Do you need a freelancer in your wedding business?

That's what today's episode is going to be all about. I'm Becca Pountney, wedding business marketing expert, speaker and blogger, and you're listening to the Wedding Pros Who Are Ready to Grow podcast. I'm here to share with you actionable tips, strategies, and real life examples to help you take your wedding business to the next level.

If you are an ambitious wedding business owner that wants to take your passion and use it to build a profitable, sustainable business, doing what you love, then you're in the right place. Let's get going with today's episode. Using freelancers in my business has been revolutionary. I cannot tell you how much it's helped me. And it may be that you need to start considering that for yourself as well.

So in today's episode, I want to talk about freelance work, how you know when you might need someone to come and help you out and be a freelancer for you, how to find them. And how to pick the right one and also how you can sort out the tasks that they do. So if you've been thinking about a freelancer or perhaps it's not even on your mind, but you're just feeling overwhelmed, then this episode is going to be for you.

Now I think there's a few different stages when it comes to your wedding business. When you first start out, you're really fresh. You have this idea of starting a business. You throw everything into it because you don't have any clients yet. So you've got time to build your portfolio, time to post on social media, time to build out this beautiful website, write blog posts. All of the things that we say that you should be doing as a marketer trying to market your business.

Now, the great thing is that when you put that work in, it starts to gain traction and you start to get some work and the weddings start coming in and you keep on doing the marketing. The weddings are coming in. Now you've got to deal with wedding administration, contracts, payments, and then of course delivering on the day.

And before you know it, you go from someone that's got very few clients just starting out with all of the time in the world to do your marketing to being so fully booked or so busy servicing your clients that all of a sudden the marketing falls by the wayside.

Now, the problem is if we let it go entirely because we're busy because of the nature of the way the wedding industry works, because we're always working on seasons, if you're letting your marketing go now, then that's going to have a knock on. Impact in a year or two years time in terms of couples booking you because they're not knowing that you're out there and visible.

So if that is you, if that resonates and you're now at that stage two of your journey where you've got bookings coming in, you've got frequent work, but you're doing everything on your own, then maybe it's time to think about hiring a freelancer to help you in your business. Now, when is the best time to hire a freelancer? This is a question I get all of the time and I think often people leave it too late.

I would say you need to hire a freelancer when you feel like your to do list is constant, you've got business coming in, and you're still doing all of the tasks. Because if you leave it until you're absolutely desperate, you just won't have the headspace to train someone up, you won't have the time to bring them into your business.

And then you're kind of on this hamster wheel where you're just keeping going because you don't have time to bring anyone into the business, but you also don't have time to do everything. So sometimes we need to take it a step earlier and think, right, actually, I want to hire someone now as a freelancer so that I can teach them, get them up to speed on my systems.

Cause I can see next season is getting busier and busier and It's important to know that when you hire a freelancer, that just frees you up to do more of the activities that you're good at.

So I think you need to know when you want to have one is when you've got tasks that you're doing all of the time, they're taking up a lot of time where actually you could be using your time better spent elsewhere, bringing in more work, delivering the work that you've got, or even looking at raising your prices. So if you decide that you want to use a freelancer, where are you going to find one? So when it comes to this, there's a few different options.

Now, some people will go straight to a website like Fiverr and try and find something really cheap. I have tried this in a few different ways for things like one off projects, graphic design, and it is cheap, but it is also very hit and miss. So this probably wouldn't be my number one option. Instead, I would suggest that you've got three different options. Number one. Speak to your colleagues in the industry and find out if anyone else is using any freelancers and get recommendations.

Post in my free Facebook group wedding pros who are ready to grow, or if you're in my members lounge, feel free to ask in there. Often the best recommendations come from our fellow wedding pros. They then know that they can trust that person. And that gives us more confident that that freelancer might work for us. So that's the first place. The second place is using an agency, just like I set up.

So I set up the Wedding Pro Agency to solve this problem, to help you find freelancers that I can trust, that I've trained up, so I know that they're going to do a good job for you and at an affordable rate for you. So you could come to me by the Wedding Pro Agency and I will set you up with a freelancer, one of my team to work with you. The third option is to just go out there and find someone for yourself.

So you could advertise on your local Facebook pages, local Facebook groups, and just say that I'm looking for someone approximately this many hours a week on a freelance basis. If you're interested, apply directly. Now, of course, this comes with its own hurdles because you're then going to have to do a full interview process, find the right person, work out all the contracts, et cetera. So it's not necessarily the.

Easiest option, but it can be the most flexible because you get more autonomy over who you get and what you want them to do. So there's three main options. Ask other people come to me at the wedding pro agency or an alternative agency or thirdly go out and find someone for yourself. Now, it's really important to understand the limitations when we're talking about freelancers, because sometimes I think people think if I hire a freelancer, I'm hiring someone to work for me.

And that's not strictly true. You have to be really careful that you're not acting in a way that's not ethical and perhaps trying to do something called cloaked employment, which is where you're trying to employ someone as a freelancer just so that you don't have to do all the things like sort out the maternity leave and pay tax and all of the things you'd have to do if you're an employee or if you had an employee.

So if you are going to use a freelancer, it's really important that you are not expecting them to be an employee. So if you're to hire a freelancer, for example, they can choose their hours. They are self employed themselves. So you couldn't say to someone, you need to work for me every Wednesday between nine and 11 a. m. because that's an employment contract. The other thing is they need to be flexible where they work from a freelancer is their business, they can work from where they want to.

So again, it's working from their own home, their own bedroom, in their own hours. So you could say to them, for example, you know, I'd love you to work approximately four hours a week for me, but then it's up to them when those four hours are. So you can't expect them to be available at your beck and call. The other thing is with a freelancer, they don't have to work with you exclusively. Again, it's their own business. They are self employed freelancing for you.

So therefore they may have multiple clients that they're working for, as well as you, and you can't stop them doing that. It would be unfair because they're a freelancer, not an employee. If all of these things feel like, Oh, that's a lot of rules. And that's not why I want to stick to, then perhaps it's an employee you need to look at rather than a freelancer, but that's a whole nother. ball game. So at this point in this episode, all I'm talking about is freelancers.

So the kind of contract you would have with a freelancer is you'd say, right, I'm going to take you on to do my social media as a freelancer. It's going to be four hours a month at this amount of money. hour. And as long as it gets done at the end of the month, then I'm happy whenever you work and wherever you work. And they then invoice you at the end of the month for the hours worked. Or if you come through the agency, I would invoice you for the hours worked. And then that's it. You pay that.

And then they, as a freelancer are responsible for their tax and declaring their income because they are self employed as their own business as a freelance contractor. So that's what you need to understand if you are going to take on a freelancer, you do need to be clear on these things. So you've decided you want to find someone, maybe you've put an advert out, maybe you've come to me at the agency, what are we looking for when it comes to hiring a freelancer?

Now I've put a few things down on a list here and they may not be the things you expect. Because in my experience from working with a number of freelancers and some amazing people over the last four or five years, is it's not all about past experience, although that can sometimes help. For me, it's much more important that they are easygoing, that I get on with them, that there's no friction there, that they're not difficult to work with.

And I think you can get that impression from someone quite early on. Another thing that's really important to me is that they're a self starter. The whole reason I want to have freelancers working for me is because I don't have time to do everything. And so if they have to come and ask me before they do every task, that's not actually saving me that much time. So I'm always looking for people that can just get on with it, who are.

Take what I say to them and run with it and can bring in their own creativity and ideas into that as well. I'm also always looking for a good communicator. I want someone who replies to my emails or messages fairly quickly, doesn't just go off grid, is willing to tell me if there's been a problem or if they're not feeling very well, or they're going to be delayed, or they're going on holiday.

All of those things I really rate because it's much more important that you have good communication with your freelancer and they're honest with you rather than someone that just disappears off the face of the earth. And again, you can tell that beforehand how quickly they respond to any emails or messages you talk about when you're talking about maybe giving them an interview or asking for pricing, that kind of thing. So look at how well they communicate with you.

And then I do want someone savvy. Now, tech savvy comes in all sorts of different forms and it is going to depend on what tasks you want them to complete for you. But for me, I don't need them to know everything. I just need them to have an idea. So for example, I don't necessarily need a freelancer who is totally. trained in Instagram and Facebook, but I do want someone who uses the platforms, understands the platforms, knows how to navigate them, knows how they work as a consumer.

Now, why am I saying that? Well, for me, I've got the ability to train them in the areas and train them in the way that I want them to do things. So as long as they've got a good understanding of Instagram I can then train them on how I want them to post for me as vicinity weddings, or for me as part of the agency, I can talk to them about the hashtags. I can talk to them about the scheduling and I can teach them all those things.

They don't necessarily need to know that before they start the role, but they do need to be easygoing, easy to get on with good communicator and have a bit of tech savvy about them as well. So I recommend looking for similar kinds of things. Don't base it all just on employment they've had before. I think the culture and the personality of the person is the most important thing.

If they're willing to learn and willing to be creative and passionate about what you do, then they're going to be a great fit for the team. So once you've found the right person, the next thing you really need to think about is the tasks that you want them. to do. Now, I believe this is an exercise in itself for you to do before you go ahead and take someone on is to work out what on earth are they going to be doing? How can they help you on a regular basis and alleviate things from your plate?

Now, one thing before I go into the list of tasks they could be helping you with, one thing you need to think about is this, just because you can do a doesn't mean you should. Sometimes we think we can hire freelancers for things that we don't know how to do. So for example, we might hire someone to do our SEO because we just can't get our heads around it. But things like social posting or sending emails or replying to inquiries, well, that's easy for us. We can do that.

So why would we hire someone else to do that? Well, actually, just because you can do it doesn't mean it's a good use of your time.

So I want to flip that round and say, Actually, in your business, you would be better off speaking with clients or going live on Instagram or going out for client meetings or meeting with venues to try and be recognized rather than being behind a computer and doing administrative tasks like uploading posts to social media or perhaps sending email inquiries back to people who've inquired via a directory. That is a task that somebody else could definitely do for you.

So the kind of tasks I want you to identify that could be done by a freelancer, first of all, are repetitive tasks. Anything in your business that is repetitive and happens regularly is a great thing to get a freelancer to do because you can just teach them how to do the process once and then they can get on. and go ahead and do it. For example, in my business, obviously I have my podcast and I have a freelancer who edits the podcast.

It's a repetitive task because the podcast comes out every Thursday. I upload it, they get it from their Google drive, they edit it, they put it back in the Google drive and then he sends it to me and he is phenomenal and amazing and it saves me time. It gives him work and All is well. Now, if I was only to do a podcast once a year, then that wouldn't be a repetitive task. But because it's happening every week, it's a great thing to get a freelancer involved and doing.

Perhaps you're getting lots of inquiries into your inbox via a directory every week. That's a repetitive task where you're having to go through them and chase them up and email them. Or perhaps that's something a freelancer could do for you. Or as we said, social media posting, social media posting is one of the easiest things I think to outsource to a freelancer because it does take a lot of time and it allows you to be visible constantly.

Which shows that you're open and available to couples, even when you're in the depths of wedding season, because they can see your social media, they can see things going out. Therefore they make the assumption that that's you posting it and you're available and out there and ready to talk to them. So social media posting can be a really good thing. Now I am going to caveat this because I actually think social media posting is a good thing to outsource and by that I mean posting on the grid.

In the agency, we will take on your Facebook posts, your Instagram posts for your grid will post you five times a week using your content, using your messaging, using your calls to action. But we also recommend that you are still there on the account, doing things like stories behind the scenes while you're at events, showing yourself, bringing some personality into your account and also Instagram reels as well.

So. That doesn't mean that you can't outsource half of it and keep the other half either. So consider outsourcing the grid posting part of your social media, but keep hold of that personality injection of the stories and the reels as well. Have a look through your tasks at anything that's not customer facing.

Start with everything that's customer facing probably needs to fall to you because there will be some things that you can do and should do better than someone else in your business at this stage. So have a look through your task list, write down everything that you do on a weekly and monthly basis and look at the things that are not customer facing that perhaps someone could do for you.

For example, drawing up contracts or inputting data into a piece of software or sending out a weekly email newsletter, anything like that. There's not customer facing that's that could be done by someone that's not you is the perfect thing to outsource to a freelancer. And then the other thing that you should consider aside from all your daily work tasks is actually you can get a freelancer to do other things in your life that are not business related. So, for example, what about.

Hiring a cleaner. I've talked on this podcast before about how having a cleaner has been one of the best things for me in my work and my business, because it would have taken me a whole day to clean my house as well as she does it in a couple of hours and I can continue doing my work tasks while she does what she's really great at and sorts out my house and everyone's happy for it. She's happy because she's got a new client and she's earning money.

I'm happy because I can get my work done and be productive and me and the family are happy because our home feels clean and. So, there's other areas of your life that you could hire a freelancer for, such as that, perhaps it's for you, it's ironing or laundry, perhaps it's childcare you need a little bit of help with.

Sometimes we think all freelance things need to be admin tasks in our business, but actually if we're super busy and overwhelmed, we can outsource other things and there's absolutely no judgment for that. The other thing that you can hire a freelancer for, which is slightly different, is for a one off project. Again, this is something we do at the Wedding Pro Agency.

So for example, if you've got a wedding show coming up and you want to set up a form that people can fill in on the iPad, you want it to automate with maybe three or four email replies that go out to people after the wedding show. And you know you want to do that, but you just don't have the time to go ahead and sit down and write all that up. Well, that's the sort of thing you could outsource as a one off project. So you could come to me. the agency. Explain that to me.

I would give you a price, approximately 150 for something like that. And then you would send me the details. We would do the work for you. And while you're busy doing something else, Hey, Presto, it's built for you. You now have that ready to go to use the show to make sure your response times are really fast because they're getting auto followups. And you can now just relax and enjoy being at the show and chatting to people.

So if you do have one off projects like that, like updating things on your website, maybe it's a blog post once a month that you need to help with, then you can also hire a freelancer or a freelancer via our agency to do those kind of one off tasks for you. So it doesn't necessarily have to be something that happens. every week and it doesn't necessarily have to be a long term commitment. Okay, so now we've decided we need the freelancer. We know what we're looking for.

We found the right person. We've identified the tasks. How can we get the most out of that person? How can we make sure this relationship really works and how can we make sure this Business relationship is benefiting you, the business and the freelancer. Well, the first thing is that you need to try and train them in those tasks well so that they don't need constant input. So have a look at that task list of things you think, yeah, these are repetitive tasks.

So for example, writing a blog post, train them in how you would do that. Show them the system. Show them practically how you would do it, how you would upload it, how you would write it, if you want them to write it, how you would source images for it, if you want them to source images for it. Demonstrate it to them once, then give them the task. Explain to them you need a blog post written once a month. It needs to go out on the first Saturday of the month.

It needs to be approximately this many words. Here's a list of topic ideas and let them run with it. Yeah, you might want to check them the first couple of times they do it. Yes, you might want to check them every time, but you need to just. Give people a really clear instruction and then let them run with it. The second way you're really going to benefit is finding really streamlined systems.

So this is something I've learned over my years of having freelancers is the more streamlined the system is, the better it's going to work. So for example, I've got lots of Google sheets, Google documents, Google drives with things that help me and my freelancers communicate with each other. So for example, one task that I have on my list of things for freelancers to do is to add new. people, new suppliers onto vicinity weddings.

So if someone applies to be on vicinity weddings, now they fill out an application form, the application form auto populates into a Google sheet that I can see, and my freelancer can see. When I go into that Google sheet and look at the applications, I still want to decide who makes it onto the site and who doesn't, I want to keep standards high. So I go through that list and I either color code everyone on that sheet. Green or I send them red. Green means yes, put them on the website.

Red means no, unfortunately not. Now at any point, my freelancer can go into that sheet in her own time and she can see the ones that I've made green and then she can do her part of the tasks, which is taking that information out of the sheet, putting it into vicinity weddings website, and then she comes back into the Google sheet, marks it blue so that we know it's done. Now that might sound long winded and complicated, but actually it's a really simple way.

That I've communicated so that we can both just get on with our tasks as and when we get time to do them without having to constantly message each other back and forward. And I don't have to say to her, Oh, have you done this? Have you done that? Cause I can go into the sheet and I can see whether it's done or not.

So if you set up systems for the tasks that you want people to do, for example, like I talked about the podcast, if you have templates that you want them to send out to inquiries, have them saved on a Google drive somewhere or a Google doc somewhere where they can.

contact them or set up a Google sheet where they can input customers and explain how many times they followed up on that customer for so that you can go into that sheet at any time and see where they're at, what they've done and what's going on. And they can be autonomous and get on with their work in their own time. So streamlined systems really, really do help for our social media management that we do at the wedding pro agency. Each client.

So each of you that comes on board with us, we set you up a Google drive. We explained to you how to use it. You put all of your content, your branding, everything into that. My freelancers can then access that and they can pull from that to create the content for you, which then goes out on social media. So you're not having to tell them every single post you want written. You're not having to tell them what you want to see all of the time on your social media.

Yes, of course you can have input, but also the whole point is to free up your time. So instead you can just let them take the information from you and get on with it and then just give feedback as and when you need to. The third thing to get the most out of your freelancer is to give autonomy. I think it's really important, especially because they're freelance, but also just to respect them as an individual, that you don't try and micromanage them.

I know it's difficult because we know our businesses inside out and they are our babies and we want to protect them. But sometimes we have to let go and realize other people will be able to do the tasks the same as us or better than us. Sometimes, and that's okay. And we need to just lean into that because we can't do all of the things all of the time. For example, I know I can write really great blog posts.

I wrote some really great blog posts in the early days of vicinity weddings, but I just don't have the time to do that twice a week anymore. And so I outsource that to somebody else. That doesn't mean that I can't do that, or I'm not good enough to do that. It just means I have. My priorities in other places and there's other things in the business that I should be doing and I can just allow someone else to do that. And again, I give them autonomy.

I let them get on with it and then I just go in and have a look from time to time. And the more that you go on, the more you trust them, then you don't need to keep looking at all of the stuff. And the business machine is wearing all of this great stuff is happening and it's freeing you up to do other things and bring more money into the business and service your clients better. So do give them autonomy. You don't want to be contacting them.

all of the time expecting them to reply to you straight away like an employee. If that's what you want, you need to employ someone rather than use a freelancer. The next thing that I suggest is really think about how often you're giving them work and have realistic expectations for your freelancer, especially when they're starting out.

If you've been running your social media for six months and you get the occasional Instagram message, if you suddenly get a freelancer to take over your social media. to ease up your time. It doesn't mean you're suddenly going to go get like a thousand more inquiries into your business. They're just taking the task that you were doing off of your hands and continuing it on in the right fashion. So don't expect miracles from your freelancer. They're not there to sell for you. That's your job.

They're there to take some tasks off of your hands. And also have realistic expectations about how much they can do in the time that you have them for. So if you've said to them, it'll be approximately four hours a month. Be realistic about what they can achieve in four hours a month, because it's not that easy for them to just pick up and do everything in the short time. And they're not expected to work outside of those hours. Otherwise you need to compensate them for it.

So be realistic, set targets. So for example, I will say to my freelancers. This is the task I need you to do. I expect it should take you approximately this many hours to do that task each week. If you find that you're going over that by a long way, reach out to me, let's chat, let's find out why. But really, I should think you should be able to do it in that time or under. And they almost always do. So set expectations, tell them what you expect, but be realistic with those expectations.

And the final thing, which is really important for anyone, really, especially freelancers working for you, is to give them positive feedback. We're giving them the autonomy, we're letting them go, and if you're anything like me, the better job they're doing, the less you speak to them, which is really good because we're so busy.

Actually, they can then start to worry they're not doing a good job, and we can find that we're only ever reaching out to them to tell them when something's gone wrong, because obviously, when there's a typo or a missing link or something like that, you may have to reach out and say, Hey, I've just noticed this. Can you change it for me? Which they'll be happy to do. But then it feels like we're only ever contacting them with negative things.

And actually we want to encourage them because if they're good, we want them to stay working with us as our freelancer for a long time. Some of my freelancers have been working with me for the last few years and it's really important. to remain positive. Give them that positive feedback. I'm trying to get into the habit of when my freelancers invoice me for that month's work. When I reply to say it's been paid to just say something like thank you for your great work this month.

The posts you've done are amazing. Thank you for all you continue to do. It's been another amazing month to remind them of how great they are and that I'm so pleased that they're doing that work for me. So if you do have someone doing tasks for you. Don't just speak to them with negative things. Try and remember to give them lots of positive feedback and treat them every now and again as well.

Sometimes I will do that for my freelancers, buy them a little Christmas gift or take them out for lunch, do something nice that they're not expecting just because I'm thankful for all of the amazing work they've done for me in the business. So I don't know how you're feeling now having listened to that. Maybe you're thinking, wow, having a freelancer sounds like it would change my life. Or maybe you're thinking this sounds great, but I can't afford it yet. And I totally get that.

But again, you need to look at the business income. If you are busy with customers, you must have income coming in. So you need to look at where that's being spent, and sometimes you have to speculate to accumulate. So by paying someone a couple of hundred pounds a month to do some tasks for you, you may have the time to be creative and to network and to get out there and bring in more business. That's worth way more than that per month. It's not the freelancer's job to do that for you.

It's your job. The freelancer is freeing you up. order to give you that space. If after this, you're thinking, yeah, this sounds amazing. I definitely need a freelancer in my life. And you're thinking about working with us at the Wedding Pro Agency, then I would absolutely love to chat with you. The Wedding Pro Agency was founded earlier this year, and it came out of the fact that I have been working with these amazing freelancers for the last few years.

And lots of people saying to me, I wish I had a freelancer like you do, but I don't know where to find them. I don't have time to train them, all of that stuff, or they're really, really expensive because they're super experts in their field. And so I realized, well, maybe I can do something to bridge the gap. Maybe I can link you up as wedding business owners who don't have loads of time with freelancers, people who are working for me in my team that I have trained up.

So you don't have to, I have all the systems in place so you don't have to get them going so that they can. work for you via me and you know that you can trust it. You know, you can speak to me if things aren't working out and also it keeps it at a lower cost. I've set up the Wedding Pro Agency as what I like to call a social enterprise. So I'm trying to give work to people who struggle to get work in the real world.

So for example, people who are stay at home mums, or single parents, or people with disabilities, or people who are trying to get... Back into the job market or students who can't necessarily get a full time job, but need extra hours, need extra income. And I take them on, I train them up, I give them the skills so that they can then go out and build their own business if they want to. And they can go and get their own clients if they want to. And they can work as part of my team.

I'll give them a reference if they go for a job and it gives them an opportunity. And it also allows me to match you up with great people at a lower cost rate than it would be to go out there and get some super experts to do it. And it frees up your time because I'm training them as well. And you can feel good about it because not only are you getting some free time back, you're also giving work to someone that's struggling to get those hours. And so that's a really great thing as well.

So that's the wedding pro agency. If you'd like to work with us, I would love to chat. with you more about it. You can go and find us. The link is in the show notes, weddingproagency. co. uk or reach out to me at Becca Pountney. We do have a couple of spaces available from September, but not many.

So if you are interested in us managing your social media, helping you with one off tasks, managing your email list, sending emails on your behalf, or any of the things we talked about in this episode, and you sound, it sounds like the wedding pro agency is the right way for you to go, do reach out to me. I would love, love. love to chat with you and hopefully give you some time back. I hope you found this episode all about using freelancers helpful. I'd love to know what you thought about it.

So do let me know. And if you are a long time listener of this show and you haven't yet left a review, it would mean the world to me if you would leave me a review and let me know what you think of the show because it helps other people find the show and that helps them build their wedding businesses too. I'll see you next time.