Tag: sub-contract

  • 4 Temptations You Should Avoid At All Cost When You Hire a Freelancer

    Like the Lord’s prayer ‘...lead us not into temptations, but deliver us from evil..\’ the following temptations that comes along with sub-contracting or hiring a freelancer to work on your projects (or some of your projects) should be avoided at all costs if you find yourself falling into them.

    If you are someone enterprising, and you deliver great work, then satisfied clients will refer you to their fellow businessmen. At the end of the day, you will have a lot of fulfilling projects to work on.

    Obviously, as a client or an enterprising freelancer with deep knowledge in video production, you will be determined to find a fellow freelancer with the right skills to help you out.

    Here are 3 common temptations that may cost you time and reputation. Each time you notice them, remember the Lord’s prayer and take action.

    Everyone loves to pay less for more. Now, bargains comes with a price in the freelancing world. On the other hand, experience will teach you a lot. For example, you will know the best bargain for a certain service. New freelancers may quote lower prices promising to deliver the best.

    Others will use other peoples video examples to convince you. You will know this during the interview. Don\’t ever be tempted to hire someone cheaper hoping to make 10X profit out of the project. 90% of them will surprise you with lower quality work. That\’s the last thing you will want to hear.

    Freelance entrepreneurship can be very demanding. You are after making more sales and profits. Focusing on making more profits within a set period of time can cause you to push whoever you hire to speed up the production. This is dangerous. Creativity and inspiration to create compelling videos requires time. Give them time to utilize their creativity in order to produce quality work.

    First, this is unprofessional. In the project you hired for, you are the team leader. For this case, you should take your time to thoroughly review the video and request for changes where necessary. Usually, the first draft require many revisions. Ask the contractor to make these changes. When you are happy and confident enough to share your work with the client, do so. This will save you a lot of heartache. Besides, the clients will view you as someone professional.

    A bad review by a freelancer can hurt you chances of attracting high quality freelancers in future. Set your standards through your communications with them when you hire. Don\’t let them drag you to their problems. E.g some freelancers have a tendency of complaining about one thing or another after you have hired them. Don\’t let this get into you. Remind them of what your initial contract with them says. Be very stern. This will make them respect you as a client and deliver extraordinary service.

    And that is it from me today.

    There are many other temptations you should avoid at all cost when sub-contracting work to a freelancer. Do you know of any? Share it with me in the comments section below.

    If you need help to create and produce professional screen-cast video tutorials, let me know here.

    Till next time, bye bye and take care.

    You can follow me on twitter @cheptionymutai

  • 3 Reasons Why You Should not Subcontract a Project you are Halfway Working on

    Lets say you are working on a project with a 5 day timeline. On your third day, you are done with the first draft of the video. You share it with your client. Your client is impressed but still need few changes.

    While you plan to make the changes, you receive a call from a different client who wants you to go out and film something for him/her for 2 days and it\’s urgent.  You don\’t want to disappoint the two because they trust your service. What will you do? 

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    Photo by Marc Mueller on Pexels.com

    In a scenario like this, you will have to forego one project and hire someone else to do it on your behalf. Now here comes the problem, some clients(especially in filming) insist that you be there yourself. This is where you have no option but to assign someone else the project you are currently editing.

    If you do so, you will be making a big and costly mistake unless you are assigning it to your assistant editor who works with you in the same office. Here are three reasons you should not hire another freelancer to continue with the project you started. 

    Delivery Time Will be Much Longer 

    Considering that it may take you 1 day to find a suitable freelancer to take over the project, having them understand the presentation style, idea and so forth will take you another 1-2 days. He/she will have to send you their version then you review it before sending it to the client. This will mean another 1-2 days back and forth. At the end, you will not have met the deadline. 

    Some Clients Will Notice the Change in Hands 

    Many online clients are very keen. By just watching the video, they will quickly notice that someone else made the changes/revisions. They ask questions like; The transition effect at 1.02 Minute is not smooth, did someone else edit this video? 

    You May End up Loosing Both Your Time and Money 

    Some freelancers are excellent at what they do but they lack one discipline- communication. They may communicate well during the interviewing process but end up taking more than 24 hours to respond to your messages when the delivery time comes. In such scenarios, you may resort to close the job and do it yourself bearing the pressure from your client. If you had made a down-payment, you will end up loosing both your time and money without any progress. 

    Conclusion 

    If you find yourself in a situation like this, it\’s important to discuss with your client on the possibilities of extending the delivery deadline. You will be surprised on how cooperative the client is in accepting your request. Such bold step displays your professionalism and honest. 

    And that is it from me today. Till next time, bye bye and take care. 

    Follow me on twitter @cheptiony 

    If you need help with screencast video production or audio productions, go to Techtube videostudio and request a free quote.