I know that I am supposed to be doing legal transcription blogs right now, and I promise they are coming, but I’ve still got more research that needs to be done on the topic. I am interviewing a gal who works in the industry so we can get an inside scoop on the legal field like we did the medical field, so it is in the making, but the series isn’t quite ready to hit the spotlight yet. “Coming Soon To A Blog Near You!” (actually, very near to you – the very blog you’re on right now. Amazing how that works…)
Back to the purpose of this particular blog: Subcontracting out work. I was talking about subcontracting on another website I was on today, and I got a comment back from another poster that she had never even thought about subcontracting out some of the work she had. That was surprising to me, but as I thought about it, I realized that this was probably not as uncommon as I originally thought. Subcontracting has become much easier with the advent of the Internet, so it only makes sense that not everyone has really thought about it. So I figured I would write up a quick series on the subject for any of you who haven’t looked at the possibility before.
I’ll start at the beginning and explain real quick what subcontracting is. When you are an independent contractor (IC), which the majority of the people who work from home are, then you are allowed by law to subcontract out the work being done to someone else. One of the ways that the IRS determines whether you are an IC or not is your ability to hire someone else to do your work for you. If the company you work for does not allow that, then you are not an IC.
So if you are being paid $10 to write an article, you can hire someone else to write the article, pay them $8.50 for it, and pocket the $1.50 as your cut for your time and trouble in getting the work and sending the work back in to the company who wants it. There are quite a few people who actually subcontract work out as a living – they don’t write any of the articles they turn in, they simply bid on the work, get it, subcontract it out, then turn the work back in, taking their portion of the money as a thank you for providing the work. That isn’t as common as other scenarios, but I personally know several people who do this. More common than that, is someone just being overwhelmed with everything they need to do and so they contract out the work on an as-needed basis, so they can get caught up.
When that happens, it really works in favor of both the contractor and the subcontractor. Who hasn’t said at least once, “I wish there were two of me!” or “If only there were 36 hours in a day, I could get everything done!” When the contractor subcontracts the work out, they are basically get another one of themselves – they personally are able to work on other projects, making money that way, and the subcontractors are working on a project, making them money that way, so they are making money from two different sources at the same time. Every multi-tasker’s dream come true.
It also works in favor of the subcontractor, because many times this kind of work is snapped up by the newbies in the field who haven’t written much, and don’t have a whole lot of confidence in their writing abilities. This gives them experience, and helps them know that they really can do this type of work. It is also usually snapped up by people who aren’t busy at the moment and don’t have any work to do, so they need income, they need work, and this gives it to them. It really is a win-win all around.
There are some downsides that come from trying to subcontract out your work, and I thought that I should cover those too, because they can be quite large. Check out my blog tomorrow, “How to Avoid Some of the Common Pitfalls to Subcontracting out Work.” Thanks for reading!