Sub-contracting and building a team as a small design company
As a freelance designer or small design company, a great way to expand your business is to either hire staff or sub-contract to other designers. My business has grown to the point where I manage and art direct a pool of trusted designers and web developers so I can begin to add extra skills and expertise to my growing business as well as free up more of my own time to concentrate on the business of running a business.
I progressed from senior fulltime designer for a London design agency to being a fulltime freelance creative in April 2009 and owner and manger of small agency Blink Design Studios shortly after. I had been working over 7 years as well as having experience managing projects and design teams. However, the step from being a single designer working on projects or on-site to project managing larger pieces of work and staff is a large one, even for someone who has managed teams before.
In short, hiring staff can be tricky. It has made me really realise the clients point of view and understand a variety of issues they face every day. This understanding has really helped my relationships with clients and allowed me to adjust my working practices with their needs in mind.
The fact is that good freelance staff are gold dust. Gold dust covered in shiny diamond sparkles and ruby roses.
There is sometimes an almost ‘them’ and ‘us’ syndrome between clients and designers, as if we are on opposing sides, in fact we all want the same thing. Many horror stories I hear would be neatly side stepped and replaced with happy cries of joy if we (the designers) managed, set and communicated expectations better (See my post here on how to ensure projects go smoothlywhich covers just that). Others however, are just due to choice and management of staff.
When I first took on projects which required web development I happened to have the fortune to work with a few great freelancers, dedicated, hardworking, reliable and delivered what was agreed on time. Excellent. My clients were happy, I was happy, my developers were also happy. This worked well. However, these guys and girls (being gold dust) were in high demand and when a particularly great project came in for a repeat client I particularly liked, they were already booked up. I went through several developers before the project was successfully finished and was left really missing and appreciating my previous employees.
The fact is, that I had made a few mistakes. When hiring new members of staff I treated them as if they would perform and act as my old ones did. I needed to build in more time for internal amends between me and my developers into the time lines as they were unfamiliar with the me and the client. I also needed to build in more time to take into account that I was yet to see how accurate their time estimates were. I assumed that they had built in enough time to cover all eventualities and as a result I could have delivered more realistic and obtainable deadlines to my client.
Here I did my first thing right. I owned up. As soon as I realised deadlines needed to be changed and that my project plan had to be revised I put my hands up and explained what had happened and took ownership of the consequences. I offered an alternative plan and new deadlines and generally did what I could to offer the client a solution as well as a heartfelt apology. Thankfully said client was fully understanding and granted an extension to the work. However, they would have been quite right to have been angrily knocking on my door demanding a refund of their deposit and heading straight for another design company.
OK, I sound like I am taking all the responsibility here when it was someone I hired who failed to deliver. And that is because I am. As the person managing these staff I needed to take these things into account and plan around them. Yes, in some cases the answer is to find new staff, but most of the time the answer is just to manage them better and build in extra requirements to the project plan and timelines from the start. Had my deadlines been more realistic than ambitious, and my communication better then the situation would have been most likely avoided all-together.
If you are hiring staff for your projects or thinking of doing so here are some tips to help project and staff management:
1) Ask for references – even if you have worked with them before in another capacity, assume their work as a freelancer now is different to that past experience and ask for relevant references.
2) Talk to them about past projects and availability – are they a dedicated freelancer or do they also have a day-job? When are they available to work? Can you book slots ahead of time?
3) Build in time in your project plan for internal rounds of amends between yourself and the freelancer before sending any work to the client.
4) Add in a percentage of time to cover unforeseen slippage or complications, especially with larger web development projects. Talk to to developer then add your own time as well. If unsure, always err on the side of caution and build in more time.
5) Always ensure you and your resource have a agreed timeline for all the stages of the work including key dates, deliverables and milestones.
6) Brief your resource fully, as you would want to be briefed yourself. Ensure everything is clear and understood before work commences.
7) Lastly, ensure you build in time for project management and communication / meetings between yourself and your resource as well as yourself and the client.
I learnt a few swift lessons from this experience which have helped my business offer better customer service and experience for it’s clients. I hope sharing this can help you side step similar pitfalls, whether you are a seasoned pro or just starting out.
Have you had any similar experiences? Do you have any extra advice to add to my points? If so please add your thoughts and comments below.
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