How to manage subcontractors?

When you have your freelance business, you will quickly find that you may start to be overwhelmed with a lot of projects to handle. This is why many self employed professionals tend to outsource their work to other freelancers. However, outsourcing your work can sometimes be difficult to manage. We will explain to you how to optimize this situation.

Outsourcing your freelance work

The career development of a freelancer often follows the same path: starting with small assignments that become more and more important, eventually working for large companies (or large customers) on a regular basis. It quickly becomes impossible for one to carry out all of the tasks on their own, and it is necessary to hire other self employed partners or subcontractors.

This is absolutely necessary most of the time since the volume of work requires the contribution of several freelancers.

Outside of this, the decision to outside your work comes from a desire to compartmentalize tasks. By gaining experience, every freelancer learns and specializes. For example, when your business starts to grow, it may be beneficial to assign marketing tasks (website management, emailing, etc.). Similarly, many freelancers choose to avoid redundant tasks or those that lack additional value to focus on what they love to do (their core business) or on tasks that demand the most work and expertise.

Be honest

When working with other freelancers who are sub-contracted certain tasks, it is essential to inform the client: be honest. In fact, it may seem pedagogical, but you have to take the time to explain to the client why and how you function. Most importantly you must specify that it is you who hired them and that you are the one who validates the final work. In fact, it is a matter of clearly explaining that you are the one who manages the path of the mission and who ensures that the work is well done, which will be only better. Everything is about organization and discussion. For example, reassure your client by updating him/her with details of your progress on a daily basis.

Choose the right people

Working with subcontractors is no one’s responsibility but your own. So you need to be sure of their reliability and excellence because they work under your name. Finally, by opting for subcontracting you are filling the role of an HRD (at least for the time being). So it is up to you to hire the right people. In addition, for the freelancers that you’re going to work with, you must be sure of their skills - you must ensure that they are able to respect your deadlines, respect the rules specific to your work environment, and their ability to meet your needs. At first, the best approach is to have them work on small tasks in order to feel out the position and run your operation with two or more.

Monitoring the relationship

It is obviously very important to maintain good relations with your customers, but especially with your outsourced freelancers. You need to clearly define the roles of each freelancer, assign tasks, and monitor the work regularly. If possible, it is best to be able to physically meet those with whom you are going to work. Here again, communication and transparency are the best weapons of a freelancer wishing to resort to subcontracting.

Overall, subcontracting involves setting up a clear and well-defined framework, whether with your clients or with other freelancers. Think about organizing yourself!