Manage Your Freelancers for Maximum Results

Excel At One-Way Communication

In a normal office environment, communication tends to be fairly casual and active.  This simply isn’t possible when dealing with remote freelancers.  You can’t stop by their desk to ask them a question or have them come to your office to talk about their performance.  The only time they will read what you have to say is when they check their messages. 

Part-Time Freelancing

Many people have decided to make freelancing their full-time occupation, but if you already have a full time job this can be either a second source of income or a fun side-project.  Trying to balance all these things can prove challenging for some people. However, if you learn to plan your time wisely it can be a rewarding experience.

If you work a 9-5 job, you may want to stick to freelancing on the weekends to avoid overworking yourself.  If you keep the two jobs separate you will have adequate time to devote to both and none will have to suffer as a result. Some people try to do their freelancing projects at their 9-5 jobs or during their lunch break; this is not fair to you or your employers.  

Unpublished Benefits of Outsourcing

Many also underestimate the tax advantages of launching a virtual business and also the advantage of being able to avoid the liabilities of having in house employees. Unfortunately today there are far too many risks involved with in house staff. In the US especially frivolous lawsuits can crush businesses overnight and bankrupt their owners.

Where business owners and managers really underestimate the power of outsourcing is the advantages that freelancers offer themselves.

The Vanishing Employer

Nothing they ever said or did before suggested that they were in any way disappointed with your work so why have they suddenly disappeared off the face of the earth? Unfortunately, disappearing clients are abundant in the freelance world and often don’t reappear. Yet there are situations when they suddenly appear out of the blue and offer more work but only if you remain calm when dealing with the situation.

Be Polite

As a rule, you should always send a client a message after every project to thank them for the opportunity and of course the pay check. If the project went smoothly mention that you would love to work with them in the future. 

No Longer a Gray Area

While it is still true that there are many regulations governing what constitutes an employee, outsourcing has been a workable solution for both large and small companies to use freelancers. GetACoder is a great example of this at work.

Top Gear for Freelancers

Experienced freelancers have a well-organized office with all the necessary equipment right at their fingertips. Those new to this profession often have misconceptions of what it takes to start up a business from home. Many think all that you need is a good working computer and this could not be farther from the truth. Yes, a computer is necessary but what about your work area? How will you meet all communication and marketing needs? Do you have the ability to do the required accounting and tax preparations?The first thing for any business is a home office that will house all important technological equipment and paperwork. This can be a spare bedroom, basement or recreation room.

3 Best Places To Live

One of the best advantages of freelancing through GetACoder is the freedom to travel and live wherever you please. You may want to travel just for the fun of it and to explore new sites, sounds and tastes. However, the beauty of freelancing is really the ability to live wherever you want and enjoy a higher quality of life for less. What is right for you really depends on your favorite flavor, but below you will find 3 of the top choices based on evaluating the cost of living and quality of lifestyle. Of course there are others that may be cheaper, however you also have to take into the consideration the ability to maintain a steady Internet connection for working online and you do not want to be ducking gun shots every few minutes.

Office Exercises

Freelancers on GetACoder are often stuck behind a desk for hours on end, which makes it hard to get 30 minutes of exercise five days a week. However, being a freelancer often means you are working from home at a desk so you can easily exercise in between assignments. Working from home gives you the added bonus of not having to worry about what your coworkers think when you suddenly stand up and start doing jumping jacks.

Being a freelancer it is easy to lose track of time and before you know it, you have spent 12 hours or more behind your desk working away on assignment after assignment. To help ensure that you get some physical activity in, you need to start taking a 60-second break in between assignments.

No ‘I’ In Team – Part I

By their very nature, freelancers don’t play well with others. The whole reason you became one in the first place was to avoid the arguments and personality clashes that come with working in an office. Yet if you are an expert in design for example, it is likely you will have to collaborate with at least one other designer and possibly be part of a team. There are a variety of reasons why freelancers fail to produce great work when in groups and the next two articles will show you why.

Some projects are just awful. You signed up thinking it was going to be a walk in the park, a nice easy design job and a reasonable payday for a small amount of work. It dawns on you after you sign the contract that it is one of those jobs where you cannot produce brilliance no matter how hard you try.
 

Outsourcing Telemarketing Tips

One of the most popular positions that businesses are using outsourcing for these days is lead generation by telemarketing. Using GetACoder for finding freelancers and hiring remote teams for your telemarketing needs means not having to waste money on investing in incredibly expensive phone systems or gambling on large and inefficient offshore call centers. Instead you can build a hand picked team of professional phone reps that perfectly meet your needs and individual company.

Interviewing potential candidates for your telemarketing needs is essential. Feedback and work history are great indicators of how talented individual providers are.

Visit the GetACoder Blog

Visit our blog and find out what are the latest trends in outsourcing. Discover what are the top practices leading companies use to succeed and best of all learn how to avoid failure. Be sure to add your voice to the discussion.