Episode 1

full
Published on:

1st Jul 2024

Mastering Contractor Management: Essential Strategies for Business Success

Join Sarah Wood from Sarah Wood Communication as we delve into the essentials of successfully hiring and managing contractors in your business. This episode covers everything you need to build a thriving team, from vetting processes and effective communication strategies to task management and handling client and contractor expectations.

Key Topics Covered:

  1. Vetting Process: Learn about effective vetting techniques, including using test projects to find the right fit.
  2. Communication: Establishing clear communication channels such as Slack or Front to ensure seamless interactions.
  3. Processes: Setting up robust onboarding and task management systems to streamline workflows and assignments.
  4. Managing Expectations: Techniques for managing both contractor and client expectations to maintain project clarity and satisfaction.
  5. Handling Issues: Proactive approaches to address and resolve potential challenges that may arise with contractors.

Building a successful team starts with solid infrastructure and effective processes. Tune in to gain insights that will help you optimize your contractor relationships and business operations.

Do you have a question you'd like Amalie to answer on the Operationally Sound Podcast?

Fill out this form: https://forms.gle/72hQuJHmDRtznHod7

Follow the links to connect with Sarah:

Website: https://www.sarahwoodcommunication.com/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sarah-wood-682513a1/

Transcript
Amalie Shaffer:

All right.

Amalie Shaffer:

Welcome, Sarah.

Amalie Shaffer:

Thank you so much for agreeing to be on the podcast today.

Amalie Shaffer:

If you wouldn't mind just taking a moment to introduce yourself,

Amalie Shaffer:

and then we will jump right in.

Sarah Wood:

Thanks for having me.

Sarah Wood:

I'm happy to be here today.

Sarah Wood:

My name is Sarah Wood.

Sarah Wood:

I own Sarah Wood Communication, which is a boutique communication agency.

Sarah Wood:

We work exclusively with purpose driven organizations who are

Sarah Wood:

trying to make the world a better place doesn't want that, right?

Sarah Wood:

They do the good work and we help them tell their stories.

Sarah Wood:

We talk about what they do.

Sarah Wood:

We do it consistently, strategically and in a way that reaches and

Sarah Wood:

resonates with their target audiences.

Amalie Shaffer:

Awesome.

Amalie Shaffer:

Well, thanks so much for being here.

Amalie Shaffer:

And I would just love to, if you can just kind of tell me what you have going

Amalie Shaffer:

on, what issue or question you have, and then for the next 30 minutes, we'll just

Amalie Shaffer:

work through it and you know, whatever is my, I will do my best to answer and

Amalie Shaffer:

work through everything that you have.

Sarah Wood:

So I've been in business for a little more than eight years.

Sarah Wood:

I'm a solopreneur, so it's just me, myself and I over here, but I have found that

Sarah Wood:

many clients sometimes want complimentary services to what I offer, right?

Sarah Wood:

They might want someone to help with graphic design or video services,

Sarah Wood:

web design things, marketing things that are related to communication

Sarah Wood:

and that they want assistance with, but I don't directly do.

Sarah Wood:

And so I have come to the point where I think that I need to 10 99 some

Sarah Wood:

people to do some subcontracting.

Sarah Wood:

And my question is.

Sarah Wood:

How do I go about doing that?

Sarah Wood:

I want to make sure that, you know, I'm doing it correctly, legally,

Sarah Wood:

you know, on the up and up with the, with the taxes and all of that.

Sarah Wood:

So as someone who is a solopreneur and wants to tap into some external

Sarah Wood:

assistance, what's the best way for me to go about doing that?

Amalie Shaffer:

Okay.

Amalie Shaffer:

Yeah, definitely.

Amalie Shaffer:

So I want to say first that as far as on the financial side, I would

Amalie Shaffer:

recommend I'm not a bookkeeper or a CPA.

Amalie Shaffer:

So I do recommend, you know, consulting with them, but I can talk about how to

Amalie Shaffer:

set up the infrastructure for it first.

Amalie Shaffer:

And, you know, obviously there's going to be some budgeting.

Amalie Shaffer:

So when you start to look into hiring or bringing some some

Amalie Shaffer:

contractors on board, you're going to want to know what your budget is.

Amalie Shaffer:

And a lot of that will also be what the client's budget is.

Amalie Shaffer:

So it may be that you have a, I don't know, a database or something

Amalie Shaffer:

of people that you've given kind of approval to, and then, you know,

Amalie Shaffer:

they're sort of on call if you will.

Amalie Shaffer:

And then as you get those services more regularly.

Amalie Shaffer:

You may work with them more often and they become a more

Amalie Shaffer:

regular part of your business.

Amalie Shaffer:

But I would say as far as financially, the first thing you do want to

Amalie Shaffer:

do is whenever you are making the proposal to the client, you're going

Amalie Shaffer:

to want to take into consideration.

Amalie Shaffer:

You're going to want to know who you're thinking about hiring to bring them in.

Amalie Shaffer:

So you can budge that into the cost of the client project.

Amalie Shaffer:

So that's really important.

Amalie Shaffer:

And then whether that's, I mean, I recommend like that 100 percent of the fee

Amalie Shaffer:

would be included in the client project.

Amalie Shaffer:

But if you're not going to do that, obviously, you have to work that out

Amalie Shaffer:

with, you know, on the financial side.

Amalie Shaffer:

So, the 1st thing I want to talk about is having processes for communicating, with

Amalie Shaffer:

the contractors and Like delegating work.

Amalie Shaffer:

So if we go the route of let me quickly talk about something like Upwork

Amalie Shaffer:

where you would go into Upwork, you would have an account and you could

Amalie Shaffer:

hire contractors through there and they would be paid through Upwork.

Amalie Shaffer:

Now, there are fees associated with that.

Amalie Shaffer:

So you may want to look into that.

Amalie Shaffer:

I will say when you're looking for someone that is.

Amalie Shaffer:

easy because you have a whole list of people who are looking for work on there

Amalie Shaffer:

so it does make that easier, but it does cost right because there's a fee.

Amalie Shaffer:

There's like fees associated with paying them, they pay fees on their side.

Amalie Shaffer:

And in order to take someone off of work and like bring them.

Amalie Shaffer:

Take your working relationship off of Upwork.

Amalie Shaffer:

There is a larger fee that you have to pay.

Amalie Shaffer:

So there are some things associated with doing that.

Amalie Shaffer:

It's not necessarily a bad way, but just So you know that that that could

Amalie Shaffer:

be, you know, something to look into, but what I want to focus on is like,

Amalie Shaffer:

if you're gonna have the contractors yourself, you're going to have them fill

Amalie Shaffer:

out the W 9s and you're going to send them the 1099s at the end of the year.

Amalie Shaffer:

So the first thing I would do is think about how you want

Amalie Shaffer:

to communicate with them.

Amalie Shaffer:

So that might look like something like Slack or there's also a software

Amalie Shaffer:

called Front, which is really great.

Amalie Shaffer:

I use that with a client.

Amalie Shaffer:

It's a paid software.

Amalie Shaffer:

But, and Slack is free up to a certain point in certain features.

Amalie Shaffer:

I recommend having a separate communication tool than your

Amalie Shaffer:

project management tool.

Amalie Shaffer:

If one goes down, you still have a way to communicate with

Amalie Shaffer:

people to get things done.

Amalie Shaffer:

So that's the first thing.

Amalie Shaffer:

How are you going to communicate with them?

Amalie Shaffer:

I don't recommend communicating via email because that can

Amalie Shaffer:

easily become very chaotic.

Amalie Shaffer:

I don't know about you, but I prefer to get out of email

Amalie Shaffer:

because it just is, it's a lot.

Amalie Shaffer:

I get a lot of emails every day, right?

Amalie Shaffer:

So do you have anything like that now, like that you might use with

Amalie Shaffer:

clients or anything like that?

Sarah Wood:

I do not.

Sarah Wood:

I do communicate via email.

Sarah Wood:

Okay.

Amalie Shaffer:

That's fine.

Amalie Shaffer:

I mean, it's only you, so it's totally fine.

Sarah Wood:

Yeah, I, I have used Slack with different clients

Sarah Wood:

because that's what they wanted to use but I don't have a particular

Sarah Wood:

communication software at this point.

Sarah Wood:

I will say it would, in this situation, it would be me directly hiring people.

Sarah Wood:

It would be, well, I guess hiring is a, a Kind of catch all term here.

Sarah Wood:

Like I know the people,

Sarah Wood:

I know people who do these things.

Sarah Wood:

I have,

Sarah Wood:

you know, personal connections.

Sarah Wood:

It's, you know, a known quantity type situation.

Sarah Wood:

And so it would be, you know, I'm getting the W nine, I'm issuing the 10 99.

Sarah Wood:

That was part of my question is like, you know, what do I need

Sarah Wood:

to be aware of related to that?

Sarah Wood:

Like what paperwork do I need?

Sarah Wood:

That type of question.

Sarah Wood:

As far as communication goes, Like I said, I am primarily using email and

Sarah Wood:

I'm not working in high volume, right?

Sarah Wood:

We're a boutique agency.

Sarah Wood:

We're pretty exclusive.

Sarah Wood:

So we don't have huge amounts of clients at the same time.

Sarah Wood:

So I think that makes it a little less difficult to track than someone

Sarah Wood:

who's kind of has a roster 20 deep, you know, that they're trying to

Sarah Wood:

keep managed all at the same time.

Sarah Wood:

So it's a little more streamlined than that.

Amalie Shaffer:

Yeah, I still recommend having some way to communicate with them

Amalie Shaffer:

in like when there are things going on as far as if you're trying to have a

Amalie Shaffer:

discussion about a client or something in real time versus email because the

Amalie Shaffer:

thread is a little easier to read and slack is free so it's a really easy

Amalie Shaffer:

way to all I'm saying is you want to establish the communication process

Amalie Shaffer:

first however you want to do that.

Amalie Shaffer:

Then You want to think about how you're going to assign things.

Amalie Shaffer:

So are you going to have a Google doc where you give it to them or a Google

Amalie Shaffer:

spreadsheet or something like that?

Amalie Shaffer:

Or do you have a project management tool?

Amalie Shaffer:

So do you have one?

Amalie Shaffer:

Do you have a project management tool that you use to manage your projects now?

Sarah Wood:

We're using Google Docs at this point

Amalie Shaffer:

Okay.

Amalie Shaffer:

And you know what, and that might work to a certain point.

Amalie Shaffer:

And that when you, if you get to the place where you're like, you know what,

Amalie Shaffer:

we need something a little bit more involved, you could always go to that.

Amalie Shaffer:

I do have recommend having a place where you can

Amalie Shaffer:

collaborate track due dates, and maybe that looks like a spreadsheet

Amalie Shaffer:

to start, but you want to document whatever that process is.

Amalie Shaffer:

So say like, okay, let's say you're going to use email to

Amalie Shaffer:

communicate, you'll receive an email from me with task instructions.

Amalie Shaffer:

Like you want to write out this process, right?

Amalie Shaffer:

You want to write out like how it's going to happen.

Amalie Shaffer:

You know, expectation is that when I give this to you on a Monday, it's due by the

Amalie Shaffer:

next Monday at noon, whatever that might be, or you have 10 days to finish this.

Amalie Shaffer:

You know And you want to just have that written out.

Amalie Shaffer:

So you have some sort of base place to start from.

Amalie Shaffer:

And it can always change as you start bringing people on.

Amalie Shaffer:

You can like work out the kinks of all that, but communication is one two

Amalie Shaffer:

is how you're going to assign them.

Amalie Shaffer:

Well, let me see.

Amalie Shaffer:

Number two is onboarding.

Amalie Shaffer:

So the onboarding is going to be okay.

Amalie Shaffer:

What information do you need from them?

Amalie Shaffer:

Maybe you have them fill out a form.

Amalie Shaffer:

A Google form where you can track all their information.

Amalie Shaffer:

So like, what's your phone number?

Amalie Shaffer:

What's your email address?

Amalie Shaffer:

because, and then send them the W 9 right away, get that filled out.

Amalie Shaffer:

So you'll need to save that because that information will

Amalie Shaffer:

need to go to your bookkeeper.

Amalie Shaffer:

If you have it or for yourself, if you do your own books and then for tax time

Amalie Shaffer:

as well, because then the 10 99 gets issued to those people prior to tax time.

Amalie Shaffer:

And it's, You'll want to Google this, but I'm almost positive

Amalie Shaffer:

if it's, if you pay someone more than $600, I do it for everyone.

Amalie Shaffer:

Even if I paid someone $20, I would do it just to To cover my ass, you know okay.

Amalie Shaffer:

So communication tool onboarding, you'll want to, I recommend kind of writing out

Amalie Shaffer:

having a rough process in place prior to even bringing anyone on for the onboarding

Amalie Shaffer:

and for the task management, just so you have something in place that when

Amalie Shaffer:

they come on, it just doesn't feel like.

Amalie Shaffer:

You know, everyone's everywhere.

Amalie Shaffer:

Right.

Amalie Shaffer:

You have a way to kind of streamline it.

Amalie Shaffer:

It sounds like your production process is already streamlined.

Amalie Shaffer:

So now it's just going to be communicating with these people and making sure

Amalie Shaffer:

that the expectations are set.

Amalie Shaffer:

During the onboarding process.

Amalie Shaffer:

You'll need to have a contract or an agreement.

Amalie Shaffer:

So depending on who you hire, if they have their own business, they may

Amalie Shaffer:

have a contract Or you can produce a contract for a subcontractor.

Amalie Shaffer:

So I typically do that.

Amalie Shaffer:

I mean, I'm just more of a control freak, so I prefer to be it on

Amalie Shaffer:

my side, you know, whatever.

Amalie Shaffer:

My recommendation would be to work with a lawyer for that, draw up a

Amalie Shaffer:

subcontract agreement and in there, in my experience, I wrote it up

Amalie Shaffer:

explaining that this subcontractor is agreeing to work using my processes.

Amalie Shaffer:

So the thing about a contractor is they can really work whenever they want.

Amalie Shaffer:

Like you're not going to tell the plumber that comes in to your house

Amalie Shaffer:

to fix something, how to do it.

Amalie Shaffer:

They're going to tell you when they're available, they're going

Amalie Shaffer:

to come do their thing and leave.

Amalie Shaffer:

So when you, and again, consult a lawyer, I'm not a lawyer.

Amalie Shaffer:

I'm just saying what I've done in my experience is I got the

Amalie Shaffer:

agreement from them that they were okay to use my processes.

Amalie Shaffer:

And if they're not, then you can decide whether you want to work with them or not.

Amalie Shaffer:

But for me, I brought my subcontractors into my project management tool.

Amalie Shaffer:

They still work on their own time.

Amalie Shaffer:

Like I don't tell them that they have to be available, you know, 8am till 5pm.

Amalie Shaffer:

But I do ask that they communicate with me through Slack and we do

Amalie Shaffer:

tasks and projects in ClickUp.

Amalie Shaffer:

So they agree to that.

Amalie Shaffer:

Um, any questions?

Sarah Wood:

I just have.

Sarah Wood:

Yeah, I did have some follow up questions about that because I have a

Sarah Wood:

contract that I use, you know, a lot of times I also use client contracts

Sarah Wood:

because they have a standard contract.

Sarah Wood:

But I do have a standard contract that I use with clients.

Sarah Wood:

I don't currently have one for subcontractors because I haven't

Sarah Wood:

used one up until this point, I have made direct referrals to clients

Sarah Wood:

and kind of just pass them off.

Sarah Wood:

And then they had their own contract and agreement.

Sarah Wood:

But I have found over time that there are a lot of clients who just want to

Sarah Wood:

pay one person, and they just want you to be their primary point of contact.

Sarah Wood:

Right.

Sarah Wood:

And so they just want you to, yeah, they just want you to kind of handle

Sarah Wood:

things that are kind of, they see under the umbrella of communications.

Sarah Wood:

Right.

Sarah Wood:

And So is there are there specific things that need to be in that contract that

Sarah Wood:

are different and I'm not asking legally.

Sarah Wood:

I'm just kind of asking in your experience.

Sarah Wood:

Are there specific things that need to be in the contract with a

Sarah Wood:

subcontractor to protect both of us that would not necessarily be something

Sarah Wood:

I would think about with a client?

Amalie Shaffer:

Yeah.

Amalie Shaffer:

So non disclosure agreement.

Amalie Shaffer:

I don't know if you have that with your clients, but that's going to

Amalie Shaffer:

be important with subcontractors.

Amalie Shaffer:

What I mentioned about agreeing to use your processes The understanding that they

Amalie Shaffer:

pay their own taxes because they're 1099.

Amalie Shaffer:

So they take care of that.

Amalie Shaffer:

So there's usually like a blurb in there about that, how and when they get paid you

Amalie Shaffer:

know, through if they have an invoicing system on their side, or do you need

Amalie Shaffer:

to establish some sort of pay process?

Amalie Shaffer:

So you know, are you going to pay them through like Zelle or, I mean,

Amalie Shaffer:

I wouldn't necessarily recommend that only because with an invoice an

Amalie Shaffer:

invoice system, it's easier to track.

Amalie Shaffer:

Now, depending on your bookkeeping software, so like QuickBooks,

Amalie Shaffer:

you can do invoicing like Xero I think there's some invoicing and

Amalie Shaffer:

you can request payments as well.

Amalie Shaffer:

So there may be a way, maybe you want to, I don't know if you have a

Amalie Shaffer:

bookkeeper, do you have a bookkeeper?

Amalie Shaffer:

Do you know?

Amalie Shaffer:

Okay.

Amalie Shaffer:

If you ever need one, let me know.

Amalie Shaffer:

I have a great one.

Amalie Shaffer:

But.

Amalie Shaffer:

Whatever your bookkeeping software is, there's likely a way to request payments.

Amalie Shaffer:

You could just, you know, do it that way, but they may have, depending

Amalie Shaffer:

on the structure of their business, they may have an invoicing and

Amalie Shaffer:

they may just send you the invoice.

Amalie Shaffer:

So you'll be able to work that out.

Amalie Shaffer:

So that would need to be stated how and when they're going to get paid.

Amalie Shaffer:

So that'll be in there.

Amalie Shaffer:

Yeah.

Amalie Shaffer:

That beginning part of it where it describes that you're hiring the

Amalie Shaffer:

subcontractor because you're under the under, you know, understanding that

Amalie Shaffer:

they can complete the project that you need or whatever that verbiage up top

Amalie Shaffer:

you're just going to switch it around a little bit because you're hiring the

Amalie Shaffer:

subcontractor to work on the project.

Amalie Shaffer:

Recommend.

Amalie Shaffer:

So if let's say you find two graphic designers that you really like and

Amalie Shaffer:

you're like, you know what, I'm just going to work with them for for a while.

Amalie Shaffer:

You can, again, consult a lawyer, write a contract that's sort of open, right?

Amalie Shaffer:

Like, meaning it'll say something like projects will be given to the contractor

Amalie Shaffer:

in this way and like you'll do statements of work for new projects, right?

Amalie Shaffer:

So you'll have an, a contract, an agreement, and then statements of work

Amalie Shaffer:

for each project that they participate on.

Amalie Shaffer:

So the agreement will be more open so that you can always go back to them.

Amalie Shaffer:

So you're not constantly doing new.

Amalie Shaffer:

Contracts or agreements, you're doing statements of work.

Amalie Shaffer:

So the statement of work.

Amalie Shaffer:

And another reason why I recommend like having the communication tool is one

Amalie Shaffer:

of the things I did with contractors in the past is I would put in a Slack

Amalie Shaffer:

message, the project, and then they would send a message in response

Amalie Shaffer:

saying, I agree, I will take this on.

Amalie Shaffer:

And, you know, I agree to the due date.

Amalie Shaffer:

So now I had a record and not that, I mean, you can do this in email

Amalie Shaffer:

too, but now you have a record of they've agreed to this project.

Amalie Shaffer:

But having something signed, so in however you send your agreements, just

Amalie Shaffer:

having a statement of work that you would send to them each time you have

Amalie Shaffer:

a new project so that they know here's the start and end date, here's your role

Amalie Shaffer:

in it, here's what you're going to be paid for it, I'll, you know, pay you

Amalie Shaffer:

50 percent upfront and 50 percent when it's done, however, whatever you work

Amalie Shaffer:

that out in, that's what I would have in the statement of work, and then you do

Amalie Shaffer:

a statement of work each time you bring them on to a new project, that way you

Amalie Shaffer:

have something really clear in place, but that agreement would just be sort of open,

Amalie Shaffer:

for you to be able to reach out to them whenever.

Amalie Shaffer:

Is that good?

Amalie Shaffer:

Any questions about that?

Sarah Wood:

I'm completely different.

Sarah Wood:

I'm completely switching, switching up here a little bit.

Sarah Wood:

Still related to 1099s.

Sarah Wood:

Have you found in your experience that most people just do a direct

Sarah Wood:

cost or do people add on like a little bit of a project management fee when

Sarah Wood:

they're bringing on subcontractors?

Amalie Shaffer:

Yes.

Amalie Shaffer:

Putting on a fee.

Amalie Shaffer:

Yeah.

Amalie Shaffer:

You could call it a service fee.

Amalie Shaffer:

You could call it a management fee and call whatever you want.

Amalie Shaffer:

But yeah, because it takes time to communicate with the person, get them

Amalie Shaffer:

in, make sure they have everything they need, get the logins right.

Amalie Shaffer:

That's another reason why I recommend having one solid place

Amalie Shaffer:

because I'm imagining, let's say it's a web designer or whatever.

Amalie Shaffer:

They're going to need the logins and they're going to need, you know, here's

Amalie Shaffer:

this and that, like one place to have all that information, whatever that might look

Amalie Shaffer:

like for you and establishing that before you bring anyone on is that is important.

Amalie Shaffer:

Let's lay the foundation first, before you bring anyone on, but I

Amalie Shaffer:

would absolutely add a fee to it.

Amalie Shaffer:

Now you don't even have to, it doesn't have to be a line item fee.

Amalie Shaffer:

You could just up your prices a little bit if you wanted to.

Amalie Shaffer:

I mean, because think about it too.

Amalie Shaffer:

Let's say you get click up to manage projects and

Amalie Shaffer:

whatever, say you pay for that.

Amalie Shaffer:

Well, that's a software fee.

Amalie Shaffer:

I'm just going off my experience.

Amalie Shaffer:

That's a software fee that you want to incorporate into how much you

Amalie Shaffer:

charge for your projects, right?

Amalie Shaffer:

So my hourly rate includes all the things I pay for to run my business,

Amalie Shaffer:

plus what I'm being paid an hour, right?

Amalie Shaffer:

Like they're all expenses.

Amalie Shaffer:

I have to take that all into consideration when I'm figuring

Amalie Shaffer:

out what my hourly rate is.

Amalie Shaffer:

So yours may go up as you have contractors.

Amalie Shaffer:

So you do want to include that.

Amalie Shaffer:

Now, if you want to make it, if you still want to up your prices, but

Amalie Shaffer:

add a line item, you can do that too.

Amalie Shaffer:

I think it's probably with new clients, probably easier just

Amalie Shaffer:

to up your prices in my opinion.

Sarah Wood:

Right.

Sarah Wood:

And is there like a standard for Like a percentage on a dollar

Sarah Wood:

amount that typically is associated with this, or it's varies widely.

Amalie Shaffer:

So I think it varies.

Amalie Shaffer:

And I think it's going to depend on your process.

Amalie Shaffer:

So how much time is it going to take, you know, and I think you may have to

Amalie Shaffer:

kind of do it and see what happens.

Amalie Shaffer:

I think you're likely.

Amalie Shaffer:

Not you personally, this is just humans in general.

Amalie Shaffer:

We underestimate how long things take.

Amalie Shaffer:

I think you're likely going to underestimate how long it's

Amalie Shaffer:

going to take to manage people.

Amalie Shaffer:

So I think you should go with a number and in six months, do another review.

Amalie Shaffer:

Like it's, it's going to be important for you to track your time.

Amalie Shaffer:

It's going to be tedious, but I think it's important to track your

Amalie Shaffer:

time and your contractor's time.

Amalie Shaffer:

They don't need to, I'm not saying that they have to like be in with a

Amalie Shaffer:

start stop, but they need to give you times of how long something takes.

Amalie Shaffer:

because you need to have an idea of, okay, what am I paying for?

Amalie Shaffer:

Can I find someone that's more efficient and I'm not paying

Amalie Shaffer:

as, you know what I'm saying?

Amalie Shaffer:

Like, you're going to want to know times and how long things take, but for you

Amalie Shaffer:

personally, you're going to want to know how long it takes to manage people.

Amalie Shaffer:

So when you're sitting down doing the onboarding process,

Amalie Shaffer:

how long does that take?

Amalie Shaffer:

How long does it take to onboard one contractor?

Amalie Shaffer:

How long does it take to assign them their, their first project.

Amalie Shaffer:

Likely that'll take longer than their third, fourth, fifth, and so on.

Amalie Shaffer:

Right.

Amalie Shaffer:

How long does it take to manage them after the first project?

Amalie Shaffer:

Like, am I checking in on them a lot?

Amalie Shaffer:

The other reason why you want to know that is because let's

Amalie Shaffer:

say you bring on two designers.

Amalie Shaffer:

One takes is really hands off, does their thing.

Amalie Shaffer:

They're great, whatever.

Amalie Shaffer:

But you bring someone else on and you're like having to talk to them every day.

Amalie Shaffer:

Hey, how's this going?

Amalie Shaffer:

I got to check in with you.

Amalie Shaffer:

Well, that's a time suck.

Amalie Shaffer:

Are you pay?

Amalie Shaffer:

Are you charging your clients enough to account for this

Amalie Shaffer:

time that you're spending.

Amalie Shaffer:

So all of that is hours that you need to know what you're, how long

Amalie Shaffer:

it's taking to do those things.

Amalie Shaffer:

Right.

Amalie Shaffer:

What was the other, I think, did you have another question?

Amalie Shaffer:

I'm sorry, I got really involved in that answer.

Sarah Wood:

I think most of it.

Sarah Wood:

I mean, I think, like I said, the people that I'm considering bringing on are

Sarah Wood:

kind of like known quantities to me.

Sarah Wood:

So that feels a little safer.

Sarah Wood:

I guess I will go ahead and ask this, even though I'm hoping

Sarah Wood:

not to run into this situation because they are known quantities.

Sarah Wood:

If you find yourself in a situation where someone who you subcontracted is

Sarah Wood:

just not doing what they're supposed to be doing, or the quality of the work

Sarah Wood:

is not where you anticipated it being at, what, what would you suggest doing?

Amalie Shaffer:

Okay.

Amalie Shaffer:

So you can fire someone.

Amalie Shaffer:

Well, it depends on your contract.

Amalie Shaffer:

So your agreement will likely say something like you have to

Amalie Shaffer:

give 14 days or 30 days notes.

Amalie Shaffer:

That's like typical between 14 and 30 days.

Amalie Shaffer:

You could make it 60.

Amalie Shaffer:

I that's a little long for me.

Amalie Shaffer:

I'm, I'm a 30 day person as far as like being able to let someone go.

Amalie Shaffer:

But they, on the other hand also have 30 days, they can give you

Amalie Shaffer:

notice and leave 30 days, but they could really just leave whenever.

Amalie Shaffer:

So you do have to be aware of that.

Amalie Shaffer:

Right.

Amalie Shaffer:

And but in regards to your contract I would do 30 days, 30 days notice.

Amalie Shaffer:

So with that in mind, you would, you know, give them 30 days.

Amalie Shaffer:

Prior to that point my recommendation is try to work with the person.

Amalie Shaffer:

Get on a call.

Amalie Shaffer:

So being remote, and I'm assuming you're going to be remote

Amalie Shaffer:

with all these people, right?

Amalie Shaffer:

It is really easy to get in like our own silos of working.

Amalie Shaffer:

I recommend getting on a call.

Amalie Shaffer:

Hey, I noticed this is what's going on was there confusion about the instructions?

Amalie Shaffer:

Kind of be curious about it, find out, ask them questions.

Amalie Shaffer:

Was it just, they're not good, like, do they just not have the

Amalie Shaffer:

skill, or are they just not great at designing, or did they misunderstand?

Amalie Shaffer:

If it was a misunderstanding, let's say they, they got it wrong, they

Amalie Shaffer:

misunderstood the instructions, I'm likely to give them a chance.

Amalie Shaffer:

Especially if I just went through the effort of onboarding them.

Amalie Shaffer:

I just went through the effort of getting them a new project.

Amalie Shaffer:

Let me give them a chance and I may give them one, two projects

Amalie Shaffer:

just to see some, maybe it was just that was not their thing.

Amalie Shaffer:

That kind of, because you're also going to start to learn about the contractors.

Amalie Shaffer:

What are they good at?

Amalie Shaffer:

What are they not good at?

Amalie Shaffer:

Maybe one's good at like more floral design than a more like structure design.

Amalie Shaffer:

So, you know something like that.

Amalie Shaffer:

So then you're also going to get a feel for what they're good at.

Amalie Shaffer:

And so maybe then you just learn, okay, I'm just not going to give them,

Amalie Shaffer:

you know, a project if it's a bunch of flowers versus a bunch of boxes.

Amalie Shaffer:

I mean, I don't know, trying to, I'm trying to like, but

Amalie Shaffer:

you get what I'm saying.

Amalie Shaffer:

Or maybe they're just not great to work with, right?

Amalie Shaffer:

Either way.

Amalie Shaffer:

But let's say you don't know, and you want to give them another, so

Amalie Shaffer:

you want to get on a zoom call.

Amalie Shaffer:

I think it's really, or a video call.

Amalie Shaffer:

I think it's really important or a voice call that you get on with

Amalie Shaffer:

someone and explain not just through email, but through voice so that

Amalie Shaffer:

they can hear your tone or see your face and understand what's going on.

Amalie Shaffer:

Okay, now let's give them 30 days or 60 depending on how many projects

Amalie Shaffer:

you have assigned to them, but let's give them a couple of projects,

Amalie Shaffer:

maybe two to like redeem themselves.

Amalie Shaffer:

Can they do it?

Amalie Shaffer:

Let me try to give them a different project that's more leaning towards

Amalie Shaffer:

their style of design or whatever.

Sarah Wood:

Yeah.

Sarah Wood:

So the, important thing to remember is to make sure that in the contract there is an

Sarah Wood:

out if things are not going as expected.

Sarah Wood:

And then your recommendation is kind of to handle it like you would if

Sarah Wood:

you had an actual employee, right?

Sarah Wood:

And you needed to kind of talk to them about needing to improve

Sarah Wood:

their performance and whatnot.

Sarah Wood:

Specifically, I think specifically my concern is deadlines, right?

Sarah Wood:

If I am the one that's responsible, right?

Sarah Wood:

I'm the one responsible to the client, right?

Sarah Wood:

And maybe this is a fabulous, you know, they do fabulous work.

Sarah Wood:

It's really great, but maybe they're kind of like pushing on those

Sarah Wood:

deadlines or, or that, or it's making my life stressful, right?

Sarah Wood:

Because maybe, maybe I start giving them a little fake deadline to kind of

Sarah Wood:

try to make my life a little easier.

Sarah Wood:

But if that's someone and you kind of.

Sarah Wood:

And it becomes an issue with the client.

Sarah Wood:

Let's put it that way because I feel like I know how to handle it

Sarah Wood:

if it's an issue for me, right?

Sarah Wood:

But if it becomes an issue with the client and it's damaging your

Sarah Wood:

relationship with the client, how would you recommend handling that?

Amalie Shaffer:

So very similarly, again, I want to know, is it a personal issue?

Amalie Shaffer:

Are they going through something?

Amalie Shaffer:

I recommend having two of everything or three of every service.

Amalie Shaffer:

So you have some redundancy that you could pull someone in last minute.

Amalie Shaffer:

Like you need like that pinch hitter.

Amalie Shaffer:

Like, Hey, I got a problem.

Amalie Shaffer:

I need this done.

Amalie Shaffer:

because you're going to run into times where the contractor

Amalie Shaffer:

is not going to get done.

Amalie Shaffer:

They're not going to, something's going to happen.

Amalie Shaffer:

They're going to get sick or they're going to be away or they're going to be like,

Amalie Shaffer:

look, I can't finish this I got to go.

Amalie Shaffer:

You may even have people that just leave and ghost you, whatever.

Amalie Shaffer:

Not that you want that to happen, but it does happen.

Amalie Shaffer:

I would have redundancy in contractors so that you know, Hey, I got something

Amalie Shaffer:

at short notice, please let me know.

Amalie Shaffer:

And you may have to offer to pay, I'll pay you a little extra for the expedited

Amalie Shaffer:

project, but that all happens internally.

Amalie Shaffer:

Outfacing to the client.

Amalie Shaffer:

You're going to have to explain it.

Amalie Shaffer:

Look we'll have it by this day.

Amalie Shaffer:

You know, you're just going to have to reset the expectations with the client.

Amalie Shaffer:

And however, you know, you would normally do that for me.

Amalie Shaffer:

I'm likely going to get onto a call.

Amalie Shaffer:

So again, they can hear my voice, they can see my face and

Amalie Shaffer:

they know we got this there.

Amalie Shaffer:

You know, I just, there was.

Amalie Shaffer:

An emergency, whatever, we're going to get this done.

Amalie Shaffer:

Here it is.

Amalie Shaffer:

And then whatever they say, based on that, you can, you know, maybe

Amalie Shaffer:

they're like, well, I'm not paying until this is done or whatever,

Amalie Shaffer:

you know, whatever that might be.

Amalie Shaffer:

You can adjust that.

Amalie Shaffer:

But those are my recommendations.

Amalie Shaffer:

And for me, the first time someone's late on something, maybe even the second,

Amalie Shaffer:

especially in the beginning, I'm going to find out like, what's going on.

Amalie Shaffer:

Are you like, was this too much?

Amalie Shaffer:

Was this too big of a project?

Amalie Shaffer:

Should I give you smaller ones?

Amalie Shaffer:

because it's always good to have a variety of people that can do a variety of things.

Amalie Shaffer:

So maybe I have someone that can do a quick logo.

Amalie Shaffer:

But giving them like a webpage, they just don't have the time for that.

Amalie Shaffer:

Right.

Amalie Shaffer:

So you're going to want to know what your contractors are good at

Amalie Shaffer:

and you know, what they can handle.

Amalie Shaffer:

That's going to take time working with them to know that though.

Sarah Wood:

Right.

Sarah Wood:

And I mean, it sounds like, which was kind of my thing going in that it's

Sarah Wood:

really a relationship game, right?

Sarah Wood:

I mean, with your, both with your clients and with your subcontractors, right?

Sarah Wood:

The better the relationship you have, the more you know about them.

Sarah Wood:

The more, you know, how they communicate best and, and what style works best

Sarah Wood:

with them, you know, the better the working relationship is going to be the

Sarah Wood:

better results that you're going to get.

Amalie Shaffer:

Yeah.

Amalie Shaffer:

And once you have someone in, and let's say they go, they're doing really great.

Amalie Shaffer:

And then something happens.

Amalie Shaffer:

It's worth human to human to figure out what's happening.

Amalie Shaffer:

Something obviously what's going on, like, right.

Amalie Shaffer:

You know what happened?

Amalie Shaffer:

I have someone as backup.

Amalie Shaffer:

I can bring them in.

Amalie Shaffer:

Yeah.

Amalie Shaffer:

Versus just like letting them go.

Amalie Shaffer:

I don't, that's me personally.

Amalie Shaffer:

I think some people probably just let people go and they just wash

Amalie Shaffer:

their hands of them, but that's just not my way of doing it.

Amalie Shaffer:

I prefer to be, you know, in long relationships with my contractors.

Amalie Shaffer:

I have contractors that I've been working with for like six years.

Amalie Shaffer:

Like I like to build that because they're reliable and I can go to them when I

Amalie Shaffer:

need them and they can help, you know, and I know them, they know my business.

Amalie Shaffer:

They know my processes.

Amalie Shaffer:

It's, it's really, to me, it's important to build that.

Amalie Shaffer:

But you also have to set the boundary, like, okay, this is the

Amalie Shaffer:

third time, like, you gotta go.

Amalie Shaffer:

You know what I'm saying?

Amalie Shaffer:

But after you give them the chance.

Amalie Shaffer:

I have one more thing I want to add.

Amalie Shaffer:

I know that you mentioned that the people that you're planning on hiring

Amalie Shaffer:

are people, you know, I will say, I think it is really important to give

Amalie Shaffer:

contractors a test project before hiring them, whether it's a proofreader,

Amalie Shaffer:

it's a designer, it's whatever.

Amalie Shaffer:

I recommend a test project and you pay them for it.

Amalie Shaffer:

You don't just ask them for free.

Amalie Shaffer:

You pay them.

Amalie Shaffer:

Hey, here is the description of the design I'm looking for

Amalie Shaffer:

and then you give them a limit.

Amalie Shaffer:

Look, I'll pay you for three hours of time.

Amalie Shaffer:

Here's the description, provide this thing like a proofreader might, you would

Amalie Shaffer:

give them, Hey, here's a whole thing.

Amalie Shaffer:

Proofread this, I'll pay you up to three hours.

Amalie Shaffer:

They can take as much time as they want.

Amalie Shaffer:

That way you kind of establish like a baseline of, of their work.

Amalie Shaffer:

I always do test projects with contractors and it really helps

Amalie Shaffer:

me see one, what kind of questions that they come back with.

Amalie Shaffer:

Did they understand?

Amalie Shaffer:

Did they misunderstand?

Amalie Shaffer:

How are they communicating with me?

Amalie Shaffer:

Were they on time?

Amalie Shaffer:

Did they have to ask for an extension on a test project or whatever?

Amalie Shaffer:

It gives me a lot of information about just based off of one thing.

Sarah Wood:

Right.

Sarah Wood:

And it's some of the intangibles as well, too, right?

Sarah Wood:

Like, what's the vibe when I'm working with this person?

Sarah Wood:

Do I feel comfortable with this?

Sarah Wood:

Yeah, I was just thinking about that, that I was like, there are some things

Sarah Wood:

that I could actually use for my own business that it might be helpful to

Sarah Wood:

kind of test run people on, right?

Sarah Wood:

Yeah.

Sarah Wood:

And test run them on something, you know, that's also going

Sarah Wood:

to be of value to me, right?

Sarah Wood:

And value to my business and my efforts at like kind of communicating

Sarah Wood:

and marketing about myself.

Sarah Wood:

Yeah.

Amalie Shaffer:

Yeah.

Amalie Shaffer:

because you may hire them to do something in your business.

Amalie Shaffer:

So right.

Amalie Shaffer:

You know, you need to know what, and you want to know what you're getting into.

Amalie Shaffer:

Like if you ask them to do flowers and they give you squares, like we

Amalie Shaffer:

got a problem, you know what I mean?

Amalie Shaffer:

Like something isn't right.

Amalie Shaffer:

You know?

Amalie Shaffer:

But yeah.

Amalie Shaffer:

So any other questions?

Sarah Wood:

I guess just, is there anything else kind of related to this that

Sarah Wood:

you think would be helpful for me to know?

Sarah Wood:

because as, as someone who's going to do it for the first time, right, I've

Sarah Wood:

been a business owner for a long time, but I've been a solopreneur, right?

Sarah Wood:

So I've been, it's a very different than kind of working with a stable of

Sarah Wood:

subcontractors or even one subcontractor.

Sarah Wood:

And then of course, like obviously You know, bringing on actual full time

Sarah Wood:

employees would be a whole other step.

Sarah Wood:

But is there anything that you just wish you had known before you

Sarah Wood:

brought on your first contractor that you think would be helpful?

Amalie Shaffer:

It takes time to manage people, and even though

Amalie Shaffer:

they're subcontractors, you still have to communicate with them.

Amalie Shaffer:

And like I said, you'll likely underestimate how long it's going

Amalie Shaffer:

to take even the best people require some communication, right?

Amalie Shaffer:

I also think one thing you may want to consider, especially because of

Amalie Shaffer:

the nature of what you're doing, you may have, like, a designer that needs

Amalie Shaffer:

to work with the website person.

Amalie Shaffer:

So again, I'm going to go back to the Slack idea.

Amalie Shaffer:

If you have everyone in Slack, I would not be the middle person.

Amalie Shaffer:

I would want to see the back and forth.

Amalie Shaffer:

So I know what's going on, but it takes a lot of energy for you to be like, what's

Amalie Shaffer:

the, the designer saying, okay, over here to the, you know, to the web designer.

Amalie Shaffer:

Well, the designer said, buh.

Amalie Shaffer:

And then you gotta go back to them and you're going back like that.

Amalie Shaffer:

No, please, by all means, let's not do that.

Amalie Shaffer:

That is crazy.

Amalie Shaffer:

And you're likely to lose track of things, communication.

Amalie Shaffer:

You're going to lose details.

Amalie Shaffer:

Things are going to get missed.

Amalie Shaffer:

Not a good idea.

Amalie Shaffer:

I would allow them to communicate even though they're all subcontractors.

Amalie Shaffer:

So something I do for one of my clients is each project

Amalie Shaffer:

gets its own channel in Slack.

Amalie Shaffer:

So everyone working on that project is in that channel and can communicate.

Amalie Shaffer:

Some of the messages don't apply to them, so they can ignore

Amalie Shaffer:

those, but some of them do.

Amalie Shaffer:

That's going to make your life a lot easier, bringing those people together.

Amalie Shaffer:

I would not keep them separate because that's going to be a lot of time on

Amalie Shaffer:

your hands trying to meet those needs.

Amalie Shaffer:

Yeah, I think so figuring out how you want to communicate with the people about

Amalie Shaffer:

the projects, create your onboarding process, even if it's just written out

Amalie Shaffer:

on a Google doc, and that's all you have, creating your delegation process or task

Amalie Shaffer:

process and task management, how are you going to track this, make sure people are

Amalie Shaffer:

getting things done on time, do you ask

Amalie Shaffer:

for an update at halfway point, like, Hey, how's it going?

Amalie Shaffer:

Are you going to be there?

Amalie Shaffer:

Like establish whatever that is for you.

Amalie Shaffer:

And that might change.

Amalie Shaffer:

Right.

Amalie Shaffer:

So it might change.

Amalie Shaffer:

And then in the onboarding process, that's like getting the agreement

Amalie Shaffer:

together and all of those things.

Amalie Shaffer:

And then test projects.

Amalie Shaffer:

I think that's everything we covered.

Amalie Shaffer:

I mean, there was a lot of other smaller details in there, but those

Amalie Shaffer:

were the kind of the main things.

Amalie Shaffer:

I mean, I think it's, it's, it's good to bring people on.

Amalie Shaffer:

It's going to change things for you because you're going to keep it in house.

Amalie Shaffer:

You're going to be able to say yes to a lot more things versus, Hey, no, but

Amalie Shaffer:

I got somebody you're going to have a little bit more control over the project.

Amalie Shaffer:

Yeah.

Amalie Shaffer:

And I just also just remain flexible.

Amalie Shaffer:

It's going to be a little rough in the beginning.

Amalie Shaffer:

Every time you hire someone new, there's always like an adjustment

Amalie Shaffer:

period, but especially like the first couple of contractors you're

Amalie Shaffer:

hiring just for yourself because you've not worked with them.

Amalie Shaffer:

Just give yourself some grace.

Amalie Shaffer:

It's going to take some time to get used to for them to get used

Amalie Shaffer:

to you just like a new client.

Amalie Shaffer:

It's really the same kind of relationship, but just give yourself the time to adjust.

Amalie Shaffer:

And having the processes in place first will really help you with that.

Sarah Wood:

Great.

Sarah Wood:

This has been really helpful.

Sarah Wood:

It's nice to just be able to like talk it through with someone and

Sarah Wood:

I've managed people before, but you know, when I was a supervisor

Sarah Wood:

before I was like in house, right?

Sarah Wood:

So it's different when it's your own business and there's

Sarah Wood:

just different regulations and things that you're involved in

Sarah Wood:

that you would not necessarily.

Amalie Shaffer:

One more thing I'll mention is I would likely make the

Amalie Shaffer:

due date the day before, or two days before it's actually due to the client.

Amalie Shaffer:

So if it's due, like on a Friday, I'm going to tell the

Amalie Shaffer:

contractor like Wednesday, EOD.

Amalie Shaffer:

Yeah.

Amalie Shaffer:

Okay.

Amalie Shaffer:

Awesome.

Sarah Wood:

And also because you just wanted to be able to have

Sarah Wood:

time to do a, a review, right?

Amalie Shaffer:

Put everything together, review it.

Amalie Shaffer:

Yeah.

Amalie Shaffer:

If you find a mistake, you know, something like that.

Amalie Shaffer:

Yeah.

Amalie Shaffer:

Absolutely.

Amalie Shaffer:

Yeah.

Amalie Shaffer:

Awesome.

Amalie Shaffer:

Well, thank you so much for being here.

Amalie Shaffer:

I'm so grateful.

Amalie Shaffer:

I really appreciate it.

Amalie Shaffer:

And I look forward to connecting again.

Sarah Wood:

Yeah.

Sarah Wood:

Thank you.

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About the Podcast

Operationally Sound Podcast
Welcome to Operationally Sound, where I, Amalie, a seasoned business operations consultant, help you conquer the challenges faced by businesses of all sizes through real-life stories, practical strategies, and expert advice.

In each episode, I'll delve into real-life scenarios, drawing from my extensive experience, to offer invaluable insights to help you navigate the complexities of running successful operations.

But this podcast isn't just about storytelling – it's about solutions. I'll tackle listener questions head-on and leverage my network of fellow business owners to offer strategies and guidance that address your most pressing concerns.

Operationally Sound arms you with the knowledge and tools you need to thrive in business. Join me on this journey as we unlock the secrets to operational success, one episode at a time.

About your host

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Amalie Shaffer

After serving for 8½ years in the U.S. Navy, I transitioned into entrepreneurship. I think in systems and am naturally solution-oriented. My specialty is quickly spotting the problem areas in systems and the gaps in processes that slow your business down and keep you stuck and spinning your wheels – and knowing how to fix it.

You’re not looking for one-size-fits-all solutions. You already know those don’t work. I provide my clients with custom solutions and support that fits their specific needs.

Being able to deliver fast fixes doesn’t mean that I have a churn-and-burn client roster. When I partner with clients, I am invested in your business. Your success is my success. I’m committed to helping you relieve the stress of running your business.. I can help you to create the sustainable foundation that you need to to grow – without the headache, frustration, and drain on resources.