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Hi, I’m your host Laryssa Wirstiuk. Through this podcast I aim to empower and inspire jewelry entrepreneurs and professionals, so they can thrive while adding more beauty to the world. I’m passionate about digital marketing for jewelry brands, and I’m excited to share my passion with you. As we all know, jewelry is joy, so I’ll gladly seize any opportunity to talk about it.

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This is episode 153. And today I’m going to share five tips for hiring a freelancer on a site like Fiverr or Upwork. These two platforms are freelancer marketplaces, so anyone can search them for skilled individuals who can execute either a specific one time task or an ongoing service. You can find freelancers to support you with things like graphic design, social media and email marketing template creation, research and data entry, website design customizations and custom website programming, blog post writing, product descriptions, and other copywriting and more. The sky’s really the limit.

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In the past month, I personally use these platforms to help me make adjustments to my website and design updates to my email newsletter template. So I know about the benefits of Fiverr and Upwork firsthand. I think it’s a really good time of year to discuss this topic because December presents an opportunity for you to evaluate the success of your jewelry brand in 2021, while maybe compiling a list of improvements you can make in 2022, because there is always room for improvement. Some of those improvements may involve tweaking things that you’re not able to do yourself. Or maybe you’re already doing some things yourself like creating your email marketing templates. But now it’s really time to level up and delegate those tasks to someone else who can maybe do it better than you and also so you can free yourself up to work on some bigger picture items in your business.

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Finding a freelancer on Upwork and Fiverr Fiverr can be super beneficial. But it can also backfire if you don’t do your due diligence and know what to look for. In this episode, I’m going to share five tips for working with freelancers, so you can get the most from your efforts and investment.

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But before we get to the solid gold of this episode, I’d like to take a moment to remind you that this podcast has both an audio and video component, so you can either listen on your favorite podcast platform or watch on YouTube by searching Joy Joya. I love creating this content as my act of service to you my awesome listeners and you can support the podcast for free by taking the time not only to subscribe, but also to leave a rating and review on iTunes which helps other jewelry dreamers find it too.

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Also side note through December 15th I’m giving away six Amazon gift cards – four $25 ones, one $50 one, and one $100 one. To enter to win, just visit joyjoya.com/survey. And please complete a 10 question survey about this podcast. That’s it. Just visit joyjoya.com/survey and tell me your thoughts about your listening or viewing experience then you will be in the running and I really appreciate your insights and feedback on this podcast.

3:39
Let’s discuss some recent news related to jewelry or marketing. Each week I share my thoughts about three relevant articles and you can get those links by visiting joyjoya.com/signup. Once you’re on the VIP list for this podcast, you’ll receive our weekly digest filled with new episode announcements. Two articles from Women’s Wear Daily first, all about the casualisation trend. So what does that mean? Well, fashion is getting more casual, casual think attracts suits and sneakers. And now this trend is sweeping through jewelry salons just like it has been on the runways. No longer are we limited to classic diamond jewelry that we only wear for black tie affairs and or other special occasions. A new generation of jewelry designers is mixing up diamonds with neons and communicating a design perspective with a more relaxed look. This new outlook on fine jewelry as laid back yet luxurious has opened the category to a wider range of customers, especially younger customers who now have access to find jewelry that can be worn every day. Fine Jewelry brands like era and Melissa Kaye are pioneers of adapting this trend of casualisation and they are transforming the world of fine jewelry. They are striving to remind customers that find jewelry pieces aren’t just for those special occasions. They can also work for everyday wear with T shirts even or sweatshirts, so this relaxed trend is encouraging retailers and even heritage jewelers to present collections in new ways like showing Luxury and Fine Jewelry styled with casual outfits and looks and also photographed in ways that feel more relatable to the average consumer.

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Next, the other article from Women’s Wear Daily. It looks like in this post pandemic world that men have a new appetite for daring, experimental and personalized buying jewelry pieces. According to the market research firm Euro monitor International, the men’s jewelry sector is valued at $6.5 billion in 2021, up 17% Compared to 2020 and almost 4% versus 2019. Men with all types of styles and tastes are experimenting with statement jewelry pieces, especially luxury watches. That segment is a super strong category among male customers who view those products as an investment. But it doesn’t stop there. They’re interested in metals and gems, and they’re buying diamonds, pearls and other gemstones in sterling silver, gold and platinum. The fine jewelry industry has primarily focused on women and women consumers. But with this appetite to be more bold in their choice of style. Men are experimenting with jewelry and their purchases will have a strong impact on the direction of jewelry marketing.

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Then finally, new insights from McKinsey are all about the resale luxury market which is rapidly increasing, with industry watchers predicting an annual growth rate of 10 to 15%. Over the next decade, consumer behaviors are definitely changing. And many consumers especially those interested in luxury or trying to level up and start purchasing luxury products are looking into the pre owned market. Over the past three months McKinsey has studied the luxury trade market and points out that quote, luxury resale is here to stay and the brands that are choosing not to participate risk missing out on a significant opportunity. Nine out of 10 customers participating in the resale market are also buyers of new products and three quarters sell goods to so currently around half the luxury resale trade consists of jewelry and watches with handbags and shoes, comprising just over a third mainly geared toward women’s fashion. So who exactly which demographic are the people buying pre owned luxury goods? This study found that younger buyers including Gen Z and millennials are significantly more willing than Gen X and older generations to purchase pre owned products. What exactly is drawing these buyers to luxury resale? Well, 41% of respondents said that what attracts them is access to rare and Exclusive Buyers. While a similar number of respondents wish to contribute to greater sustainability in the industry. Both really good reasons. The luxury resale market holds great promise for both customers and brands and is an excellent opportunity for brands to expand their offerings appeal to specific client segments like millennial and Gen Z, keep up with digital innovation and reinforce their sustainability efforts.

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As I mentioned, if you want to get the links to the articles I share in this segment of the podcast, you can become a Joy Joya VIP by visiting joyjoya.com/signup.

9:18
So now I’m going to share my five top tips for hiring freelancers on marketplaces like Fiverr and Upwork. Number one, be prepared and get super clear on what you need from this person who you’ll be hiring. A freelancer is coming into your business cold. I find that some entrepreneurs kind of take that for granted. They’re so entrenched in the day to day of their business that they honestly forget or don’t fully acknowledge that anyone coming in to support their business for the first time literally knows nothing, and there’s going to be a learning curve. So you have to be prepared to communicate all the ins and outs of your business that will be relevant to this freelancer who you’re hiring. They know nothing about you your brand in your day to day operations. So the more specific you can get with your request for the project that you need, and the more information you can provide are basically their relevant information, the better.

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So for example, if you’re hiring a freelancer to overhaul and update your email marketing template, you’ll want to present that person with things like your brand style guide. So that would include your logo usage, your brand color palette with the corresponding hex codes, and also your brand font, you’d also probably need to provide your logo files in the type of file format that they would need links to your website and any past email campaigns, so they can get a sense of the type of communications you regularly send to your customers. And also really important, a number of examples of other email campaigns that you like and admire, so they have some kind of reference point. And they know what you’re hoping to achieve with the look and the layout of the emails. You also really want to explain your goals with your email marketing template. So is the goal to Welcome new subscribers, convert existing subscribers, share news with with people who are subscribed to your list, etc. Finally, you really want to describe your target customer to this person with with as much clarity, because someone designing an email template for say, a 60 year old would probably have a different approach than someone designing an email template for like a 25 year old. So that is also really important. Really, the more information that’s relevant that you can share, the better. This will really eliminate any need for the freelancer to play guessing games with you. And that person will be more likely to deliver initial concepts or first drafts that will require less back and forth and feedback from you. So ultimately, you’re making your own life easier by really preparing for this situation.

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Number two, avoid micromanaging. If you tend to be a micromanager, you have the type of personality that likes to hover and like have control over everything. It might be tempting to like take the first tip I shared to the max, that you get so clear on what you want and your requirements that you’re basically telling the person you hire, how to do their job, instead of giving them the freedom to apply their own knowledge and expertise to the task at hand. So obviously, unless your task is something really technical, like data entry, most things that you would hire a freelancer for are creative. And or they require skills like website coding that are probably beyond your expertise. This person has a perspective that you don’t, they have knowledge and experience that you don’t have. If you’re dictating every little thing to them, then you may actually miss out on them sharing something with you that’s important, or giving you some kind of knowledge that you weren’t even aware of or didn’t think is possible, because they’re just afraid of stepping on your toes and want to make sure that they do what you say and you give them a good review. I personally sometimes struggle with micromanaging. It’s something I have to be very aware of, because I’m definitely a perfectionist. So I know this from experience. But in the case of hiring a freelancer, you have to trust that you’re doing a good job of communicating your requirements. And you have to trust that person’s skills, and then take a leap of faith. Obviously, as the project moves forward, you can have regular check ins or milestones where this person has to meet certain requirements. So you can get a sense of if the project is going in the direction that you want it to and maybe there is a point where you have to step in and be more assertive or be a little bit more micro managee. But consider that if you feel the need to do that close to the beginning of the project. You you may actually not be doing a good job of communicating your needs. So consider yourself first and where that impulse is coming from, and then really empower the freelancer to help you. So help them help you.

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Number three, don’t just hire the first person who looks good to you. You’ll want to reach out to a few different freelancers who are within your budget, who have favorable reviews and a number of similar projects under their belts. Even if you have the option to purchase a package from the person. This is something you can do on Fiverr, where people kind of set predetermined packages, I would recommend not just like purchasing what they’ve put out there and reach out to them first, ask them questions and explain the individual project that you have that will help you get a feel for the person’s communication style. Do they respond within a reasonable amount of time? Of course take timezone differences into consideration. They might be sleeping. Do they seem to understand your requirements? Like can they reiterate them back to you and acknowledge and understand what you are saying to them? Do they seem happy and enthusiastic about working with you? Are they generally pleasant? Work with people who like your brand and who want to work with you as well, even if something goes wrong, or you’re not getting the result you wanted? The person who has the best communication skills will be more likely to work something out with you and make it easy to resolve any conflicts in the future work things out in a civil manner. I know this from personal experience, both in a negative and positive sense. If any red flags come up and communication, pay attention to them, and don’t ignore them because they could become problems down the road. So really focus on finding someone who’s a good communicator first and foremost.

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Number four, if you know that you may have ongoing work for the for this person. For example, if you’re hiring a Shopify developer, you’ll maybe want to have this person on hand for ongoing website customizations. Then, in that case, you’ll want to probably start with a small project with a really low stakes that way, if it doesn’t work out, you can cut your losses and learn better for next time. This will ensure that the person is able to work on your established timeline as well, maybe they work really slowly, or maybe they kind of work too quickly and are making careless errors, you can get a good feel for their working style. And also, as I mentioned in the previous tip, their communication style, which is super important. But if it does work out, you’ll be making an important first step in an ongoing relationship.

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And number five, I kind of touched on having a budget and finding someone within your budget. But you really want to have a budget in mind before you kind of start looking at freelancers rates. So I would definitely advise against choosing the cheapest person or one of the cheapest people because it’s definitely true what they say you get what you pay for. I cannot even tell you how many times I’ve seen people I work with have to redo things because before they talked to me, they hired a freelancer and wanted to do things very much on a budget. And then the project got out of hand, or there were hidden costs, or it had to be redone anyway. So make the right investment the first time around. If you have no idea how much you should be spending on a particular service and you want to get an idea for the type of budget you should set before you establish that budget. You can go on Fiverr search for the type of service you’ll be hiring for.

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Let’s say you need someone to write blog posts for you. Then you can sort by the top rated freelancers and kind of get an idea for the range of what some of those like vetted, top rated people charge and there will be a range there will be some people on the low end and some people on the high end. You’ll want to also make sure you’re comparing apples to apples, and that the actual service they’re providing is the same. So in the blog post example, you obviously wouldn’t compare the rate of someone for like a 500 word blog post versus the rate for like an in depth 2000 word ebook. It takes a little bit of time, a little bit of sleuthing, but it will really give you a sense of the sweet spot of the type of money you should expect to pay for a certain type of service. From there you can get a general idea of how much something is going to cost you and in addition, you can also if you need more information or more context, you can do a Google search for like, average cost per word, blog post writing, and make sure obviously, you’re getting a recent 2021 average. Again, you’re going to find a pretty big range of pricing when you do these kind of searches. But you’ll at least know what’s on the low end and what’s on the high end and 99% of the time, as I said, before you get what you pay for. If you are on a really tight budget, or you want to kind of be modest when you are just starting out. I would try to still shoot for somewhere in the middle, but maybe on the middle low end of the pricing that you find because again, choosing the cheapest person is going to end up costing you more in the long run. There are always those hidden costs, like having to redo things involved with that. Also, remember that these people have skills and talents that are in demand. They know something you don’t they deserve to get paid fairly. Keep that in mind. Just because they’re a freelancer on a freelancer marketplace doesn’t mean that you should be haggling with them or scoffing at prices that they quote you So be respectful of the rates that people ask for their time, expertise and work.

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So those are my five top tips. What can you be improving for your business as you’re doing your end of year review? What can you improve for next year? How can a freelancer help you take your business to the next level? What did you think of this episode? You can always email me Laryssa that’s laryssa@joyjoya.com. If you love this episode, please share it with a friend who’d appreciate it. And don’t forget to subscribe as well as leave a review on iTunes to purchase the sign copy of my book jewelry marketing joy. Visit joyjoya.com/book for more information.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai