The power of the brief

We have over 200 staff on our team. Some of them work from home, some are office based. We get over 10 client enquiries a day and we have a 30% close rate on our sales after going through the qualifying processes.

We deal with so many projects on a daily basis that without a well written, self-explanatory brief we just wouldn’t be able to serve all of our clients, and help them grow their businesses as much as we’ve grown ours.

But what is a good brief? It’s basically a document that explains down to the last detail what’s expected of your staff, and how you would like to have your task done. It starts off with the background, where you explain who you and your company are, and it goes into competition, or similar companies that have similar services or products as the one you are currently working on.

The WHAT of the brief needs to be super clear, WHY you need the task done, WHERE it’s going to be used, by WHO is going to be accessed, and by WHEN it needs to be ready.

In what the brief is concerned you can never have enough details. Go into the things that are most important to you, styles — if your task is a creative one, lists — if you’re asking your staff to put together databases, budget — if you’re planning on creating ads.

Not having a clear brief will result in you losing even more time repairing mistakes that could’ve been easily avoided by being specific. And we learned that the hard way. Leaving your expectations at the mercy of your staff, particularly at the beginning of your relationship, can become a major downfall and could result in frustrations.

Avoid going backwards and forwards with your remote staff and start growing your team the smart way. The clear, be specific, put together a smashing brief. It will all work in your favour! Trust us!

Originally published at Ezy VA Blog — The Power of the Brief.