Some nuances of creating a team of freelancers. Are there financial managers

Working with freelancers is more difficult than working with regular office workers. This is a fact. But it is possible, and quite successfully, if a certain system is worked out.
Dictatorship. Forget about her. Fully. Otherwise, nothing will come of working with freelancers on an ongoing basis.
Salary. A freelancer should always know that whatever happens, no matter how the project turns around, his work must be paid. Therefore, we always work with clients on a prepaid basis or through secure transaction services (similar to escrow on foreign exchanges). Freelancers get paid upon completion of work.
Do not recruit stars to the team early stages becoming. You do not need stars with inflated conceit. We need people who can do their job well, efficiently and on time. In the same way, you should not take freelancers whose work is done blunder
Deadlines. A freelancer must know the clear rules of cooperation. Meeting deadlines is the mainstay of my collaboration with freelancers. Let the freelancer name the time he needs to complete the task. Don't dictate your own deadlines.
F*** yourself. Despite the fact that only people who know how to meet deadlines work for us, there can always be delays or some kind of force majeure. In this case, I always take a margin of 30% of the time called by the freelancer. Sometimes it helps a lot. Have done before? The client will appreciate this much more than if the initial deadline is delayed by 30%
Communication. Always be friendly, help them in their work, demonstrate your interest (this should be sincere, not false) in the successful completion of the order
Professional growth. One of the main questions I ask when I take someone on a team is whether the person is ready and willing to grow in their skills. This ensures that there is interest in new and non-standard projects.
Project flow. It should be tight enough so that the freelancer does not sit idle. Naturally, he can work with other customers. But as practice shows, most likely it will not happen if everything suits him in the current state of affairs
Microclimate. It is extremely important to create and maintain conflict-free relationships between team members. This is given hard.
Generally speaking, the task of creating and managing a team intersects very closely with the concept of human psychology, so it is extremely important to try to understand the person with whom you are collaborating, to understand what is important to him and to make sure that all parties end up benefiting.
If you learn this art, you will certainly succeed in creating any combat team capable of solving any tasks from their field.

Surely many of you readers are not employed, but are freelancers. Despite the common stereotype that a freelancer is always 1 person, it often happens that an experienced and skilled team of specialists stands behind a freelancer. Freelancers too
How to assemble such a team - I'll tell you about it.
There are several ways to select specialists:
Through friends. This method is good because you can find out reviews about a person. Everything is clear here: write, call everyone who may be familiar with the necessary specialist. Collect answers, get in touch, negotiate.

Through specialized sites for the selection of freelancers. I like two - http://weblancer.net and http://www.free-lance.ru

The second option is preferable: a larger selection of performers, the selection time usually does not exceed a day, you can get very cheap services.

For example, in http://weblancer.net the selection algorithm looks like this:
1. Formulate a task - a project. As clearly as possible, so that only those who are needed respond to it (we filter out the questions “tell me more”, etc.). Indicate the possible price of such works. If the price is unknown, or a bid is expected from the contractor, then the price does not need to be set.
2. After a few hours, look at the proposals: in private messages and in the project itself. Filtering takes place in several stages: by price, by portfolio, by reviews, by the term of registration in the service. Usually 3-5 people fit my criteria.
3. Write detailed information about the project personally to everyone. Discuss the details, terms, price.
4. Select one or more performers.
5. After some time, get the result of the work. Pay the contractor, thank for the work.
6. Leave feedback if the work was done well. This is not only a rule of good form, but also an occasion to ask for a response. Reputation and reviews are not only among freelancers, but also among customers. A good customer will be offered a lower price, and better conditions will be offered - checked.

Some freelance pricing:
1. Portal design, complex, with graphics - 6000 rubles.
2. Website design, based on a template, with a wholesale order - 500-1000 rubles.
3. A turnkey website based on a free CMS based on a modified template - 1000-3000 rubles.
4. Filling sites with content - 500 rubles per 100 pages of content.

Subtleties:
1. Many performers suddenly refuse to work. Therefore, I often give the same task to several freelancers. Given the fact that they take inexpensively, such a safety net is justified. Then you can choose the best option(if it's a design, for example), or put it all together (if it's, for example, working with forums).
2. The services have the ability to conduct "safe transactions". This is an analogue of the WebMoney protection code, but with the signing of an agreement (you need to upload an agreement, and the performer “signs” it). I did not use it, because the "security" of such a transaction is very doubtful. I know perfectly well how to draw up a contract so that in case of my unwillingness to pay, the performer would never receive money. It is clear that I did not use this knowledge, but “the sediment remained”.
3. Some services are really very cheap. For example, in Yekaterinburg, a good designer's layout costs 10-15 thousand rubles. In the service, a good layout can be obtained for 1-2 thousand. A man from Kyrgyzstan made a site for me on a turnkey basis for a thousand rubles - this is their weekly salary. For some services they charge more: a good text will not be written for you much cheaper, as is the case with design.
4. It can also be useful for freelancers registered in the services to act as a customer several times. It becomes clear from your own experience how to make offers that cannot be refused

At the same time, freelancers have a hard time in these services. I looked at projects on the topic of SEO - ugh, even schoolchildren do not work under such conditions. However, freelancers agree to pay after the fact without an advance, for a percentage of advertising sales on the site, for work on a part of the income that will be in a year. I was amused by the response proposal “I will raise the TIC using SMO methods”.

Conclusion
To order something small cheaply and quickly - such sites are suitable. For ordering something serious (promotion, for example) - they will not work. To find customers, it’s better to dig in other places too.

Remote work primarily saves time and money for employers and professionals. Therefore, more and more professionals and interested businessmen are found on freelance exchanges. A beginner in this field may have questions: where and how to select responsible remote workers, how to draw up a technical task, with what tools to control the quality of work. In this article, I've broken down everything you need to build an effective team.

Search for freelancers

Suppose a project needs a full-fledged team:

programmers;
designers;
Support service;
copywriters and content marketers;
SEO and PPC specialists.

First, form the main criteria by which you will select candidates:

experience;
desired work schedule and deadlines;
communication channels with a specialist;
budget.

For example, if you want to run a 24/7 helpdesk, you'll need to consider your time zone when looking for a freelancer. After that, you will need to set up telephony and call tracking to track the quality of work. Decide in advance how much you're willing to spend on support so you don't go over your budget.

Sites to find designers

The Behance homepage showcases the best projects. If you like any project, click on the photo.

Another interesting tactic for finding the most designers is Dribbble. The resource is an international catalog of designers. Here you can also simply leave a vacancy or hire a scout who will find the most suitable applicants for your specific project. This service costs $199/month or $99/month if you pay the annual plan.

Dizkon offers to find a designer through a tender competition. This option is not suitable for everyone, as it does not guarantee long-term cooperation. The bottom line is this:

the customer registers a competition for the best design;
the customer also assigns a prize to the winner;
performers send their versions of the work;
the customer chooses the winner.

The catch is that the winner can refuse to cooperate.

Exchanges of programmers

Freelancing is one of the most popular exchanges for finding remote programmers. The resource from the creators of Habrahabr is distinguished by its corporate style and ease of use. Here, the customer posts vacancies for free, and the freelancer needs to pay for a response. Thus, only highly qualified performers who are 100% confident in their abilities respond.

Kadrof.ru is a classic exchange for a wide range of specialists. Here you can leave an order for 1C integration, making changes to the site, creating a bot for Telegram or setting up a router. Many small and large orders attract a wide audience of freelancers.

Freelance exchanges for copywriters

Technical writers find part-time work on the three largest platforms for remote copywriting in Runet. We mean etxt.ru , text.ru and Advego . Their total traffic is 10-11 million unique visits per month. Therefore, finding a worthy author of texts for your project on the open spaces of these exchanges is just a matter of time.

The text.ru resource has gained popularity among copywriters both as a place to search for customers and as an online service for checking text for uniqueness. It is also convenient for customers to immediately "on the spot" check the quality of the work of the contractor.

To place an order, you must click on the "Order copywriting" button on the main page. You will be taken to the "Add New Order" page. At the bottom there is a template for drawing up a technical task.

Pay attention to the system of choosing an artist. To choose a copywriter yourself, click on the "Manual (Collect feedback)" checkbox. Next, decide what level of technical writers you need. Professional copywriters have the level of "Applicant" and above.

Advego is similar to text.ru - there is also an author's program for checking the uniqueness of the text. The so-called "Advego Plagiatus" is best to download, as the desktop version allows for a deeper check.

Universal exchanges of remoters

Freelancers of various specialties gather on universal exchanges. First of all, I want to note Upwork. This resource saw the light in 2015 as a result of the merger of two large exchanges oDesk and Elance. The result is one of the largest sites that brings together businessmen and freelancers around the world.

On the platform, customers communicate with performers, exchange files and pay for orders.

Upwork exists due to the commission from each payment made in the system. It ranges from 5% to 20%, depending on the amount of funds transferred to each specific contractor. Until the performer earns the first $500, the commission is 20%. From $500 to $10,000, it decreases to 10%, above - to 5%.

At the first stages of cooperation, limit the time that the candidate gets to work. For example, 5 hours a week will show how seriously a potential employee takes their duties.

Another interesting exchange is fl.ru. Traffic is monetized both at the expense of 12-15% commission from the budget of the task, and at the expense of PRO-accounts, which are purchased by freelancers. For free accounts, there are restrictions on the number of responses, the ability to create a high-quality portfolio, and access to premium orders.

Preparation of terms of reference

Terms of Reference (TOR) is the most important component of a quality work. Depends on it:

the time spent by the freelancer on the task;
financial costs of the customer;
number of edits.

To minimize all these indicators, take the preparation of the TOR seriously. Depending on who the performer is, there will be specific instructions in the task. So, for example, for a copywriter these are keywords and text size, while for a designer it is a color palette and illustration size.

However, the main part remains the same:

a story about the company, its mission and tactical goals;
representation of the target audience;
definition of the goal of the task (what the product created by the freelancer should lead to);
successful examples of competitors that are similar to the customer's task.

Read more about the preparation of terms of reference in the articles “How to draw up a technical task and convey the essence to the performer” And “How not to write a technical task for a designer”(there is even a useful docs with a checklist).

Execution control

There are many benefits to a remote team. However, many employers complain about a significant drawback - the inability to control the quality of the work performed at all stages. One freelancer will complete the task efficiently and on time, while the other will only promise. Such situations are fraught with serious losses.

To see how responsibly the remoter treats the project, try the time tracker. Such a program conducts a full timing of the freelancer's working time:

determines how much time is spent on each task;
determines weekly productivity;
collects screenshots of the performer's screen;
sends reminders if the freelancer has been inactive for a while.

With this application, the employer gets a complete snapshot of employee productivity. For example, the screenshot below shows how much time each employee worked per week.

Here you can see which tasks the employee spent his time on. This will help determine if the subordinate is prioritizing his work correctly.

It happens that an employee spends too much time checking mail or talking with other colleagues. Find out if it makes sense and how you can optimize this time.

Reminders encourage employees to work more productively - usually it becomes embarrassing for a subordinate to sit back after such a message.

Screenshots play a key role in quality control of employees' work. Of course, it doesn't make sense to view all the screenshots of subordinates. However, this functionality helps if a freelancer breaks deadlines and performs tasks in bad faith.

For example, the same copywriter can issue a low-quality rewrite instead of an author's article. Checking the uniqueness of the article along with screenshots will help bring the author to clean water.

Suppose you have already chosen a platform with which to set tasks and track their implementation. To determine and increase the level of productivity of working hours, integrate the platform used in the tracker. It can be Basecamp, Asana, Freshdesk, Google Apps, Jira, Podio, Todolist or any of the other available integrations. Time Doctor, for example, has a full-fledged tool that will help you not to scatter your attention between different applications.

Also, when choosing a time tracker, pay attention to the following options:

employee location tracking via GPS;
detection of programs that are aimed at deceiving time trackers;
the ability to detect mouse and keyboard activity.

Results

The key point in working with remote workers is the flexibility and creativity of the assembled team. Employees can live in different time zones, be carriers of different cultures with their own unique experiences. So putting together a productive team of freelancers is troublesome, but by no means impossible. What does that require:

Find worthy freelancers using exchanges and special sites.
Hire remote employees.
Compile and review technical specifications.
Monitor the quality and productivity of the team.

If you have something to add to the links indicated in the article, write in the comments. Let's discuss creating a freelance dream team :)

If you decide to create your own business, for example, by opening a website creation company, you don’t have to be a professional and do all the work yourself, because you can hire employees for this.

Recruitment is a crucial moment that will require certain knowledge from you, because you will have to reveal the professionalism of a potential subordinate.

If you are completely clueless about his area of work, look for reviews of his work, or request a portfolio.

Attracting various freelancers

Having received confirmation of his professionalism, it will be much easier for you to decide on hiring him. There are several ways attracting various freelancers, to create the staff of their own company.

The simplest and most effective is to interview your own acquaintances for connections with a particular specialist who will work in your company. This method is available only to experienced Internet workers, because it is not so easy to gain “useful” connections.

The second way is to find the necessary specialists, freelance marketplaces. Every day, sites with such a service receive a lot of new users who are interested in remote earnings.

The advantage of this method is to get acquainted with the reviews, receive recommendations from previous customers, as well as the security of receiving a completed order for the allotted amount.

They act as an intermediary and control the transfer of money, in exchange for a software or information product, which provides certain conveniences. It is also worth noting that using exchanges, you can save your own finances, because. for the same work, freelancers on exchanges charge much less.

For example, when ordering a site from an independent person, he can assign an amount of 5-7 thousand rubles, while will perform this activity for 2-3 thousand.

The last method is the most time-consuming and involves a manual search for employees. By posting an ad about a vacancy and requirements for an employee, you can get a competent specialist and, in the process of a personal conversation, evaluate his professionalism.

This method is the most difficult, because. will take a lot of time to verify a potential employee, will not provide you with any guarantees and you will not receive feedback. In any case, this method should not be "discarded", because. on various forums you can meet really literate people.

I hope we were able to explain to you how to build a freelance team necessary to create a large earning system. Creating your own business on the Internet, as well as finding the necessary workers, is much easier, this topic is relevant, and some users are really interested in creating jobs.

Experienced freelancer sooner or later it may be faced with the fact that there are too many orders, and to refuse profitable customers is not the best choice. The way out of this situation is to create teams of freelancers who will help in your activities. Let's talk about how to build one command and what it takes.

First steps to building a remote work team

First of all, you should determine for yourself the most routine tasks that take a lot of time, but do not require great professionalism. Then you need to find an employee to perform such tasks for a small fee, and maybe several employees. Ideally, you should become a regular customer for such specialists, because these are the clients every freelancer is looking for. If not found the right person with experience, you can take just a talented and diligent worker into the team, and then train him.

So, you entrusted the routine to a remote employee, and you just have to look for clients and perform difficult tasks. Over time, complex work can be entrusted to a freelancer, and you can only monitor the quality of completed orders. In the end, you will exclusively look for new projects and control the work of the team, that is, act as an organizer. The exception is very large teams, where even these tasks are assigned to performers, namely managers.

How to choose the right employees for the team?

Remember that it's not the qualifications that matter. freelancer but his personal qualities. For example, if a person is ready to develop, strives for learning, clearly complies with all requirements and wants to work actively, then he will suit you, even if he does not have the necessary experience. Over time, you will train such an employee and get a valuable employee who is able to perform tasks exactly the way you need.

A freelancer who doesn't get the job done right on time is not the right fit for you, regardless of whether they have a good portfolio. After all, customers are unlikely to be satisfied that projects will not be completed on time, and then they will refuse to cooperate with you.

Before you give a new employee a big job, approach him about a small project, and then, making sure everything is done right, you can assign a serious task.

We build relationships in a team of remote employees

Clearly state for yourself what the rights and obligations of each employee are, and be sure to inform the employees themselves about this. You also need to establish the amount and procedure for payment, a system of incentives and penalties, if any. Finally, before you start working with a new person, tell him about the violations for which he will be fired. All requirements, fines, payment procedures and other above-mentioned organizational issues must be discussed in advance. This is the only way to avoid possible problems in the future.

Important: make payments on time, regardless of whether the client transferred money to you or not. In extreme cases, you will have to pay from your own funds so as not to let the team down.

Freelance team management

To simplify the management process, you can use special CRM systems. In them, each employee has an account, where he enters with a username and password. IN personal account you can get acquainted with the tasks, and it will be easier for you to monitor their execution. Such a system can be compared to a remote office. Thanks to her, your team will be able to successfully work on a large number of projects.

Creating a team "under the idea": does it make sense?

Often on freelance exchanges you can find ads whose authors want to find employees for a “startup”, in other words, “for an idea”. In this case, payment is promised only over time, when the project begins to bear fruit. But such an undertaking is meaningless from the outset, because if there is no flow of orders, then you will not be able to give real work to specialists. Way out of the situation if desired create a team "under the idea" is cooperation with friends and acquaintances, it is better to propose to them, and not to strangers.

remember, that required condition to create a team of freelancers is to have a base of regular customers. Otherwise, the "remote team" makes no sense.