I just finished explaining subcontracting from the point of view of the contractor. Now we’re on to finding the work if you’re interested in becoming a subcontractor yourself.
I am the member of a popular WAHM (work-at-home moms) forum, and I am realizing now, more than ever, that one of the best parts about being active in those kinds of forums is the work that comes from them. I have gotten a handful of jobs in the past several months from other posters on that forum either posting a “Help me!” post that I responded to, or by them PMing me and asking me if I’ll take on work from them. If you are a regular poster whose posts are intelligent, well-written, you use proper spelling, etc, then others will know that you will turn out quality work and will want you to take on their work.
People often say, “When I’m at a forum, I’m just relaxing, hanging out with friends. I’m not going to worry about my spelling or whether I’m using it’s and its right.” That, my friends, is completely your prerogative. Absolutely no one is forcing you to write correctly and spell correctly and punctuate correctly in a forum. No gun will be held to your head, and I doubt anyone is going to kick you off the forum if you make too many mistakes. But like every choice you make, there are good consequences and there are bad consequences. The good consequence is that you’ll be able to tear through your posts and not spend much time writing them. The bad consequence is that when someone is interested in trying to find someone to hire, they may not subcontract to you because of your past posts. As long as you know the consequences, feel free to do whichever one you want to. 😉
All of this brings me to another reason of why subcontracting a good thing for people (the other two reasons being it gives work to people who need it, and it gives work to newbies who aren’t confident in their skills): When you are online, trying to find work, you have to bid on projects at websites like Guru or Rent-a-Coder, which takes time and sometimes money (you can buy memberships at Guru so you can get more jobs, etc, but you pay for that membership whether you get any of the jobs or not.) If, instead, you are simply a member of a forum, minding your own business, and you get a PM asking you to do work for another poster, you can get that work without having had to spend a lot of time searching for it, without having had to bid on it, and without having had to spend any money to be able to bid on it. It just comes straight to your doorstep. Life doesn’t get much easier than that.
Before you accept any work, make sure that all the terms of the agreement are laid out: “I will write four 500 word articles at X amount per article, using ‘Blah Blah’ as my titles, due on Y date, and paid via PayPal on Z date.” Never go into a contract with someone with the understanding that you’ll “figure out the details” later. Later is never a good time to figure out details.
Well, that’s it for the subcontracting mini-series. If you missed the other parts, check out Part One here and Part Two here. Have you ever personally subcontracted out work or have ever taken on work that was subcontracted? Been burnt? Had a great experience? Leave your comments below!