Freelance For Money

Meeting Your Freelancing Deadlines

Posted on 28. Jun, 2009 by Chris Green in Money, Promoting Yourself

Ok, so you’ve been focusing on getting your self promoted online, you’ve had a stack of meetings and now the work is coming in. That’s awesome, BUT … you need to make sure now that you get that work done on time. That means setting yourself some strict deadlines.

When you get a lot of work on though, you may need to look at outsourcing that work by dividing the large jobs up and farming them out to several coders or writers.

Let’s look at an example of how that could work. Say you’ve been awarded a contract to write an e-book on childcare with 10 chapters for $2,000. Let’s assume that you’ve allocated a 45 day period to complete these 10 chapters.

You could bid out each chapter separately among 10 coders and allocate, say, $100 for each chapter over a 25 day period. This way you don’t have to worry about the deadline because you’ve given yourself a 20-day buffer and you stand to earn $1,000 for your efforts.

In my experience though, if you are going to handle a project in this manner you must be able to rewrite the articles you receive in order to make sure the completed book ‘flows’ seamlessly and that you adopt the same style and tone of voice throughout.

In order to be able to outsource the work easily when the time comes you need to cultivate a strong talent pool around you.

In many cases, this is the most important asset needed when subcontracting work to others. Having the right people around you at the right time is essential to your success. These will be people that you know and trust. It may take time initially to build these relationships, but when you have them, keep hold of them.

There are four key things you should look at when you initially start relationships with other freelancers.
1.Their resume
2. Their samples
3. Their rating
4. Their client testimonials

(The last two are critical because it is easy to prepare a bogus resume and samples, especially on the internet).

If you look at those four things and feel you have found the person you are looking for, hire them and build a relationship with them.

Don’t forget that a happy coder always delivers better work than an unhappy one, given the same skill level. You keep your coders happy by dealing in a polite and professional manner, always paying them on time and understanding them when they fall or falter (everyone misses a deadline now and then). Give them respect and they will give you their best.

Tags: Deadlines, Outsourcing