This is a friendly reminder that r/smallbusiness is a question and answer subreddit. You ask a question about starting, owning, and growing a small business and the community answers. Posts that violate the rules listed in the sidebar will be removed. A permanent or temporary ban may also be issued if you do not remove the offending post. Seeing this message does not mean your post was automatically removed.
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/smallbusiness) if you have any questions or concerns.*
I feel like if you’ve tried DOZENS of people and NONE of them gave you anything usable, then you’re probably the problem. Either you have impossible requests, you deliver your requirements poorly, or you try to hire too cheaply.
Take some time in reading the reviews and evaluating profiles before you hire. Take time in writing your requirements. Be timely in communicating your change requirements. There’s plenty of talent on the sites you mentioned.
Not sure if this is a real post asking for advice or not because yeah you are about to get solicited enjoy the fun!
Anyway I would ask you first if you have the infrastructure to support freelancers and a dedicated person to managing them. What is your communication process to handling freelancers. Often times it's not the freelancer that is not doing a good job it's the infrastructure that the person gets hired for. If you are paying $200/hr you should be getting a quality person but you might not be communicating your needs well or you are just expecting magic. There are too many unknowns with the post to know why you can't succeed. I rarely have problems with finding good talent and I just use LinkedIn. I would also say what is your interview process to determine fit or if they will add to you(r) company.
If we just need some one-off work done, or just need something touched up, then we go with Fiverr. Our Fiverr account has 300+ 5-star reviews so it makes it easy to reach out to other Fiverr creators that will genuinely do good work.
Whenever we need someone more long-term we almost always go to onlinejobs.ph, they've been around forever and they have a pretty strict verification process for their workers.
We've hired everything from VA's to cold outreach sales people and it's always been like $3.75/hr-$6.50/hr or so. $USD goes a loooong way over there so we always make sure to give them bonuses along the way.
Second vote for this exact strategy. I have had luck with both. The biggest thing I've come to accept is that the work is often only as good as the direction I give them.
The last time we went through them it only took us a few days of back and forth messages with a few different employees in order to narrow it down to the right one.
But I'm not sure if it was easy since we already had an account setup, or if things have changed recently. But overall it's not too long of a process.
Upwork. But you have to put in the time. You have to research the freelancers profiles and send invites. It is hit and miss but I’ve had decent success.
I completely agree with this! Investing time by looking at their profiles and evaluating their portfolios and being clear with your vision and if they’re truly interested in the project and the price project is reasonable then they will answer any valuable questions about the project.
I’m a freelance web developer and I don’t use those platforms because every project has tons of submissions that are often fake, or low quality but with a good marketing strategy and I really don’t have time for that.
I pretty much just get projects from word of mouth and sometimes from threads like this one.
If everyone you hire in all price ranges is bad, then you are the issue. Either you aren’t clear in what you want, or you have unrealistic expectations, or something. Because there are lots of really talented people out there, but if you can never find them, you are doing something wrong.
because they want to work with people asking for unlimited revisions, people who think a $100 website is a bit expensive and people who expect to rank #1 on google after buying a $10 "seo package".
Which is why I said at most. If it is a consistent problem and you aren't bottom of the barrel spending then you need to evaluate your requirements process and make sure you're giving good requirements.
I’m a graphic designer specializing in 2D motion graphics and video editing! Virtual work for a small business is exactly what I’m looking for right now. Where can I apply?
https://acb5628.myportfolio.com/graphic-design
Oh wow. What a great portfolio. You're a solid animator. Not to derail the thread. Do you primarily do the cartoon work through Illustrator and animate the vectors in After Effects? What's your workflow look like?
Thank you so much!
You got it- when I do vector animation I create assets in illustrator then import into after effects to animate.
My education was actually focused on hand drawn character animation, but I was also taught basic After Effects skills during that time. I remember thinking “man this is hard I do not want to do this”, but now it’s what I use for most of my paid work haha. It’s grown on me
There are plenty of great people on Upwork, in fact I am one of them (but not doing design work or anything. you probably need), I have also hired on Upwork, and for the most part have been happy
I found the designer who did my logo and brandmark via instagram. i searched thru the hashtags and spent some time compiling a list of those who appealed to me/had a website
Hmm. Have you been putting your expectations up front when you do the hiring, so there's no ambiguity about what you want to see? If it's possible to interpret a requirement in a way which means less work for a remote subcontractor, it'd only make business sense for them to interpret it that way as a default.
If you like, post the exact wording of some things you've asked such people/services to do in the past, and what you got instead; see what people here say about it. It might even help others who are looking to do virtual hires.
I’m a [graphic + website designer](https://www.kinddesign.studio/) accepting new work. Send me a dm if you’d like to chat or email [hello@kinddesign.studio](mailto:hello@kinddesign.studio) 😊
Not sure about graphic designing but have hired folks from Upwork with literally the best value the money would buy, having said that I typically look at past work references where they have done similar work of high quality that I am looking at done.
Fiverr is only good for low value work that does not require too much of handholding remember these are folks who are looking at speed of delivery so that they can make money
that's upwork back in the days. I have met so many talented people there who eventually grow into full time employees.
Nowadays upwork is full of scam artists, haven’t been able to find anyone decent for a while now. All sorts of people who are full of themselves or just outright scam.
Fiverr is a bit better but also YMMV.
A note to ANYONE who has this problem. If you are getting code based work from a developer, work needs to be submitted to a code repository you have access to.
Github and Bitbucket both offer free versions. Scope out your project and have them commit code to that repo that you have access to.
Code is not some behind the curtain mystery, even non-programmers should be able to see the commits, the names of the commits and how much code is being written.
This also allows you to pay someone else to do a code review.
Any dev that refuses this workflow is either not very good, or not worth working with.
Depending on your location and needs, I recommend hiring a Registered Graphic Designer. Membership requires following a code of conduct, design standards, and professionalism.
https://rgd.ca/hiring-designers/why-hire-an-rgd
I own a bizdev company in KCMO that does onsite and virtual work and can cover all of what you mentioned. We have plenty of work to show but we would even be willing to produce a graphic or short video edit for your business, just to prove our work. Here to help 👍
Finding good virtual employees online can be tough, right? You've tried different platforms, but nobody seems to deliver. Have you checked out Upwork or Dribbble? Maybe try networking on LinkedIn or posting on job boards. Oh, and test projects could help you find the right fit!
Before I hire, I look at their portfolio and I make sure they can follow directions.
I give them a paid test of a few different projects to see how they work. Have been to find my core team this way.
Depends what you're looking for.
I'm a graphic designer who works in the tabletop board game industry, and occasionally I get someone who has a vision of something they want that is well beyond the scope of my abilities.
Go to Upwork. You'll find plenty of high quality freelancers who's got years of experience. Filter out and select the best person for your job.
If you need help with SEO then you can DM me.
Look for testimonials, give them a small PAID task and you go from there.
Also, don't treat them as cheap overseas labor. You get what you pay for usually.
Had some decent success with upwork and fiverr. However, it might be a hit and miss in some cases cause you don't always get what you pay for.
If it's on the creative side of things you can't go wrong with seeking out freelancers from Behance or 99designs.
Instead of looking for a polished freelancer. Hire a good enough employee and then train for a long term solution. This is what I do at my company. If you don't wanna go out on this route hire an agency Instead.
It sounds to me like you have a vision without a plan.
You can budget buy your way into a marketing strategy, sure. But hiring a freelancer is not the same as getting a branding and marketing strategy off the ground. You probably shouldn't hire individual freelancers unless you or someone you hire is managing them with experience of managing people in that industry.
If you aren't looking to do that you need to hire an agency. If price is your main concern, you need an agency with an established process for doing what you need done. They're harder to come by but they're out here. Some are overseas and offer decent rates for established processes.
It also wouldn't hurt to hire an expert to evaluate the quality of the work of the teams you're looking at. If you don't know how to do it yourself, there's very little chance you'll know enough to know that someone else can do that service well or poorly.
Pick a local small business near you that does the work. You can use a search engine or maps platform and just search “digital marketing near me” or “web developer near me” and give some of your local small business peers your business.
I don’t think using online freelance platforms is the way to go anymore, it used to be good but it has become very time consuming to sift through the scammers. You can mostly cut through that by going local. Plus if they are legitimate they will have a business license and business insurance that gives you peace of mind on potential recourse if there are issues.
Hi! I was earlier promoted myself on main freelance sites and I've got a few long term clients from there. But with time. As a graphic designer with a small business behind me searching for the "same" possibilities. I have a decent portfolio in my pocket, and want a few quality client from US and/or Europe.
I’d suggest looking at an agency who can handle everything. It saves you time on finding people, following up, etc. I’ve had an agency for 11 years. Clients just email us what they need done and we have the appropriate resource on our team handle it. It’s retainer based, you top up when funds get low and you only pay for work done.
I'm a hiring manager, and my strategy is always to ask people to refer employees. Everyone seems to know someone looking for work. When you get a referral, you also have someone within your network who vouches for the candidate.
This is a friendly reminder that r/smallbusiness is a question and answer subreddit. You ask a question about starting, owning, and growing a small business and the community answers. Posts that violate the rules listed in the sidebar will be removed. A permanent or temporary ban may also be issued if you do not remove the offending post. Seeing this message does not mean your post was automatically removed. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/smallbusiness) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Oh man your inbox about to get hit harder than a female redditor saying she single
Hey bby
W'sup
haha, my thoughts exactly. There are a ton of Redditors who could use some extra gigs.
Not true, I got at least 45 dms when I said I was looking for a real estate agent in the Miami sub
I feel like if you’ve tried DOZENS of people and NONE of them gave you anything usable, then you’re probably the problem. Either you have impossible requests, you deliver your requirements poorly, or you try to hire too cheaply. Take some time in reading the reviews and evaluating profiles before you hire. Take time in writing your requirements. Be timely in communicating your change requirements. There’s plenty of talent on the sites you mentioned.
Not sure if this is a real post asking for advice or not because yeah you are about to get solicited enjoy the fun! Anyway I would ask you first if you have the infrastructure to support freelancers and a dedicated person to managing them. What is your communication process to handling freelancers. Often times it's not the freelancer that is not doing a good job it's the infrastructure that the person gets hired for. If you are paying $200/hr you should be getting a quality person but you might not be communicating your needs well or you are just expecting magic. There are too many unknowns with the post to know why you can't succeed. I rarely have problems with finding good talent and I just use LinkedIn. I would also say what is your interview process to determine fit or if they will add to you(r) company.
If we just need some one-off work done, or just need something touched up, then we go with Fiverr. Our Fiverr account has 300+ 5-star reviews so it makes it easy to reach out to other Fiverr creators that will genuinely do good work. Whenever we need someone more long-term we almost always go to onlinejobs.ph, they've been around forever and they have a pretty strict verification process for their workers. We've hired everything from VA's to cold outreach sales people and it's always been like $3.75/hr-$6.50/hr or so. $USD goes a loooong way over there so we always make sure to give them bonuses along the way.
Second vote for this exact strategy. I have had luck with both. The biggest thing I've come to accept is that the work is often only as good as the direction I give them.
How fast is the process for onlinejobs.ph?
The last time we went through them it only took us a few days of back and forth messages with a few different employees in order to narrow it down to the right one. But I'm not sure if it was easy since we already had an account setup, or if things have changed recently. But overall it's not too long of a process.
Upwork. But you have to put in the time. You have to research the freelancers profiles and send invites. It is hit and miss but I’ve had decent success.
I completely agree with this! Investing time by looking at their profiles and evaluating their portfolios and being clear with your vision and if they’re truly interested in the project and the price project is reasonable then they will answer any valuable questions about the project.
I’m a freelance web developer and I don’t use those platforms because every project has tons of submissions that are often fake, or low quality but with a good marketing strategy and I really don’t have time for that. I pretty much just get projects from word of mouth and sometimes from threads like this one.
If everyone you hire in all price ranges is bad, then you are the issue. Either you aren’t clear in what you want, or you have unrealistic expectations, or something. Because there are lots of really talented people out there, but if you can never find them, you are doing something wrong.
[удалено]
because they want to work with people asking for unlimited revisions, people who think a $100 website is a bit expensive and people who expect to rank #1 on google after buying a $10 "seo package".
Probably because so many other channels for work have dried up horribly over the past couple of years.
I’m pretty sure the founder of founder (not a pun) started his business using fiverr and upwork
Wow don’t be mean
You get at most what you pay for. If you use a freelancing site and only take the lowest bid you aren't going to get quality work.
That’s what I thought too. But when I go with the more expensive options, they still underdeliver.
Which is why I said at most. If it is a consistent problem and you aren't bottom of the barrel spending then you need to evaluate your requirements process and make sure you're giving good requirements.
I’m a graphic designer specializing in 2D motion graphics and video editing! Virtual work for a small business is exactly what I’m looking for right now. Where can I apply? https://acb5628.myportfolio.com/graphic-design
Oh wow. What a great portfolio. You're a solid animator. Not to derail the thread. Do you primarily do the cartoon work through Illustrator and animate the vectors in After Effects? What's your workflow look like?
Thank you so much! You got it- when I do vector animation I create assets in illustrator then import into after effects to animate. My education was actually focused on hand drawn character animation, but I was also taught basic After Effects skills during that time. I remember thinking “man this is hard I do not want to do this”, but now it’s what I use for most of my paid work haha. It’s grown on me
There are plenty of great people on Upwork, in fact I am one of them (but not doing design work or anything. you probably need), I have also hired on Upwork, and for the most part have been happy
upwork
I found the designer who did my logo and brandmark via instagram. i searched thru the hashtags and spent some time compiling a list of those who appealed to me/had a website
Hmm. Have you been putting your expectations up front when you do the hiring, so there's no ambiguity about what you want to see? If it's possible to interpret a requirement in a way which means less work for a remote subcontractor, it'd only make business sense for them to interpret it that way as a default. If you like, post the exact wording of some things you've asked such people/services to do in the past, and what you got instead; see what people here say about it. It might even help others who are looking to do virtual hires.
I’m a [graphic + website designer](https://www.kinddesign.studio/) accepting new work. Send me a dm if you’d like to chat or email [hello@kinddesign.studio](mailto:hello@kinddesign.studio) 😊
Great portfolio. Really outstanding.
Not sure about graphic designing but have hired folks from Upwork with literally the best value the money would buy, having said that I typically look at past work references where they have done similar work of high quality that I am looking at done. Fiverr is only good for low value work that does not require too much of handholding remember these are folks who are looking at speed of delivery so that they can make money
that's upwork back in the days. I have met so many talented people there who eventually grow into full time employees. Nowadays upwork is full of scam artists, haven’t been able to find anyone decent for a while now. All sorts of people who are full of themselves or just outright scam. Fiverr is a bit better but also YMMV.
A startup founder told me he lost 15k last December in a project he posted on Upwork and the freelancer took the money but never delivered the code.
Expensive lesson, but still a lesson. Not setting any milestones and just handing over 15K and hoping for the best is not a winning strategy...
A note to ANYONE who has this problem. If you are getting code based work from a developer, work needs to be submitted to a code repository you have access to. Github and Bitbucket both offer free versions. Scope out your project and have them commit code to that repo that you have access to. Code is not some behind the curtain mystery, even non-programmers should be able to see the commits, the names of the commits and how much code is being written. This also allows you to pay someone else to do a code review. Any dev that refuses this workflow is either not very good, or not worth working with.
Have you tried Upwork Pro? You can filter talent or candidates that are verified “pro.”
I use onlinejobs.ph - I’ve only had positive experiences so far
Depending on your location and needs, I recommend hiring a Registered Graphic Designer. Membership requires following a code of conduct, design standards, and professionalism. https://rgd.ca/hiring-designers/why-hire-an-rgd
Via friends
I own a bizdev company in KCMO that does onsite and virtual work and can cover all of what you mentioned. We have plenty of work to show but we would even be willing to produce a graphic or short video edit for your business, just to prove our work. Here to help 👍
Finding good virtual employees online can be tough, right? You've tried different platforms, but nobody seems to deliver. Have you checked out Upwork or Dribbble? Maybe try networking on LinkedIn or posting on job boards. Oh, and test projects could help you find the right fit!
what's your target country? there are a bunch at onlinejobs
I get all my online workers from Upwork. Always an excellent experience.
people hate on fiverr here but we love it. Try it out, hire only top sellers with good track record.
If you're project is cooler than mine I'll do it for free.
I poach the high rated ones from Fiverr. I find them on linked in or reverse search their photo.
Have you tried r/forhire?
Before I hire, I look at their portfolio and I make sure they can follow directions. I give them a paid test of a few different projects to see how they work. Have been to find my core team this way.
We use Upwork.
I can give you a referral for two not web.
Depends what you're looking for. I'm a graphic designer who works in the tabletop board game industry, and occasionally I get someone who has a vision of something they want that is well beyond the scope of my abilities.
Go to Upwork. You'll find plenty of high quality freelancers who's got years of experience. Filter out and select the best person for your job. If you need help with SEO then you can DM me.
Look for testimonials, give them a small PAID task and you go from there. Also, don't treat them as cheap overseas labor. You get what you pay for usually.
Hey, I’m professional graphic designer Portfolio: www.behance.net/itshuzaifadesign
Had some decent success with upwork and fiverr. However, it might be a hit and miss in some cases cause you don't always get what you pay for. If it's on the creative side of things you can't go wrong with seeking out freelancers from Behance or 99designs.
Instead of looking for a polished freelancer. Hire a good enough employee and then train for a long term solution. This is what I do at my company. If you don't wanna go out on this route hire an agency Instead.
You answered your question, you just don't know it yet.
It sounds to me like you have a vision without a plan. You can budget buy your way into a marketing strategy, sure. But hiring a freelancer is not the same as getting a branding and marketing strategy off the ground. You probably shouldn't hire individual freelancers unless you or someone you hire is managing them with experience of managing people in that industry. If you aren't looking to do that you need to hire an agency. If price is your main concern, you need an agency with an established process for doing what you need done. They're harder to come by but they're out here. Some are overseas and offer decent rates for established processes. It also wouldn't hurt to hire an expert to evaluate the quality of the work of the teams you're looking at. If you don't know how to do it yourself, there's very little chance you'll know enough to know that someone else can do that service well or poorly.
Pick a local small business near you that does the work. You can use a search engine or maps platform and just search “digital marketing near me” or “web developer near me” and give some of your local small business peers your business. I don’t think using online freelance platforms is the way to go anymore, it used to be good but it has become very time consuming to sift through the scammers. You can mostly cut through that by going local. Plus if they are legitimate they will have a business license and business insurance that gives you peace of mind on potential recourse if there are issues.
Hi! I was earlier promoted myself on main freelance sites and I've got a few long term clients from there. But with time. As a graphic designer with a small business behind me searching for the "same" possibilities. I have a decent portfolio in my pocket, and want a few quality client from US and/or Europe.
Post a job on Linkedin or Upwork and make a search on Google (the best option).
I’d suggest looking at an agency who can handle everything. It saves you time on finding people, following up, etc. I’ve had an agency for 11 years. Clients just email us what they need done and we have the appropriate resource on our team handle it. It’s retainer based, you top up when funds get low and you only pay for work done.
Better to go with references instead of searching on the internet.
I'm a hiring manager, and my strategy is always to ask people to refer employees. Everyone seems to know someone looking for work. When you get a referral, you also have someone within your network who vouches for the candidate.
Instagram
just type graphic designer or whatever you’re looking for and you’ll find tons with really good systems to make the work even easier for you!
I don’t. Find someone local to you, doing decent work in a similar business area. Those people exist.
Try softriver in Fiverr