Know Who You're Working For

Posted: December 19, 2011

[caption id="attachment_9418" align="alignright" width="331"]© Yahia LOUKKAL - Fotolia.com[/caption]Let the worker beware – contract workers who don’t get paid have always been one of the casualties of businesses that fail. In today's rapidly-evolving online market where peering beyond the storefront can be tougher than usual, it pays in more ways than one to do your homework before you do your jobwork.

One of the first tenets of pitching ideas to any market is to become familiar with the work they're publishing now. The second tenet should be to determine when and how reliably they pay after the work is done. As you're looking at the publication, see if anyone you ever heard of is producing content for it. If you don’t know them directly, chances are someone else in POMA will. Feel free to email in search of someone who can make an introduction. If none of us know anyone working for the contractor and don’t know anything about the contractor or the company either, then ask the person you're dealing with to offer some references. No professional should have a problem answering questions about how soon they were paid for work they performed, and whether they had to chase their employer for payment.

Take a look at the publication itself. If the market in question is an online entity, take a critical look at their site. Does it look professionally constructed? Do they appear to be serious about what they're doing? Their site doesn't have to be elaborate, but it should be fully functional and reflect the image you'd expect to see from someone to whom you'd want to entrust your efforts. Whatever the case, the business should have a good, visible means of support. Does it have advertisers you've heard of?

Since the freelancer's time is money, deciding how much time to spend seeing when the money might arrive requires some balance. An article you can knock out in an hour and send off for a promise of $300 might be one you'd just do on the editor's word alone. An article worth many times that and requiring days of effort merits a lot more certainty.

BizTip By: Kevin Tate, Mossy Oak Vice President of Productions and POMA President