How to Make the Most Out of Outsourcing

Raise your hand if this sounds familiar.

You and your team are underwater, with an urgent project that absolutely has to get done, so you make the tough decision to bring on a freelancer to help out with the workload. A few weeks later, after hours of email back-and-forth and endless hand-holding, the freelancer sends the project back — and it’s totally unusable.

Or maybe, instead of the project, you’re greeted by yet another email explaining that “something” has come up, and asking for yet another extension on the deadline.

Or maybe you don’t get anything.

Maybe the freelancer completely disappears on you with no explanation whatsoever.

Via Adobe Stock.

If you’ve ever worked with freelancers, chances are you have at least a handful of stories about times when outsourcing has gone horribly wrong.

Hiring an outsourced employee is a huge gamble. You close your eyes, point your finger and, depending on how lucky you are, you either hit the jackpot — or you’re out a couple hundred dollars with nothing to show for it.

This is why “outsourcing,” in the traditional sense of the term, is almost never the best route. If possible, it’s better to find a trusted, proven partner, like Modular, who can not only provide the added bandwidth you need, but bring an extra layer of expertise, experience, and infrastructure that most individual outsourced employees simply can’t bring to the table.

That said, budgetary restrictions and time crunches happen. Sometimes, outsourcing really is your only option to get what you need, when you need it. For those cases, here are some tips to make your outsourcing experience as smooth and as positive as possible.

Before you hire:

1. Work your network for referrals. Like with long-term hires, the best leads for outsourcing often come from within your network. So when you’re ready to bring on a freelancer, start close to home. Ask friends, partners, and full-time employees if they can recommend anyone who does the kind of work you need. Don’t limit yourself to people you know personally, either. Is there a company putting out work you admire? Ask them who they use, and if they’d be willing to share or recommend their resource.
2. Look for high ratings and rave reviews. If your personal and extended networks come up empty and you have to resort to online platforms, limit your search to high-quality sites. Focus in on profiles with high star ratings. Look for glowing testimonials from past and current clients. Click through their portfolio and see whether the work looks or sounds like what you want for your brand. The more complete the freelancer profile, the more confident you can be, not only that the level of work is there, but that the professionalism factor is there as well.
3. Hammer out the logistics in advance. With the extensive back-and-forth that occurs over the course of a project, logistics make a huge difference in how the work gets done. Availability, turnaround time, prioritization — these details should factor into your decision on who to hire every bit as much as the quality of the work itself. The greatest freelancer on the planet may not be a good fit if they’re only available between the hours of 2AM and 6AM your time. Before moving forward with any freelancer, make sure expectations around communication, turn-around, and other details are clearly defined and captured in writing.

Have detailed information ready ahead of time. One of the hardest things about outsourcing a project is that there’s only so much you can control. That’s why it’s essential to control the things you can. Before you reach out, plan as much as possible. Try to anticipate and answer any questions about the work in advance. The more information you can give the freelancer up front, the more friction you can take out of the process, and the easier it will be for both of you to start strong.

Once the work starts:

1. Keep your instructions simple. Management is tough under even the best of circumstances. It’s even tougher when you’re working at a distance, with someone who’s new to your brand. Keep your instructions clear and descriptive. Resist the temptation to go into “information overload.” If you provide too much detail, you run the risk of the most important points getting lost, particularly if the freelancer is not a native English speaker. With outsourced work, a simple miscommunication can create a knot of confusion that takes hours to untangle. Preparing your direction and feedback carefully can spare you and your freelancer a lot of grief.
2. Start slow. It can be tempting to throw your most urgent work at a new freelancer right out of the gate, but remember: you and your new freelancer are just getting to know each other. It takes time to get used to one another’s cadence and communication style. Your highest-pressure projects may not be the lamb you want to sacrifice to that process. Start small, with low-stakes tasks that give people on both sides a chance to get used to one another’s work style. Then, as familiarity grows and trust builds, you can escalate the urgency.
3. Provide a brand guide to follow. Handing your brand over to an outsider is anxiety-inducing under any circumstances. It can be particularly stressful when working with a new freelancer for the first time. Reduce your stress — and set your project up for success — by equipping your freelancer with a brand guide. A brand guide your freelancer a step-by-step manual to representing your brand. It also saves you hours of drafting lengthy emails relaying the information yourself, which can be even more important if you’re going to be juggling a few freelancers at once.

A good freelancer is hard to find.

Outsourcing has a reputation in the business world for being the fast and affordable solution. But the truth is that a lot of the time, it’s anything but. Finding and managing a freelancer is hard work. It takes time, it takes effort, and in the end that time and effort may pay off — or it may not. Before you go down the outsourcing route, think about what you want for your brand, and whether outsourcing is the best way to get those results. And, if you want to discuss other options for getting the added boost your brand needs, let us know. We’d be happy to help.