If you’re a small business owner you know how hard it is to keep many different balls all juggling at once. Before you decide to outsource, you need to make sure that you’re outsourcing to someone who is good. We will guide you through the basics that you need to research before you go any further.
Social Media
Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn are very useful for getting a feel for someone. Take a look at what their LinkedIn profile says about them and have a look at whether they share content which is very important if you’re hiring someone for a role such as a social medial specialist in SEO and web marketing.
Using google, search the person’s name and take a look at what the results bring up. For now, just ignore their LinkedIn profile and website and just concentrate on whether their name comes up for anything linked to their industry. This will show you that they’re fully active in what they do.
Time
If the person you are planning to hire is charging by the hour you need to work out if they will be sending you a timesheet or something similar, so you can see how many hours they have worked. If you’ve allocated 30 hours a month, check how this time is being split and more importantly, check that they are fulfilling their 30 hours.
Payments
Decide on what the payment terms will be and when you expect them to send an invoice. This can be adapted between each person that you use for outsourcing and It’s something that you need to bring up if they don’t. Never assume that you will be paying the VAT or that payments are 30 days. Make sure that you get this right from the offset so everyone knows where they stand.
Contracts
Before you begin working together, make sure that everything has been agreed and written down from the start, this way your relationship begins on the right foot. A final point to be sure of is that the person you have employed is completing the work themselves and not outsourcing it to someone else.