asset; I can promise you that.