How to Scale Your Amazon Business Using FreeUp

FreeUp is a great platform through which to scale your Amazon business. It has been specifically designed by Amazon business owners to meet the needs of Amazon businesses. With FreeUp as your partner, you can support changes and sustain growth. You can hire for almost any task that you need done within your business without making sacrifices.

Below are the steps to take to get started down that path comfortably.

Preparing Yourself

You can’t get ahead of yourself in this process if you want it to work. Solid preparation on your part is essential to preventing future hitches. Take the time and make the effort now to line everything up so you can focus on what’s important in each step rather than getting stuck on the basics.

1.  Outline Your Business Needs

The very first thing to get down is what you need to get done in your business. These tasks could be odd ends that you need tied up ASAP, or longer-term work that takes up a lot of time and requires greater experience. Whatever they are, you need to identify them.

Undone tasks and tasks that are not getting done well are what set your business back. To properly scale your Amazon business, you need to find this enemy so that you can fight it.

Start with a list of tasks that aren’t getting done at all, and the reasons why. Is it because you haven’t got enough time? Or because you lack expertise? Next, make a list of tasks that you know could be better executed, and what you need for that to happen.

Now go back and prioritize these tasks based on which ones are the most immediate and have the greatest impact on your business. The top priorities are what you target first.

2.  Clearly Define Each Task

Knowing what you’re up against is the first step, but it’s hardly the battle. You must also know enough about the challenges that your business is facing to know how to tackle them. This means sitting down to write out a clear definition of each of the tasks that you will outsource first.

This way, you can effectively communicate the specific skills and level of experience needed to execute the tasks. Giving clear direction to a potential hire is essential to ensuring that they know exactly what you need done and when you need it done, so that they can get organized to efficiently execute within those requirements.

Remember, when you hire freelancers on an hourly basis, you are not their only client. Furthermore, they are not likely to live in the same time zone as you do. They need to be able to organize their time so that they can keep checking tasks off. If you throw an incoherent sentence at them and tell them to do it yesterday, it’s not going to turn out well for you.

A proper task description has several elements:

• Related Activities – These are the different mental and manual aspects of the task. They can include things like organizing and analyzing data, communicating with other departments or business entities, and distributing required information.

• Duration and Frequency – This is how long each iteration of the task takes and how often it needs to be accomplished. For example, product images need only be revamped once every year or so. Listing updates, however, should be done every 3-6 months depending on the seasonality of the product and other factors like changes in campaign data. Inventory management, furthermore, should be checked every week to ensure optimum stock levels, particularly for FBA businesses.
• Tools – These are what anyone doing a particular task will need to successfully execute it. You need to put this down in black and white so you can make sure that the person you hire knows how to use them before you start working together. If you have tool preferences for keyword research and product research, for example, then you should name them. If you don’t, then you can just indicate that the general use of an unspecified tool is required, and make sure the candidate tells you what they intend to use so you can check it out.
• Performance Requirements – These are all the different elements that are needed to properly perform a task, with minimum acceptable values. (You set these values, ideally based off some form of metric or standard, such as answering Amazon messages within 24 hours.) Performance requirements can furthermore include a variety of soft and hard skills, as well as levels of experience.

You don’t have to write a task manual here. Just keep these elements in mind as you describe each task you are hiring for. The point is to give both yourself and the candidate enough information to use in matching capabilities to the task. This way, you are both confident of a good fit.

3.  Write Out Your Expectations

Apart from the task-specific details, there is other information that a hire needs to know. This information helps them to understand how best to work in your business. Set clear expectations about the way you work and the way you like to run things. This will help you see whether a candidate is not just a good fit but a great one, and help the freelancer suit their services to your needs.

It’s important to note that the freelancer will also gauge whether or not they want to work with you. As business owners themselves, freelancers enjoy freedom of choice. When it comes to who they work with, they tend to be pickier than regular workers.

The best freelancers are so highly skilled and experienced that they never lack opportunities. The best freelancers also know that they work better when they are happy with the whole setup. They want to know that working with you will be a positive experience because they’re not just in it for the money. Finding this fit is a good thing, because it means you have someone with you who will be dedicated to getting things done right.

Hit on these points when setting your expectations with freelancers:

• Business Goals – Sharing your overarching business goals, your core values, and your targets for the area within which a freelancer will be working is a powerful motivating force. A professional always wants something to shoot for. A professional also wants to know that you respect their contribution to your business.

Sharing goals – which also includes sharing the challenges you face reaching these goals – helps freelancers to feel more a part of the bigger picture, which makes them work harder and respect you in return.

If for whatever reason you don’t get a candidate excited about your business after this,  then you’ll know that they are not invested in your business and you can move on without having wasted much time on them.

• Communication – It’s vital to stay in close communication with any hire, and with remote hires in particular. It’s not like an office setting where you’ll be able to at least shoot over a smile, a wave, a nod or a thumbs up if you don’t have time to talk. There is no random chance for communication with remote freelancers. You have to establish it and work on it.

Make sure you set definite days and times to sit down for a good chat – more often when you first start working together then less often as everyone gets into the flow of things. This is the time you can go over task progress in detail and go through any questions and issues that arise. It keeps things organized so you’re not juggling bits and pieces throughout the week.

Emphasize the need for freelancers to check in with you daily as well, so you can maintain oversight and establish a presence and a relationship. Be personable! If you want someone to care about their work, you can’t act like a robot or treat them like one.

• Personal Preferences – We all have pet peeves, even though we don’t really like to admit it in a professional setting, and especially not to someone we’ve just met. Expressing these to a new hire is very important, however. It will help them to understand more about you and help them prepare to serve you better.

In the same grain, share what you appreciate the most. Then the freelancer will know what to avoid and what to do more of, making things more pleasant all around.

Don’t forget to ask the freelancer what they expect from you when it comes time to go over this document.

A good working relationship in never one-sided. And with freelancers most especially, you are working with professionals who are more like business associates than what you might perceive as the average Joe Grunt. Respect begets respect, and you’ll have a much better experience as well as avoid costly errors and turnover if you maintain the balance of give and take.

Searching for the Right Fit

When you have these documents prepared, you can start the actual search for the best fit. This starts with choosing the right freelancer marketplace or agency to hire through. There are a lot of options out there, but to scale your Amazon business, there is no better choice than FreeUp.

FreeUp pre-vets all the freelancers who work through the marketplace, so you are immediately accessing the top 1% of freelancers for Amazon tasks. This saves a lot of time and prevents a lot of headache. If you prefer, you can also hire an Amazon agency through FreeeUp so you have one point of contact and can knock out several tasks at once.

1.  Sign Up for a FreeUp Account

Visit the FreeUp sign-up page and create your free account. It only takes a few minutes. Once you’re in, you can set up billing and start using the platform.

Pro Tip:  You can start with a credit card for your first hires, then move to ACH or a retainer when hours become more regular.

2.  Request a Freelancer

On your Timeclock dashboard, requesting a freelancer for your priority tasks is just a click away. If you ever need help navigating the platform, help is always available through several channels, which you can access from your dashboard.

Pro Tip:  Post a concise summary of your task description and expectations so the marketplace can properly match you with the right fit.

3.  Interview

Wait for the best fit to be introduced to you – usually within 24 hours – and set up a time to have a quick chat to get to know them. Use this time to give them a brief introduction to the task and your expectations, and leave them time to ask you any questions they have. If all goes well, you can make the hire and proceed with onboarding.

Pro Tip:  Prepare for interviews by going over your task description and expectations so you can easily spot red flags about skills and experience in a freelancer’s responses.

Final Thoughts

The first thing to do with a new hire is to go over the task description and your expectations in detail. This gives you both time to work through any questions and discover any issues you missed before work begins. If you’re both satisfied after this stage, you can get straight to work, or set up a smaller test project or period if you’re not yet 100% sure about the hire.

Pro Tip:  You can set weekly time limits on freelancers on your FreeUp dashboard to control spending.

Don’t forget to get all the details down, like when you’ll meet for project updates and feedback, and any logins that the freelancer needs to get to work.

Leave a couple of weeks relatively free after you make that first hire. You’ll need time to adjust as you begin working together. Once you have one task out of the way, you can proceed to hire for the next priority task on your list until they’re all nicely squared away.