Tips for Subcontracting Out Your Freelance Work

Work is great, business is booming and you're thrilled because you weren't sure that your freelance career would ever be doing well enough to support you, let alone to be overwhelming you. But you're also stressed because overwhelmed is precisely the right word to describe what's happening to you with your burgeoning work load. Usually, the deluges of work are temporary - freelancing tends to be an ebb and flow business with seasons of its own that you start to get used to as you go on. But whether it's temporary or not, you might start feeling like you need a little bit of help to get all of the jobs done that your clients are throwing out at you.

Subcontracting your work out is one option that you can take in order to get your deadlines met and to keep your clients without compromising your own health and sanity. By asking another person to take over your work, you can keep the customers happy and get the job done "¦ and you can even make a little bit of money for yourself for work that you aren't technically "doing". It's not a bad deal, especially during the times when the work is flooding down on you and you aren't sure what else to do. But subcontracting out your work also isn't easy so you should think carefully about it before proceeding.

The first thing that you want to make sure to do when you start thinking about subcontracting out your work is to check the legalities of doing so. If you haven't signed any contracts with your clients - or you've only signed ones that you've written and know inside and out - there shouldn't be any problems. But if you're doing work for a client on a contract that you signed, you need to dig up that paperwork and read it carefully because sometimes they have clauses prohibiting you from subcontracting out the work or detailing the rules of doing so. The last thing you need during a busy time is a legal issue on your hands so take care of this before doing any subcontracting.

The second thing that you need to do is to figure out what precisely you want to have someone else do. Perhaps you have several big projects and you really just want to hand one off to someone else. Or maybe you have many similar projects and you want to do the bulk of the work on them but need a subcontractor to do some research. Determine what areas of the work you want someone else to do and then look at whether or not its realistic to have someone that isn't you do them. If you need specialized knowledge or your work requires communication with particularly people, you may not be able to subcontract out that job or that part of the job.

Once you've identified what you want done, you should look at what you can pay to do it. Remember that you're going to need to oversee - or at least double-check - any work that you're subcontracting out because it's ultimately your name that's on the line. Look at what you get paid for the job in total, subtract the amount of money that you need to make editing / overseeing the work worth your time and then see how much is left. Is it a reasonable amount to offer to a subcontractor? If not, you may need to consider other options for lightening your work load.

If you've taken all of the above steps and are sure that you have work to subcontract out for which you can pay a reasonable fee to the subcontractor, then it's time to find the person who is going to do the work. There are two ways to go with this - you can either hire an individual or you can hire a company. The individual will probably be cheaper and the company will probably be more reliable so which way you go depends on what you can pay and how much security you need that the work will be done right and on time. Of course, there are never any guarantees, but in either case, you should screen carefully. Ask for references and actually follow up with them, require a short sample to see if the candidate can really do the job and then sign a contract with the person that you hire to get all of the details clearly confirmed.

If you do your footwork, you could find a subcontractor with whom you'll have a long-standing and terrific working relationship. During times when your freelance business gets busy, you can contact the person and count on them to help you in meeting your client's needs while still being able to live your life and manage your career. Just don't ever forget that the client probably thinks it's you doing the work so you should always make sure that the work you hand in is work that's done the way you want it.

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