Building a service company with freelancers as your employees

Building a service company with freelancers as your employees

When you start getting too successful selling your own services, you might want to think about outsourcing some of the work to a credible freelancer, or even a few freelancers who can get the job done.  Building a company that relies solely on freelance work isn't unheard of, but you probably don't know you're actually working with one unless you ask where they are located and how many people work for the company.  Usually, the person responding will say they are from a specific country and they have XX people working for them, but they won't go into detail about where all of the employees are from.  You can ask them if they use freelancers, and if they say anything other than "No, we do not use freelancers" you're probably working with a middleman who is running everything   Now, this isn't a bad thing because you're paying a guy, who has already weeded out all the bad freelancers and found the best ones for the job, and you're just paying a few extra bucks for convenience

Again, you probably will never know if a company has it's entire workforce consisting of freelancers, even if you ask lol.  This is why it's such a great business model, you can hire 10 people from the Philippines to do work for you and it would be the same monthly cost as if you were to hire 1 freelancer from the US   Outsourcing work has been going on for the longest time, and is done with every single company out there, even if they don't want to admit it!

In this discussion, I'll be going over how you can build an entire company while using freelancers as your employees and profiting along the way


Finding your freelancers
When you're trying to find the right freelancers to do the majority of work for your new company, you'll first need to figure out what type of services you need to be done.  If you're running an SEO or web design company, you're already in the right spot, all you need to do is find the right freelancers here and figure out if they can do what you need them to.  You can filter out new sellers as well as sellers who aren't the desired user level for your preference.  You'll usually be able to find what you need, and how much they sell the service for, so you'll get a good idea of what you can price your own service at and how much you'll profit from each sale

If you're doing any other type of job that freelancers could do for you, a website like UpWork could be something for you.  You can list what you need, or contact freelancers directly to see if they'd be interested in doing the work.  You can post a job, then invite people to bid, and pick the person that fits the job you need to be done.  You'll then pay them through that platform, just like how SEOclerks works, and you can keep all your conversations through the PMs there.

Being the best middleman
Since you're not doing any of the work yourself, you will technically be the middle man and this means you have less work to do, so now you can invest your time in building relationships with all of your customers.  If you're getting a sale, sending the work to a freelancer, then sending the client a report when the work is done, you won't be in business for long because you're not talking with the client at all between the time of purchase to the time you send the reports.

If you want to be successful as the middleman, you need to talk with the customers while the work is being done.  Ask them what their plans are for the next few years and where they want to be with their website or business, this will help you get to know the client and they will likely keep coming back to you for more work.  Another thing you can do is send them updates while the work is being done, but this requires your freelancers to let you know what's going on along the way, which doesn't happen too often but you can bullsh*t your way through the updates lol

Answering all the emails and tickets yourself
Since you're not doing the work yourself, you will need to be your main support system employee and answer everything that comes in through your emails and any tickets that come in through a support system you have set up.  You know what to do with your business, you know how to answer all the questions, and your customers want to see the CEO responding to them   If you can do this, you will boost your client's satisfaction rates and they will likely come back multiple times as long as the work is top notch.

Sending out reports
When it comes to sending out any sort of reports, you will need to do this on your own and keep everything recorded.  In the past, I would forget to record when I sent out reports to clients, and they would eventually complain about not getting something and I quickly realized that I forgot to send out their report.  This is a pretty common mistake if you're getting a lot of orders, so be sure to have some sort of organization system that you can monitor yourself, and you shouldn't have too many problems.

If you get profitable enough, you can hire a virtual assistant to send out all of the reports for you, keeping you more hands-off which means you can get more customers in and answer more emails and tickets

Getting invoices paid
If you're working with invoices, because your services are more expensive than what someone wants to use a "Buy Now" button for, you'll need to work on your own invoices and keep them tracked.  You probably wouldn't want a freelancer handling this because they usually would need access to your banking or PayPal information, so you'll need to figure out how to send these out yourself. 

If you're using PayPal, sending invoices isn't difficult at all and you can actually send out test invoices to see what they will look like.  You can add your own logos, pricing, tax, shipping, service titles, etc. and everything will show up on the invoice that needs to be paid.  You'll need to monitor what invoices are paid and which are outstanding so you don't start work that hasn't been paid for.  Remember, you're basically the middle man and every time someone pays you means your profits are less than the actual payment.  If you start to do the work prior to the payment clearing, you could lose a lot of money if the client decides to not pay you for the work that was agreed upon.  So, instead of taking chances on your unpaid invoices, wait for them to be paid and play it safe


In conclusion
Running a successful business by utilizing a team of freelancers has been done thousands of times, I've actually done it myself a few times and sold the websites for even more profit   You have to find the right freelancers for the job by filtering out the ones that can't really do the work and the ones who are charging too much for something that should cost a few dollars.  You'll need to be on top of your support system, answering tickets and emails as they come in if you want to be the best at your job.  Running a business like this doesn't mean you get to slack off, you actually have to manage all your orders as well as your freelancers, and make sure all the work is getting done and on time.  You can do this if you want, just know that it will take time and effort to get the clients in, and even more time managing everything.


Remember to follow me!
https://www.seoclerks.com/user/TommyCarey


Thanks!

Tommy Carey