Work with Still River Creative

Welcome! This page is for potential collaborators and others who may wish to work with us.

What we look for from collaborators: Accountability. Work of high quality. Careful attention to detail. Diligent follow-up. Skill in managing expectations. Honest, accurate time tracking.

What you can expect from Still River Creative: Work that is interesting and fun. Clear, unambiguous, supportive direction. Zero red tape/bureaucracy. Fair compensation, prompt payment of invoices. Smart, resourceful, technology-savvy people who are easy to work with.

Let's do great work together.


We are always looking for über-talented professionals in the following disciplines:

 

All of the above talent may be required to meet the needs of full-service clients.

At the same time, our need for collaborators depends on our workload. Thus our “virtual digital agency” business model.

 

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Freelance Project Manager (prev. tabbed interface here removed due to technical issues)

Freelance Project Managers for Still River Creative operate with full autonomy, reporting to and taking direction from the senior Project Leader (Charles).

Project Managers oversee and manage all aspects of running a website build, print project, or other work requested by clients.

• Primary accountability for project success (Final accountability → senior project leader)

• Available / reachable within 24 hours.

• Daily or weekly telephone check-ins with Project Leader

• Track hours worked; update at the end of each day

Job & Skills Description

phase I The project manager collects all of the client and project input, then digests and interprets it to create a written Project Brief. This document serves as a guiding document throughout the life of the project.

The Project Brief describes the project precisely, in a concise-yet-comprehensive way. The project manager (and the brief) should effectively anticipate potential issues, difficulties, and problems and take appropriate steps to preempt them. When time is limited and/or deadlines are compressed, Phase I can be skipped and completed later (ideally not later than 25% to project completion).

phase II The project manager assimilates and analyzes all project elements to create an actionable plan for implementing the project and assuring a successful outcome. The plan may consist of logical phases and prioritized tasks, along with appropriate milestones, required to create each deliverable and achieve the desired outcomes.

phase III Project Manager responsibilities include:

  • Setting realistic expectations with both the client and the talent producing the work
  • Arranging for/contracting with skilled talent (freelancers and/or subcontractors) to produce the work
  • Being an effective communication liason between all team members, clients, etc. Keeping all parties informed.
  • Creating production schedules, establishing realistic project milestones; ensuring all deadlines are met
  • Knowing the status of the project at any given time; being familiar with all facets and details
  • Keeping the client informed and apprised of evolving and potential issues and negotiating / managing client expectations
  • Reporting to the Senior Project Leader / Creative Director (Charlie) to keep him updated; implementing feedback and suggestions to ensure a successful project outcome

Tools and Resources

Still River Creative uses a short list of tools for managing and implementing the work. These are powerful, easy-to-use, time-saving resources that most will find empowering. They are free and/or paid for by Still River Creative. Our philosophy is: Use the fewest number of tools needed to be effective. Tools should stay out of the way and serve only to facilitate

- Toggl

- dapulse

- Google Docs

- Dropbox

- Email

- Telephone


Less often:

Asana

Jumpchart

Typical entries for a Project Manager's time sheet:

Project Coordination:

Planning, Organizing » Meetings, Phone Conferences » Research » Cost Estimating » Email/Telephone follow-up » Arranging for and securing talent

potential VA tasks

Telephone input:

1. Be second set of eyes and ears during project input phone conferences with clients

2. Listen, take notes during the call, ask questions if appropriate.

3. Transcribe all notes to Google doc

 

Basic website editing/updates:

1. Log in to Concrete5 website as 'Editor'

2. Make requested edits, save, log out

3. Work independently to research / source images and other information needed for requested edits

 

Editing & Proofreading - various documents


Lead Generation for Still River Creative

Collaborators: Interested in helping to find and qualify prospects for a hot digital agency? Think you can be successful at it? We have a job for you, and...

We can't make it much easier.

Extensive advance work has already been done to pave the way for sales.


The Basics

1. This is not high-pressure sales. It's using intelligence and old-fashioned smarts to reach decision-makers and piquing their interest so they want to learn more about our digital agency.

2. Still River Creative has a great story to tell. We have an attractive brand, deep industry experience and expertise (more than 25 years), and a style of working that will appeal to every prospect. Beyond this there are key qualities that help differentiate our company: While we offer many of the services of a digital agency, we are not typical (in a good way). More details when appropriate.

3. The first job of the Lead Generator is to find prospects who have a need for the services we offer. The second job is to thoroughly qualify those prospects.

4. Qualifying leads means:

  • Weeding out prospects who are shopping on price only (there will always be someone cheaper)
  • Giving prospects the right info about our agency so they can appreciate what we offer
  • Eliminating prospects that are looking for unpaid advance work such as a detailed proposal or reply to an RFP / RFQ cattle call.

5. You are not asked to close the sale. Once the prospect is located and qualified, you would suggest a phone conference, video conference, or Google Hangout with principal partner Charles Moore. We'll take it from there.

Qualities we believe are needed: Top-notch English speaking and writing skills. Excellent listening skills. Strong business acumen; smooth, professional style and demeanor. Detail-oriented follow-up. It helps to have knowledge of marketing, digital workflows and production, and related disciplines.

Top-notch Sales Tools and Support

1. Our existing website is already a powerful sales tool that contains a wealth of useful information. Due to busy schedules, however, prospects may need to be guided to the right info — words and images on our website that address their pain points / hot buttons (note: our website is extremely easy to edit; we can create and deploy new content extremely rapidly).

2. You have an excellent story to tell and real value to offer prospects. The credentials and experience of Still River Creative's core team will satisfy the most demanding prospect. Our industry knowledge, our flexible style of working with clients, our internal tools and workflow, our mission to demystify / make things easy for clients — all these combine to give you a potent arsenal for outreach. You can approach prospects with confidence knowing the team behind you can deliver.

3. You have outstanding sales support. After decades in marketing/advertising, we are well-versed in the sales process. We will provide a variety of support materials, including a script if you wish, and we'll offer suggestions about logical starting points (for example, companies who don't yet have a mobile compatible website). From there it's your job to figure out how and where to find sales leads to explore. Email, telephone, LinkedIn, whatever works for you. 

4. We've done our homework: Target industries and prospect profiles will be provided. As mentioned, you are not asked to close the sale. You are asked to effectively qualify leads, that is, determine the prospect has a need for our services and uses outsource partners for same, so it's appropriate to connect them with us.   » typical qualifying questions

Want to learn more? Principal partner Charles Moore can be reached at this email.

We look forward to hearing from you.

the Still River Creative team


services

  • Web design & development
  • Graphic design
  • Pro copywriting: web & SEO. Print: Ads; brochures; direct mail; catalogs; collateral
  • Concept development, marketing strategy
  • Digital marketing: branding, online presence, social media
  • Contract support: website maintenance; comprehensive marketing / brand management