Seth Godin on How to Deal With Freelancers

Seth Godin has an interesting take on how to deal with freelancers. He says that you should either give them “a clean sheet of paper” and let them go to work with very little supervision, or to define their project as completely as possible.

Using the first approach, you could get something wildly creative, but the risk is that you get something that’s completely off-base, too. Using the second approach you’re more likely to get something that you can use, but it takes a lot of work on your part to give the freelancer the direction he or she needs.

The worst-case is when the freelancer is put in a situation somewhere between the two. That is, he or she is not given much direction yet expected to produce something that pleases the client. This rarely happens because the client doesn’t really know what he wants until he sees what you’ve produced.

That’s why I always try to work with a client before taking on a project to define the project as much as possible. If we can do that upfront, then both of us will be happy when the project is complete.