How to boost your business with Expertise on Demand

I’ve been working fully remotely, as a freelancer and contracting freelancers for 8 years already. As a huge remote work advocate, I’ve been talking about plenty of its’ benefits — and this time I’d like to focus on the possibility to plug’n’play any kind of expertise any time you need it.

With StartupSetup I help founders start their tech startup by finding the right experts at the right time, setting up the tools and processes and launching their software product efficiently. After specifying the product idea, I usually proceed with advising which experts we should start working with, for example software architect, developers, UX designers, UI designers, QA specialist, brand strategists, content researchers etc. The first response I get is usually: “We need to take it easy, our budget doesn’t allow such a big team, we were thinking more something like 3 people team…” But actually the budget is not such a limitation — instead of a small number of full time team members, we can work with various experts on part time, short term or as needed basis (read more in my post Expertise Cloud — How to run your business with freelancers).

Global marketplaces made it simple to access professionals offering their Expertise as a Service (if you are a freelancer, refer to my post How to sell your Expertise as a Service), which you as a founder/leader can leverage On Demand to boost your business incredibly.

When to contract?

Anytime. No need to be reluctant about this. With the remote work and global marketplaces it became easy enough. Profiles, searches, logging tools, escrow accounts and the power of review brought convenience and security. It’s efficient enough to make it worthwhile contracting an expert even for a 1h consultation. Instead of trying to do everything in-house, spend hours and days (which boils down to spending money as well) figuring something out and probably not getting the optimal results — just reach out to an expert who knows exactly what and how should be done so that you can move on with your stellar business development. Different types of contracts allow you to “consume” the expertise in the right amounts, check my blog post Expertise Cloud — How to run your business with freelancers.

Even if you don’t need actual work done, having an hour of consulting with the right person can make a world of difference.

Ask a branding strategist for an opinion before investing into building a new website.

Check with an software architect before deciding which technologies you will use (and before contracting developers specialized in specific technologies).

Get a quality assurance professional check your new features — a fresh set of eyes can reveal a lot.

My clients sometimes get reluctant at the beginning and mention that they were planning to start with a smaller team and grow gradually. However, sometimes you even need more people in the earlier phases of the project than in the later ones, in order to choose the best strategy, technologies etc.

How to onboard?

One of the biggest challenges when leading flex teams is the onboarding. And that makes for two challenges actually:

1. Onboarding of the new team member has to be super efficient — if somebody’s gonna stick around for a month, it wouldn’t makes sense to spend 3 weeks getting to know the way we work, the project etc.
2. The current team has to be protected from the interruption (questions, asking for help etc.)

To onboard efficiently, make sure to:

• Set up the tools and processes from the very beginning. Sure it’s great when you, the founder with that amazing idea, contract your first team member and the two of you can just have a nice call and decide how to proceed. Be warned, all the info from that call will be inaccessible to anybody else joining the team down the road. They will either struggle to figure out what has been going on (Challenge 1.) and/or keep bugging you with tons of questions (Challenge 2.). So, whatever your tools of choice are (Jira, Trello, Asana, Basecamp etc.), your workflow of choice (daily standups, weekly calls etc.) introduce it from the very beginning.

• When suitable (on weekly call, after sprint review etc.), do the retrospective encouraging even the most transient team members to share their views on what went really well during the past iteration (fx last week) and the team should keep doing, and also what should be improved. List the actionables and share with the team after the call so that the right steps can be taken. Check on it prior to the next retrospective.

• Do the async standups. Freelancers working with you on part time / as-needed basis likely work with the other teams as well. Which means the traditional daily standup calls can easily turn into multiple calls per day, in different time zones etc. which is nothing but a productivity killer. Try a bot for Slack that will prompt each team member at the beginning of the work day in their own time zone and post the status updates in a dedicated channel. Any impediments raised, follow up with your team.

• Include all the above in the Kick Off document that you will share with the new team members. This will help then hit the ground running and prevent the interruptions of the current team.

How to lead?

To be a successful leader of a remote flexi team, try to:

• Develop the skill for sensing when and which “piece of brain” is needed. Maybe you’re talking with the writers on the project and “sense” that adding a content researcher to the team would help them write more structured and SEO friendly copy. Maybe the research can be done with a short term arrangement resulting in bunch of prepared article structures for the writers to work on in the following period. Etc. etc. Sense when, who and in which amount your business needs.

• Make onboarding super efficient. And add some human touch. Always introduce the new team member in the main Slack channel (or similar medium), announcing what they will be working on and who will be the other key players etc. Upon completion of the arrangement, thank them for their contribution and let the team know how they can be reached etc.

• By all means, protect the current team from the interruptions. Preserve the momentum. Flexibility is one thing, chaos is already another.

• Always think one step ahead. If you work with an expert on as-needed basis, it could be a good idea to give them a head start if you will be needing their services in the following week. Most likely they are working on the other projects as well and need to plan their time.

• Make even the most part time team members feel as true members of the team. They should be part of every team activity, from the retrospectives to the banter channels.