Who the heck is Jake?! The Challenges of a Business Using a Freelance, Remote Team

Last week just before my conference call with Chief Executive Schmoozer Zoe, I was scrolling through my invaluableGoogle Drive folders following a massive organization of all my files. Everything was in place, and ready to go for the following week. The content was written, everything was scheduled, and as I was about to sign in to google hangouts to have a check-in with Zoe, I noticed 2 new google drive folders had popped-up. I had been invited to share a project with Jake.

Who the heck is Jake? This was my first question to Zoe.

I have watched Zoe grow her business and bring on new team members to manage that growth. In October last year, we were just 2 Schmoozers, and today, we are 10! Each Schmoozer works fairly independently and remotely, so there is not a great need to check in with each other apart from Zoe and her executive assistant Shelley Sefton. While this is an extremely efficient business model, sometimes small things can slip through the cracks…like me knowing who Jake is for example.

Jake Jardine is a recently hired Schmoozer brought on to create graphics for Schmooz and Schmooz clients! I was thrilled to meet Jake via a google drive folder sharing invitation, but I couldn’t help but wonder if there were any other new Schmoozers I did not know.

Luckily with the launch of the new Schmooz Website, I have been able to see all of the lovely faces of the other freelancers I collaborate with and keep up to date with the growth of our amazing team! Soon, each freelancer will also have a custom Schmooz Cow, and we’re excited to see how each personality will come through in a unique design from our graphics team!

Zoe joined the call on Google Hangout, and we had a laugh over the mysterious Jake, which led us to start thinking about developing a new procedure for bringing in new Schmoozers and how to introduce them to the team. Being self-reflexive about creating a sustainable business model for Schmooz is part of the fun stuff that we’re going to be able to do now that we’ve had a successful first year of business. Looking into a good onboarding process will involve a team effort, and we can’t wait to introduce our new Schmoozers to the whole team!

With the mystery of Jake solved, all was right in our Schmooziverse, and our team of happy worker bees (or worker cows?) will be introduced on the Schmooz Blog for our whole community...and to each other, so stay tuned! It has been great getting sneak peeks and learning more about each of our fabulous team members, and I know you’ll love it too.

Until next time,

Erin

Schmoozer