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Is there really any wisdom to be had from the goofy antics of Jack, Chrissy and Janet? Whether you’re at a marketing agency or own a small business and are looking to hire a freelance writer, we say yes! Here are three key lessons Three’s Company can teach you about working with writers:

Wacky misunderstandings can take up a lot of your time
Nearly every episode of Three’s Company involved some zany situation in which, five minutes into the show, someone misheard or misunderstood something. The rest of the 24-minute block was spent watching the characters go crazy trying to resolve, deal or hide a wacky situation that never really was.

Admittedly, the show would be pretty boring if the eavesdropping roommate simply walked into kitchen and clarified whether Janet was talking about an actual baked good in the oven or being pregnant instead of assuming the latter and running around like a maniac for the rest of the episode. But in real life, when dealing with freelancers (often just over e-mail), misunderstandings can be incredibly wasteful of everyone’s time and energy and are definitely not very entertaining.

Save yourself the headache and try to make your communication and instruction as clear as possible. The best thing to do is write a creative brief that lays everything out. Writers, too, need to be responsible and ask questions. If your freelance writer isn’t asking any questions at all, this could be a red flag. Ask them for their thoughts on the project – like what they’ll start on next, where they’ll research and so on – to make sure their vision fits with yours.

Just like Mr. Roper, we want cash and we want it on time
Every month, the “kids” had such a hard time scraping together the $300 they owed Mr. Roper for rent. As the 1^st drew nearer, there was often a big song and dance by the roommates on how to get the dough together and avoid their crusty landlord in the meantime. Sometimes, they’d even try to offer Mr. Roper services instead – like painting the outside of the apartment, doing the gardening or even cooking for Mrs. Roper. Alas, “mean old Mr. Roper” just wanted his money, as they promised, when they promised to get it to him. Go figure.

Writers, like any professional, also want to be paid fairly and on time. Cold hard cash is what most of us are after. Your link won’t help pay my mortgage (yes, you heard that right – mortgage) and a copy of your e-book likely won’t make for a filling dinner. There’s a time and place for bartering and many writers are open to certain deals, but it’s best not to delude yourself into thinking that that’s what we’re all going to jump for.  Hiring freelance writers for your marketing content is just like any business arrangement. Get it in writing, set an amount and stick to the agreed payment schedule.

Value your leading ladies like you value your leading men
Suzanne Somers, the actress who played dumb blonde Chrissy, left the show in 1981 after her contract negotiations turned sour. The reason? She wanted to be paid a figure more in line with what the producers were paying her co-star, John Ritter. While I love me some Jack Tripper, I have to say Three’s Company wasn’t the same without Chrissy Snow. And don’t even get me started on how annoying Cindy was.

If there’s a major discrepancy in what you’re paying male freelance writers vs. female freelance writers, you may need to do so some hard, honest evaluating on why this is. This point is especially relevant this week after James Chartrand, the writer behind Men With Pens and many a Copyblogger post, recently “came out” that he is a she. It turns out James found his (err, her?) earnings increased three to four times when she represented herself as a male. Same talent, same drive, same service – just a different name. Seems a little crazy in this day and age, doesn’t it?

If you’re not sure if you’ve been hiring writers for rates that may be gender biased, try doing a blind test of the work of several different freelance writers. Have someone remove the authors’ names or gender references from articles / portfolio pieces and judge the final work based on its quality alone. Besides readability, score the pieces for their SEO content. Give each piece a final grade or a dollar figure you’d give for the content marketing piece. Then find out who wrote what. See how that compares to your expectations or even what you normally pay those writers.

This entry was posted on Thursday, December 17th, 2009 at 12:04 pm and is filed under Content Creation. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.