Briefing freelancers so you get what you need

You hire a designer to create a set of course graphics, and the drafts come back polished, professional and completely wrong for your members. Or a video editor delivers a lesson full of fast cuts and background music when you wanted something calm and clear. The freelancer did good work. They just did different work from what you had in mind, because what you had in mind never left your head.

A brief is a short written description of the job: what you need, who it's for, what it should look and feel like, and how you'll judge it. It takes perhaps an hour to write and routinely saves days of revisions, awkward conversations and extra invoices. For a membership owner, whose library of lessons, graphics and templates is the product, it's one of the most valuable hours you can spend.

Why briefs go wrong

Most weak briefs fail in predictable ways:

• They describe the task, not the purpose. “Edit these six videos” tells the editor nothing about whether the goal is entertainment, clarity or speed.
• They leave out the audience. Graphics for retired hobbyists and graphics for busy clinicians need different sizes, tones and levels of detail.
• They rely on adjectives. “Modern and clean” means something different to everyone. Examples say far more.
• They skip the practical details. File formats, dimensions, deadlines and delivery cause as many problems as creative misunderstandings.

What every brief should include

Whatever the job, a useful brief covers the same ground. Keep each part short; a page or two is usually enough.

1. Background: one paragraph on your membership, who it serves and what members use it for.
2. Goal: what this piece of work should achieve for members or for the business.
3. Audience: who will see or use it, on what devices, and what they already know.
4. Deliverables: exactly what you'll receive, with quantities, formats and sizes.
5. Examples: two or three things you like and one you don't, with a sentence on why for each.
6. Constraints: brand colors and fonts, words to avoid, accessibility needs, length limits.
7. Materials: what you're providing, such as raw footage, draft text or logo files, and where to find them.
8. Timeline and feedback: dates for a first draft, your feedback and final delivery, and how many rounds of changes are included.
9. What done looks like: the checks you'll make before you call it finished.

Adjusting the brief for different freelancers

Designers

Designers need to know where their work will appear and at what size. A course thumbnail seen in a grid of twenty looks very different from a full-page worksheet. Tell them whether you'll need to edit the files yourself later, and ask for the source files as well as the finished exports.

Editors and writers

For written content, say what level of edit you want. A light proofread catches typos; a heavier edit restructures paragraphs and cuts repetition. Share your style guide, or at least a list of preferred terms and spellings, and say whether the editor may change your voice or should only correct it.

Video editors

Video editors need the pace, the style and the rules. Tell them how long each finished video should be, whether to remove pauses and mistakes, what should appear as on-screen text, whether you want music and how captions should be handled. A short reference clip from your existing library is worth more than any description.

A sample brief you can adapt

Dev runs Clear Skies Circle, a hypothetical membership for amateur astronomers, and is hiring a video editor for a new beginner course. His brief fits on one page:

Project: edit eight lessons for “Your First Year of Stargazing,” filmed at my desk and outdoors at night.

Goal: absolute beginners should be able to watch each lesson once, then go outside and try it. Clarity matters more than polish.

Audience: adults new to astronomy, mostly watching on phones or tablets, often just before heading outside.

Deliverables: eight videos of six to twelve minutes each, plus caption files and a thumbnail still for each.

Style: calm pace. Cut stumbles and long pauses but keep my natural asides. On-screen labels for star names and directions. No background music during teaching.

Examples: lesson three of my existing library for pace and labels. Please avoid the zoom-and-whoosh transitions in the attached clip.

Materials: raw footage, star charts and lesson outlines in the shared folder.

Timeline: the first lesson for style feedback within a week of receiving footage, then the rest in two batches. Two rounds of changes per lesson.

Done looks like: each video plays smoothly on a phone, captions are accurate and labels are readable on a small screen.

Asking for one lesson first is deliberate. It lets Dev correct the direction early, before seven more lessons are built on the wrong assumptions.

Give feedback that moves the work forward

The brief sets the direction; your feedback keeps the work on it. Collect all your comments on a draft and send them together, rather than a stream of separate messages. Be specific about where and what: “At the four-minute mark, hold the chart on screen for three more seconds” is actionable, while “it feels a bit rushed” is not. Say what's working, too, so it doesn't get changed in the next round. If you find yourself giving the same note repeatedly, add it to the brief for next time.

A good brief also makes the paperwork easier, because the scope section of your agreement can simply refer to it. If you're bringing on longer-term help, such as when hiring a virtual assistant, the same discipline applies to every task you hand over. And once a brief works well, save it as a template alongside your other simple procedures.

Your next steps

1. Write a one-paragraph description of your membership and audience that you can paste into any brief.
2. Collect a small folder of examples you like and dislike, with a note on why.
3. Create a brief template with the nine sections above.
4. For your next project, ask for one sample piece before the full batch.
5. Send feedback in one consolidated message, with specific locations and changes.