 All right Cool, so let's get started. So since we have such a such a large group What what are our job roles here? We can even go one by one. There's only six of you. So What what how many of you are? the ones That are in charge of hiring the developers or hire hiring developers. Yes And okay How many of you that are hiring developers are developers? Okay, so it's a you know, that's an interesting that's its own dynamic Obviously, if you're if you already have expertise and you're hiring people with the same expertise or hopefully the same expertise Okay Just small business owners looking for somebody to help with their site. Yeah help with the project Okay, great. You're more the target than any of these other people But well, I'll try to tailor a few few bits to everyone Who haven't I touched what? What's your interest here? I'm an IT consultant Okay Can I ask which so I'm on a nonprofit board doing I didn't IT help with as well What can I ask what nonprofit? Okay, all right you Back you're a freelancer great. All right Well, you're gonna like this because big premise of this talk is that Most people aren't bad freelancers. They're just bad for your project or you really set them up poorly to be a good freelancer for you So let's start there. I I like to Talk about the the concept of an advocate an advocate for your project You you're not looking for someone to just help you with your website, right? You want someone who is ultimately going to help you achieve your goals? Right, you know, that's that's what we all want regardless of the role you're in that's what you're looking for so You need to think of think of it when you're looking for a freelancer You need to think of it as I'm looking for someone to help me. I'm not not I'm looking for I'm looking for contract hire That's not what I'm looking for here. I don't need just somebody to be a code monkey for me for a little I don't need somebody to just help me with SEO things I need somebody who actually cares a little bit about my project Obviously the most the more buy-in you can get from the person you're looking for the better It's going to work for you in the long run Now, how do you get that buy-in because they don't all just love you and want to work on your projects, right? The number one way to not get the buy-in is Start here. Don't go have this thing. I need it done Maybe you you're not even you're just one that's been tasked with finding the person to get this work done You're it's your small businesses website. You're not actually Totally involved with the website. You haven't used it much before you're not you're not even that interested in it but your boss has asked you to find somebody to help build an event calendar for you or something like that well Starting off with starting off looking at it from the viewpoint of I just need to get this done I don't care how it's done. I just need to get it done because my boss says I need to get it done Terrible way to go about things even if you don't verbally You know indicate that to the the freelancer you're interviewing or Even if you don't indicate that to them They will feel it They will know it as you work through the project at some point it's gonna come up and you're just gonna be like I just need this done. All right. I don't care how you think the best way to get this done is I just I need it done. My boss needs it next week. We need it. We need the next Wednesday has to be done by that Bad way to start. Don't do that. Okay So be your own advocate is the main concept there All right, where to look who to trust what to have prepared for that person when you find them or persons All right, we're a look up for you Lance Google it. There's a million places Conferences good job. You're here all six of you Equations those who work at agencies or just work with WordPress develop focus businesses That's that's where they may not be the one, but they're probably going to know someone that could help you with your project Along that same line who should you trust with this first bullet points? family and friends don't don't it's not that you can't trust the recommendation It's that inevitably there's going to be a situation where your your husband's Best friend knows WordPress if he works on a project. It doesn't go well Well, now you have yourself a messy personal situation on top of that project That bad news for everybody, right? So let's just let's just mix that all together Again see professionals to find other professionals now when I say professionals I don't mean someone like myself that works at a agency Just someone that you know has done this well and it's done it for a while You don't necessarily know that 100% yourself, but you've got a good reason to believe that they are that professional again You're not hiring right away. This is just a starting point to maybe get in contact and find these people What's that prepared a lot of people Will show up again. I don't present anymore for when I did I would meet up with a potential client and They would say here's the link to my current website. We look at it they would verbalize a few things that they want done and Maybe even point to another site that has done something similar that they're looking for Not not at which not good not not again not a good starting point Last point here the prep statement of work rough draft So even if it's just bullet points on a piece of paper or you you know, hopefully you use the computer to write this list Some sort of bullet point of everything that you think you want executed with this project Don't just say I want an event calendar. Okay. What do you want the event calendar to do? Well, there's tons of event calendars out there. I just I want I want something that tracks my events in his own calendar They can click again. Not anyway, you're gonna need some details here You're gonna you're gonna need to say what type of events are they maybe they have maybe these events have Specific facets to them that you need to count for you don't want to throw that in in the ninth hour to your developer that you hired working on this project and And just expect them to do it because they probably didn't plan for it. It's gonna cause problems Okay questions pretty straightforward so far All right, the WordPress pro There are many flavors of a WordPress pro or knowing WordPress I don't know a lot of people say this. I've heard a couple people say that someone knows WordPress It kind of makes me laugh. So I Use it here All right, so you have a professional developer They obviously have another full-time job What what what that full-time job is doesn't matter to you. It's a separate thing all together They are typically going to be your highest cost They didn't do it in a while they feel pretty good about themselves whether you think they deserve it or not All right, so they're probably gonna cost you a bit More than likely they're also going to deliver the best work to you now What's missing from that again timeline? So if you needed in a month well again if you needed a month probably got problems anyway That's the fact start again, but they they have a lot of other priorities And you're not going to be number one ultimately for that Okay, the site builder This is somebody who can't do custom development for you. They're not they're not necessarily a coder They may moonlight a bit as a coder But if they're looking to use 20 plugins to solve your problem, there's not necessarily anything wrong with that I'm not bad-mouthed plugins no way not gonna do that at WordPress conference, but If that's what they're looking to do then just know that that is going to be a constraint on what they're doing for you So don't be shocked if at some point in the project They say they can't do something because the plugins they've recommended or are trying to use don't do those things So yeah, not a huge reply, but just be aware that that can become a thing Lower cost on developers. They're not doing all the custom development. They're they're doing research on plugins They're they're figuring out how to solve this problem for you. Really. There's just their solutions delivery person. It's what they're trying to do power user this is So a lot of you know, a lot of people are using premium things that have page builders of some sort, right? So I myself hate the paid builder solutions a lot of people love them a lot of people are amazing with them They're super good and they do really good things and I can't believe they did without a developer Those people are great. That's what you're working with. They're also going to be pretty low cost in reference All right full-stack freelancer, this is where now you're in the wild west Yeah, you don't know if they're a full-time freelancer and they've been doing it for 10 years And they're actually better than that professional developer at the top You don't know if they're in between jobs and they just need work again You might have a great opportunity there to get some really good work for some for some pretty low cost Or maybe they're just new. I mean, this is a fact of life in the WordPress space Beginners a lot of them start with some freelance projects. There's nothing wrong with that, but you just need to Have your expectations set or get that person as a beginner now You got to figure all this stuff out, right? They don't walk around with a sign on this as beginner, right? You have to figure these things out So again referral source and their previous work if they haven't matters a lot more for the full-stack freelancer than somebody working at an agency where you can kind of you You have an idea of what they've been working on and it's already It's more established again One is not better than the other, but you need to be aware of the constraints and things to look for All right Back to this be your own advocate what you should know and where you should learn it and When you should let others be the ones taking care of the job for you All right, I'm gonna go through this one very quickly. So what's the learn? You know, if you're making a new site and you've never used WordPress before Make one Play around if you know the content manager system a little bit at a minimum It's gonna be good to know that there are posts and there are media and you can use them in different ways and categories and tags So get to get to know the platform a little bit If you already have an existing site and you again back to the event calendar Maybe I mean it's not hard for you to go out there and look at event calendar. It already exists Maybe there's some demos you might like get to know some of the features that you're looking for and Or to give that to whoever you're looking to hire. I don't have some links in where you can do a little bit learning on your own Some of these sites will go Super deep. Some of them won't. The last link there is a way more lengthy lists of places to find WordPress developers Again, you can find WordPress developers Finding out if they're right for you and your project is the key. That's what I'm getting at here today All right, how much is too much? When are you trying to overdo it? When are you going too far? What are you coming dangerous to your own goals? If you didn't know WordPress, you know, you're trying to pace snippets of PHP code in places You've got people that's you're you're you're in a very dangerous place now Please please stop until you feel Like you've talked to just anyone else about how to do these sorts of things You don't have to hire them. They'll at least get a little bit get a little bit of support on that You can put three snippets in a okay, it's doing the stuff you want to do. All right, here we go It's good and then that fourth one put a white screen problems And you have no clue how to fix it because well the place I just put this code into I can't get to it anymore That's not the problem avoid that problem And also and I don't do this. I've done people before did you call me at 2 a.m. You did your sites down. There's a problem I'm not gonna be the most friendly with my rate if I especially land work with you before and I asked what the heck Did you do and you're like, I don't really know It's gonna it's gonna cost you it's gonna cost you a lot more than it would have to just hire somebody All right, so Preparing to talk to your freelancer or or many freelancers so pre interview process pre even thinking about an interview Actually is what this is the art of the scope All right, so Contractors knew your business you there and you cannot overload them unless you Structure all the information Or maybe just forward them on your emails that is definitely a bad overload But if you prepare as much information as you can about your project your your business goals for this project and Anything you might know about it technically Maybe it's nothing you need to go ask some people go ask the people that you need to ask Bring that with you have it prepared Having a good statement of work is going to save you just so so much trouble in the long run I mean we've got a few more talks here today about that same sort of stuff, right? So the statements first are they're the real lifesavers are going To just be so helpful. I I don't even I Could say that on repeat 30 minutes and be alright. I think they're not enough people to do this How many people have prepared a statement of work in this right? I get okay good. Do you think you made a good statement of work? Yeah, yeah All right. Yeah, how in depth was it? How many how many pages? Okay, so that sounds a little crazy to me. I'm no no offense meant at all. I mean, that's a lot of money To sign off on three or four pages. I'm getting at most you were talking high-level white I mean, I would get right. Yeah Did it end at three or four pages like was the science go through? No, that would be like the summary. Okay. All right Good news. All right. Good. Good. Good. Perfect. Awesome All right, so yes, great starting point then perfect Again, all that little things you can you can bring and have prepared Are going to help you a lot throughout the entire process not just the beginning and where you're trying to find the right developer Let's keep saying developer Contractor being it's not it may not be at all. All right. What to include a touch on this a little bit already So I mentioned I've worked on scopes in detail that is what color a bunch to be where the link should go It sounds stupid and simple But those are the sort of not only is that important so to make sure the developer delivers or the person delivers what you want It's also important. It also comes in immensely useful when you go I mean, you're you're basically writing out your test matrix right then you're writing out what what you're going to go Test before you pay these people for all the work. They did for you. It's again. It all starts with the statement part. All right Added benefit you find gaps that you didn't consider so you're working on the event counter and like the thing I brought up where so you say you need an event counter needs that you Put on your a yoga instructor and you need your yoga classes in there. Well I assume there's a many different types of yoga right So those classes need to have some sort of taxonomy attached to them to tell you what type of yoga class it is Okay. Well, you may have noted that your first pass through You should do that because when you're when you go to write the stuff where you say The type of class should be indicated here You you realize hey, I need to tell them that hey yoga classes that we're making the calendar for have types That they need to plan for So yeah, you have to do you have to think like a developer or the contractor a little bit in the situation. All right Thanks big. This is one of the things I can't advocate for any more than If you are engaging a new Contractor any time and a lot of contractors won't like this But if you are getting a new contractor, you should be working with it Now oftentimes fixed bid can actually cost you the business owner or the person hiring the contractor more money But I think more often than not it saves you a boatload of money It also saves you a boatload of stress because if you have detailed requirements and you say this is a $10,000 job they sign off on it and the Something comes up with Hosting or whatever they have to determine whether or not they really think it's worth Bringing that back to you and saying that it's an issue and they need more money Most nine times out of ten they're not going to ask for more money if they do You probably have yourself a bathroom answer there But again, we're gonna work with some stuff to avoid getting to that point and having that person to do that Um fixed bid do it. That's that's the end end. I'll be all here So I know that it should ensure product success and to a certain extent the quality of it and that's because again You had all those things laid out in your statement of work and they have to accomplish it for for that To get paid in the end they do accomplish all the things you laid out to get paid, right? It's if it was an hourly engagement. They may talk you into and you may be susceptible to saying all right we can do this after lunch or Suddenly there's this imaginary phase two that you never planned on existing that now exists with this project and also phase two Is what happens with a lot of these you Start playing out of phase two as you go through phase one and then nobody has the appetite phase two by the time it so Doing this right up front a full fixed bid is going to hopefully prevent that phase two When you're working with somebody where you're doing an hourly engagement. All right We'll make it a little more colorful here and gave them types of ranks fixed bid. You got a full statement of work In a fixed bid There does tend to be a little bit more of versus them situation with the contractor you're hiring So there they may not be quite as on board and really trying to achieve all the things you you want I'm going the extra mile of doing those little extra things for you if they're not paid hourly to do it So it's just it's just a fact of life. It's how humans work, right? So you do lose a little bit there with the fixed bid that you just should be aware of Now you've done a fixed bid with this developer or contractor You trust that they're doing a good job You like what they did previously you got another project about the same size that you're you're assuming is about the same Same size of them, but there's a lot more variables involved. It's getting messy. You're really not sure if you're going to deal with it Nailed down a scope you're both happy with Okay, go ahead and try out that hour Again, that's more than likely Going to lead to the higher costs because all of those little gadgets that make them up along the way It's just going to I mean they'll fix them for you, but they're going to cost time Okay Signature scribbled on and acting with the crayon still better than hourly with a new contractor. Don't I don't know why you do it. I don't even feel like I have to say it because most people Don't wouldn't do it. I mean has anyone in here hired Someone hourly that they didn't really know they hadn't worked with previously Okay, good So a large part of why this coffee is this is because And They're the ones that Start to get really upset about WordPress developers and getting burnt by these WordPress contractors I just I don't know. I think I'm done with it I think I just can't find anybody good to do any work for me I keep getting burnt is the word that always comes up Well, usually it's the situation their requirements got way out of hand and Nobody was happy. They missed deadlines. They didn't get delivered what they wanted the developers Contractor is frustrated as hell and just done with this client Bad news for everybody in a lot of cases. All right, so you found some people that you want to talk to Here's kind of a step-by-step Process things to ask things to go through so we'll touch on these so Present them your project. Keep it simple at first Don't overwhelm them immediately. I'm saying at first. This is all still the same All right, but let's start with something real quick I need an event calendar and I run this website. We need an event calendar for our classes Okay Ask him what they do Not again back to the back to the many flavors of knowing WordPress not all of them do what you maybe think they do They you know the fact of life for a freelancer when they're on a website like a And help work or something like that is they have put all these tags on their profile and skills to try and get noticed I'm some work that way. I guess others they actually did on the project, but They're looking for work. They're hungry for work. They want work. They may go outside of their expertise To try to get that job and that's not the greatest for you, right? You may you may think you're hiring an expert with jQuery to solve the problem with jQuery and it's And there isn't really not they're just really trying to land a job. I Mean you have to understand that because it's it's a fact of life when you're looking for contractors not all of them are true All right, so I just don't a few questions in here General things to ask of them just to get a little bit of a feeling of what You know, if they're just good in general not necessarily good for your project is gonna send me But hey, you use version control shot me number of people do not this is developer specific one, right? If they don't use version control you don't rule them out entirely, but you can pretty well rule them out I I think Are they how are they gonna solve this problem? So you've just explained to you them a little bit of all what you want What do you want younger? You ask them are they going to be doing this with custom development? Are they going to do they know a plug in they're gonna use to solve your problem, okay? Get a handle for that and that's where you get to feel for what kind of pro there because they're not actually going to Yeah, they don't walk around with a beginner sign on you don't know exactly what they do Ask for their password again, most people I think do this Nothing is not a novel idea at any time most people do this If you know one of the referrals don't tell them you know they were one of their referrals or people you don't This is another one of those keep it business not personal situations. Okay, it's it's a helpful thing to It's a very helpful rule to follow You don't believe me go ahead and try to try it out yourself and see how it goes Don't just ask for what it would be done. Okay. We'll have work on the work in KC website All right, don't take that as that face value. What did you do? Specifically, what did you work on show me what you worked on explain to me what you work on now? Maybe they built the whole darn thing. That's cool, too But at least find out if that's the case all right because a lot of these people have worked with the team of six to build a website You don't know what they actually did so try to get handle on that again. You don't have to be a A Long-time developer to understand whether or not they had a big piece of functionality that they built or not Okay, you know You got to have it done in six months or 90 days, okay, so ask them What what they got going on get a feel for it. Don't just ask Or don't sorry Not even ask Usually what happens is I have this project you guys both know you're talking about a project discussing it. You say, okay I needed them 90 days Typically, it's a yeah, I can do that. Yes or no, I cannot that's Not an adequate discussion on that piece of it in my opinion You want to get a larger feel for if they have any other projects going on You want to know if you're going to be a priority in this situation now? This more applies to that $2,000 $3,000 side project if you're engaging them for a massive project You pretty safely assume that you're going to be the priority. I but you'll still want to check on it But yeah, you're just trying to get a little side project finished Or a small pass like an event calendar for yoga classes You need to know How realistic their yes, I can do that is Okay Ask them their hourly rate even if you don't play on engaging them with an hourly hourly rate again Hopefully you're not But get that it's good to know because when they give you that fixed bid It's it's it's a it's a little bit of a negotiation tactic for you Especially when that bid comes back at $15,000 You were expecting it to be in the $10,000 neighborhood So you start trying to slash a few features will say from from your scope Okay, then you start to get a feel for it. Are they really are they are they slashing enough when I slash these features? Oh, well, it seems like that would have been a bit more now. You're gonna annoy the crap out of them with this Freelancers don't love that nobody really does but in the end You're trying to get the best value in the best product, right? Okay What do they need from you to actually get you the bid On time because in theory you're talking to five six fifteen different people about trying to get this done What do you what do they what do they need from you right here now to actually get a solid bid now You're gonna provide them that's even a word you haven't fully shown them yet, and they'll say oh great Yeah, I'll review this and give you a good back give back to me you're going to give them the full timeline you're expecting which you already look at at this point and You're going to maybe go through all of it right then. I don't know. That's your that's your fault The last point here with this sort of thing is a lot of times You're getting these side products you already have an existing site you're trying to add the event calendar for yoga classes And they say well, I'm not sure I'm not sure what I'm working with. I don't know. You know, you're a host skater or whatever I Don't know. I don't know how hard this will be. I don't know what other plugins you're using You're like, well, I'm not sure what other plugins I'm using and they say well You can I just give you give you access and They do it people have given me unprecedented access to their to their code and projects and the ability to take everything down if I were Crazy or just didn't know what I'm doing without any sort of So again Not calling anyone out. Don't do that. People do don't let me Okay All right final exam Don't be any of those things. I just discussed the short version of this. All right. What is the contractor need? Everything you can give them. I should have said in an organized manner Okay, again, not a hundred email forward with things from co-workers and whatever else in every discussion You've ever had on this feature. You're trying to build A bullet list or statement of work The statement of work is going to be a living document that things going to evolve until you put signatures on it Okay, it's not it's not done when you show it to them in times and games when the first time All right, the iron square. So most people heard the iron triangle cost time scope you can't typically have all three the way you want it, right? So I Say there's a there's a fourth side of this. It's square. There's also quality. So If you can't sacrifice time, this is the number one that most people cannot sacrifice I know I have to have an event on You know on Christmas and we got to have it two weeks before that If you can't sacrifice on that you're going to sacrifice on literally everything else It's gonna cost you more. It's going to you're probably gonna have to put some features And it might not be as good As well-built as you Again, that makes sense to most people, but it's something you really need to consider when you're preparing to talk to And I know always sacrifice time on multiple times is the one that is the most that has the most leeway in most situations And if there really isn't truly a hard deadline Don't make an artificial hard deadline on things and cost yourself more money. I mean if you have the budget Fine go for it, but especially when you're engaging freelance contractors They only have so much time those signs just about as big of a bids You'll try to agree to them with but they only have so much time. You just I mean they just can't get Things done as quickly as you maybe would hope and you have to be realistic about that. Okay All right, that's With the last note of don't run more money at it All right That's all Not bad Okay questions It's cool. You don't have to come up with fake ones. I'm and you're not gonna hurt my feelings guys Like I said I've done this one before If if you have any questions, or you want to email me and ask for any any assistance with Hey, does this statement of work look all right or whatever else? I'm always up for helping people with that sort of thing Of course, I am a consultant with this stuff So I a lot of what I do for my Contractor gig in freelances. I help small businesses Typically the middle guy that helps interview and find the contractors basically I take all that and I apply it when I'm working for you Okay Explain again like what the downside is for saying Yeah, so it's it's time to it's time of the family and acquaintance connection thing, okay, so if if the project goes sideways You you don't want them to know that oh, yeah, that's the the person that you're referring is actually Another person I work with or whatever. Yeah, I would just keep it quiet I mean so now what I'm not saying though is that you can't go talk to that person that you know and ask about them I would absolutely do that. What I was saying is you there's no need to let the contractor know that You know the person that they've worked with Yeah, cool. All right. Thanks guys and your end gals