Hiring 5 Key Freelancers for Private Label Success

Looking into hiring freelancers for private label product and store management? You’ve come to the right place! Hiring freelancers is one of the best moves you can make for your business. There’s a lot of factors involved in choosing the right freelancer for your business, though.

In this post, we’ll run down a list of freelancers for private label businesses and how to best leverage them for your business.

Private Label Freelance Managers

The best place to start is with your key positions you need filled right away. By outsourcing these first, you can outsource the hiring for other departments. This way, you don’t have to deal with future hires and you will have a single point of contact in each department. That frees up your time!

Hiring freelancers for private label management is not as simple as posting a description and onboarding the first applicant. You must be meticulous in your choice of managers because this will influence all your subsequent hires. 

These five management-level freelancers for private label management are not your average freelancers. They have the great responsibility of building out all of the systems and processes that your business will rely on. They will be responsible for making sure every task within their purview gets done whether they do it themselves, or recommend additional freelancers for private label support. As such, they are also responsible for creating descriptions and onboarding guides for various Amazon tasks to be outsourced, as well as manage any hires.

Hiring Managers

Choosing the right hiring manager requires all of your focus. You must be certain they have the skills needed to execute their tasks. You must also be comfortable with each of them in terms of their work ethic and their commitment to your business. Always hire from the standpoint of your company culture – hard skills are a lot easier to come by than values.

Consider the hiring process as an investment for your business. You want to make sure you can develop positive, long-term working relationships with each of these key hires. When you spot a good candidate, run a few test projects with them before you hand over the reins. Then, spend time looking into their communication practices. Focus on how they perform their daily tasks. You want to make sure that you won’t be constantly looking for updates or putting out fires. The more proactive they are, the better – you can always tweak protocols. Don’t waste time with anyone who needs to be told every step of the way what to do and how to do it. You want people who spot ways to streamline things and bring you viable suggestions.

Remember to focus on getting these managers in place before you start hiring for any other roles. Everything must fit the structure that you are building based on your company culture and your goals: marketing and business development, fulfillment and quality control, finance, and administration. When you can expand, you may work on separating these roles into the actual six separate departments under your executive leadership.

So, let’s look at the key positions you need to consider and who to hire for each one.

Private Label Manager

This manager is responsible for general supervision of your private label business. They oversee all work being done for your Amazon business. This includes areas such as the execution and monitoring of optimized listings, Sponsored Ads, and customer service.

Finance Manager

You need an accountant with experience in managing financial tracking for Amazon private label businesses. They are responsible for keeping your sales and expense records straight and making sure that all applicable taxes across Amazon marketplaces are correct. They also help you establish working margins for product pricing and identify areas for retreat or expansion.

Marketing Manager

This manager is focused on product marketing as well as business development. They supervise the design and execution of all creative business branding and product campaigns targeted towards existing and potential customers.

Fulfillment Manager

This manager works under the Head of Operations and focuses on keeping track of inventory and orders. They are responsible for ensuring quality standards as well as needed quantities from suppliers. They also are responsible for ensuring that optimal inventory levels are maintained and that all orders get processed and shipped out according to Amazon guidelines. If you use FBA, the fulfillment manager will be in charge of following up with Amazon on things  like reimbursements for failed or damaged shipments and inventory.

Executive Assistant

You must have someone to manage all the day-to-day administrative operations for your business. This manager also helps keep you organized. They are responsible for all kinds of tasks, from calendaring and email management to making sure you and the other managers are ticking things off your to-do lists. This is vital so that you can focus on what you need to get done rather than what everyone else needs to get done. An executive assistant works on many areas that do not require your personal touch to free up more of your tim.

Freelancers for Private Label Support

As you hire each manager and get them set up within their roles, they will start to see what areas need more support. They will then be able to propose hiring additional freelancers to streamline these areas. Advise them that if they need extra hands, they should take on only two or three new freelancers at a time. The same logic applies here as it did when you were hiring – they need to focus on properly vetting, setting up, and supervising each one through the testing stage, all while taking care of their other tasks as well. 

Notes on Task Descriptions

The managers you’ve carefully selected should have a good idea of who they need within their departments. Ask them to create a proposal for each hire that includes the task description identifying:

• Hard skills
• Experience levels
• Soft skills
• Additional qualifications
• Time required for the task

Stress the importance of detailed descriptions so that you attract the right candidates and avoid wasting time with people who aren’t the right fit. You will be uploading these descriptions to a freelance marketplace, so you want to make sure that you are targeting the best candidates.

Remember to approve only a few at a time since managers will have to review, interview, and test candidates.

(On FreeUp you can do as many as five at a time since freelancers on the marketplace are pre-vetted for skills, experience and attitude. This cuts down on time spent. The fast-hire process is created for this purpose so you meet only as many matches as you want at once.)

Here are some of the more common roles that private label managers identify as priorities:

• Amazon Customer Service Representative
• Amazon PPC Advertiser
• Amazon Product Launcher (Get a free step-by-step guide for finding and validating potential products HERE.)
• Amazon SEO Copywriter
• Amazon Photographer
• Graphic Designer
• Content Writer
• Social Media Manager
• Digital Advertising Manager
• Freight Forwarder
• Warehouse Manager
• Bookkeeper

Final Thoughts

To make it easier on yourself, start from the bottom of the list and work your way up. This means first looking for a stellar executive assistant to free up more of your time. Then look into hiring a fulfillment manager to take supplier communications and Amazon disputes off your plate. Then you will have even more time to really focus on choosing and onboarding a great marketing manager and finance manager. Finally, you can hand over the reins to all these departments to your overall manager who will focus on making sure that everything gets done – tracked, of course, by your executive assistant. 

You also want to make sure that these managers have ample time to settle into their roles with loads of support from you so they can operate effectively as part of your business. Make sure that you don’t just throw them into the business because they will go straight to their defaults instead of building based on the way you have structured your business.