Growing Your Creative Practice: How To Hire Out and Direct Other Creatives
Vol. 032
Growing Your Graphic Design Business: How To Hire and Direct Other Freelance Creatives.
Starting a creative business is easy. Growing a creative business is difficult. Here are some tried and true steps to taking the next step in your freelance graphic design or creative business.
A quick bite:
Hiring subcontractors is tough. How do you do it, who do you choose, when do you do it are just a few of the obvious questions. Not to mention, every time you’re in need of help you’re likely too busy to go through the process of finding, vetting, hiring, etc! Below I talk about how we find and hire subcontractors to support Vicarel Studios (and we have a link for you to grab our subcontractor and non disclosure agreement!) — you must keep your buns safe with legal contracts!
Continue reading below…
Be sure to read number 3, the most important of them all!
Finding, hiring and vetting a creative subcontractor is tough. It seems like every time you need them, you’re too busy to find them. And then when you have time to find them, you don’t need them. Not to mention, you need to setup process, communications, briefs, etc. in order to facilitate a smooth project and transition of work. And let’s not forget the need for subcontractor and nondisclosure agreements — it’s a doozy!
Below I break down the 3 simple steps that I took to start hiring Vicarel Studios’ first contractors (this happened about 3.5 years into freelancing).
Now, I literally couldn’t imagine working without the support of others. Utilizing contractors allows me to focus on the work I’m best at, the work that I love, and keep the business moving forward with intention, direction and control!
1. Get ready to hire freelance graphic designers before the need arises
This was where I initially got hung up. You need to vet your potential contractors prior to actually needing them. For years I needed help with my business — I was over worked and I didn’t know how to stop the cycle; however, when I was overwhelmed with work, I felt like I was too busy to worry about finding, vetting, and directing another graphic designer. The idea of doing all of that while also doing all of the work I had on my plate was massively overwhelming.
At some point, things slowed down, and I took it upon myself to put together a list of viable contractors for future work: logo designers, graphic designers, brand strategists, copywriters, web developers — you name it!
How to create a list of contractors:
I simply created a Google Drive Sheet with columns for the pertinent information. This is different for everybody. For me, this was: FName, LName, their specialty, additional notes, email address, hourly rate, portfolio link, and level of experience. Their specialty, additional notes, and level of experience was how I rated them in comparison to expectations set for work produced by Vicarel Studios.
It’s worth noting that many graphic designers and freelancers don’t work an hourly rate — I candidly told these people “this is how we hire contractors, so if you don’t have an hourly rate, I likely will not be able to consider you for projects.”
I gave them the opportunity to either pick a rate or walk away — no pressure! Remember, this is your business. Make it work for you.
But, how do I find freelance creatives and contractors to support my business?
There is no right or wrong way to do this. I personally have found most of my freelance graphic designers and creative contractors through Instagram. However, here are a few additional suggestions:
Create a feed post or do an instagram story telling people that you’re looking to build up your list of go-to contractors. You can also do this on LinkedIn and Dribbble.
Don’t wait for people to come to you, go to a place like LinkedIn, Dribbble, Behance and Instagram and search for the people and talent that you need. Reach out to them directly and request their information and rates.
Set up a “work with us” page on your website and cater it towards freelancers who are looking for additional work — this allows you to automatically capture their information directly into a Google Sheet document.
Find creative freelancers and/or contractors on UpWork.
The overarching idea here is that you need to get all of the information and relevant details of your potential contractors BEFORE you actually need them. This way, when you’re busy and ready to hire help, you already know who to reach out to and what they will cost.
When requesting freelancers to “apply”, you want to be very specific with exactly what information you need from them so as to reduce back-and-forth correspondence. Here’s a copy template to find contractors:
“[INSERT BUSINESS NAME] Vicarel Studios is growing, and we’re looking for other [INSERT NEED] freelance creatives to support that business growth! If you’re an [INSERT NEED] illustrator, a graphic designer or a lettering artist please email me at [INSERT EMAIL] adam@vicarelstudios.com with [INSERT INFO YOU NEED] a link to your most relevant portfolio, your hourly rate (we only hire hourly), what your specialty is, and how readily available you normally are. Thanks so much in advance!”
2. Have processes in place (Asana, Slack, Trello, creative briefs, etc.) for succinct and clear communication, documentation and tracking relevant information with your contractors.
I hate to break it to ya, but if you’re focused on growing your business, there are some things that matter MORE than the creative work itself. I know, it hurts to hear…
One of the most important things you can do as a creative entrepreneur is figure out how to stream line and articulate your exact process and expectations to others. Getting to the point of hiring help requires you to think like a business owner, not like an artist, and this means that you need to have set processes and communication channels in place.
Set up your communication channels. I personally use Slack and Asana.
Asana: I use Asana tasks in place of a creative brief for for my contractors. Herein I outline the details of the task, expectations, deliverables, timelines and any other pertinent information. For larger tasks (comprehensive branding projects or mural designs) I will create a more formal creative brief for my contractor.
Slack: Here I setup a channel to communicate with my contractor about the project. This way everything lives in the same place and prevents things from getting lost in text, email, and other locations.
Having an easy-to-understand process and communication plan assures that there is nothing lost in translation, everything is trackable, and expectations are aligned.
The more clear you are up front, the better off you’ll be.
3. Set expectations and details up front with a subcontractor agreement (duh!). Here, you can set your budget, specific deliverables, and timelines officially with a contract. Additionally, if relevant, use a non disclosure agreement (NDA).
A subcontractor agreement assures protection of you, your subcontractor and your client. Keep things legit, clear, and concise!
An NDA is typically used any time that that confidential information is disclosed. Having confidentiality in writing and signed by all parties enables open conversations about projects/opportunities and prevents any fear of intellectual property (IP) theft.
These documents may feel unnecessary at times, but trust me, you want to be using them. They are oftentimes only leveraged in worst case scenarios, but it’s those times specifically that you’ll be so happy you have them. Think about 2020, and how many people found themselves in weird situations because of the pandemic. These are the instances that you’re happy that a contract is in place.
If you’d like to grab our subcontractor agreement/contract and non disclosure agreement o protect yourself from the unknown, you can grab them here!
In conclusion, the essence of hiring design support is getting your ducks in a row BEFORE you actually need them.
Doing so removes the burden of finding support while you’re so busy that you need that support.
Additionally, having very clear deliverables, process and expectations (laid out in a contract!) protect you, your contractor and your client; this allows you to confidently hire this contractor with no fears about getting screwed over in any way!
Have more questions on the topic? Ask away!
Cheers
