How To Build a Team of Freelancers for Your Business

You only have so many hours in a workday, which limits what you can reasonably accomplish. As demand for your services increases, eventually you will reach capacity and you’ll be faced with a choice: Will you turn down clients or learn to innovate?

Building a team of freelancers for your business can expand the horizon for how much work you can take on. Instead of turning down clients, you have the possibility of increasing your revenue and output.

This is the position I found myself in not long after I started freelancing as a team of one. I worked hard to build my brand, Mr. Sharepoint, and soon multiple clients started coming to me. I no longer had the time to take on new projects. Every job I said no to seemed like a missed opportunity, with revenue going out the door.

I either had to accept these losses or figure out how to grow. My choice was to grow.

I started hiring freelancers on Upwork to work on different aspects of my projects. Having more people involved lets me do more with my time. Instead of always working in my business, I can work on my business—changing my mindset towards growth.

If you're starting to reach capacity and are thinking about how you can get to that next level, my insight on how to build a team of freelancers for your business may be helpful. In this story we’ll cover:

When to hire freelancers

Options for hiring freelancers

Invest in a team you trust

Shift to a collaborative mindset

When to hire freelancers

Building a brand and hiring freelancers that you trust to work on your projects lets you increase your revenue. You know it's time to start looking for help when:

• You're at capacity
• You're not able to take on any new clients
• You can’t accept new job invites
• You have to be overly selective about the projects that fit your expertise—because of demand

When you don't have time to look at job invites, offers, or check newly posted jobs on Talent Marketplace™, you may be leaving revenue on the table.

You never want to sacrifice your work quality to meet demand or decline a job invitation because you’re too busy. If I work with just one or two freelancers in an eight-hour workday, I can double or even triple my productivity. The only time I say no now is when the client or project isn't the right fit for me and my brand.

Options for hiring freelancers

After I started diving in and exploring the talent on Upwork, I realized there were two main options for hiring talented professionals to support my business and offer more to my clients.

Option 1: Create a virtual talent bench

Once you’ve established your brand as a business or freelancer, you can grow by setting up a team of independent professionals you repeatedly turn to. To do this, you’ll need to add an additional account and become an Upwork client. This will let you post jobs to Talent Marketplace and create a Virtual Talent Bench™ of your go-to freelancers.

Your virtual talent bench makes it easy to save information about your favorite freelancers in one place. You can quickly send job invites, offers, and messages back and forth. A virtual talent bench allows you to think bigger.

Imagine if you found other freelancers who were equally as talented as you, with correlated skills. When you find highly specialized freelancers to fill skills gaps, you can have them at your fingertips to provide more services to clients.

You could even create an agency and become a one-stop shop for clients in your niche. Offer complete packages instead of just your specific service to increase revenue and attract more clients.

Tip: Before you start searching for talent, think about your business model. What other services would a client need that go well with yours? You can look at jobs on Talent Marketplace in your niche and see where the demand is. Figure out what your clients want and the different packages you could offer.

Option 2: One-off outsourcing and subcontracting

You get to decide the level of involvement you want talent to have. As a freelancer, with your client's approval, you can choose to outsource the work by subcontracting to other independent professionals. The person can help with the work you don't need to be hands-on with, like administrative tasks, data entry, or editing.

Having an extra set or two of hands lets you focus on what you do best. When everyone specializes in what they are the most skilled at, you can deliver an even higher quality product to your clients.

You will need to be clear in how you delegate tasks and take time to review their deliverables, making sure they're up to your standards before sending them over to the client for final approval. Using talent to help you be more productive and efficient can lead to quicker turnaround times. Being able to complete projects faster may even help you win more proposals.

Tip: If someone I outsource to as a subcontractor does a great job, they may make it over to my virtual talent bench. This streamlines our process for future engagement. I don't have to look up their profiles every time. I already know they have the skills and quality of work that I need.

Invest in a team you trust

Concern about trust is the biggest pushback I get when I advise other freelancers and small businesses to expand by finding independent talent with skills that complement theirs. I remember being hesitant at first too. I was worried that I couldn't trust somebody else to do the same level of work that I do.

Instead, I quickly found freelancers on Upwork with the exact skills I needed. I took time to interview freelancers through video chats before working together and found talent with fitting personal qualities that I connected with right away.

The right independent professionals will be easy to work with and have skills and traits that match yours. They may even bring something extra to the table that fills a gap. You want to find people you get along with and can work together with long-term, so you don't have to keep onboarding new talent and getting them up to speed. When in doubt, trust your gut.

Find the quality freelancer you are looking for by taking these steps before extending an offer:

Step 1: Create a job post that attracts top talent

Experienced freelancers know what type of work they do. They have a specific niche and expertise. When creating a job posting, clearly explain what you want and are looking for. Be direct and make it easy to understand. Consider including the following elements:

Clearly outline the requirements: You first need to know what your requirements are. Start with technical skills. This is the baseline for what the freelancer needs to have. You'll get to pick up to 10 main skills and then add any other nice-to-haves to the description. When reading your job posting, freelancers should quickly be able to tell if they're qualified and what the project needs.

Include the functional qualities needed, too: Having the right functional qualities are just as important. Think about what you're looking for in these partners. Depending on the role, you may need someone outgoing and persuasive to be good at sales or someone self-motivated and reliable to meet deadlines with minimal oversight.

Use advanced preference filters: You can write these qualities in your description. If you need someone more experienced, you can filter out candidates using "Advanced Preferences" to choose a minimum job success score and freelancer earnings.

Tip: If you need help creating your job posts, you can save time with Upwork's AI Job Post Generator, which is powered by OpenAI. After putting in a few prompts about your project, the Job Post Generator will create a full job description that you can edit and make changes to.

Step 2: Send job invites

After you post your project to Talent Marketplace, you can search for freelancers or agencies (if you want to work with a full team) and send personal job invites. If a freelancer accepts, submitting a proposal doesn't cost them any Connects. Job invites help increase the chances of finding the talent with the experience level and specific skills you need.

You can find freelancers by searching the top of the home screen and choosing any filters you want, like Talent Badges and hourly rates. Then you'll get a list of matching talent, and you can view their profiles and click <<Send Invitation>> to invite your top picks. You'll also be able to add a message, which can be a nice touch.

Step 3: Evaluate proposals

Talent interested in your job will submit their proposals, which you'll use to see who you want to interview and get to know more. The first thing I look for is signs that a freelancer cut and pasted their cover letter and responses. I want to see that they took the time to read through the job posting and customize their proposal. This means they're actually interested.

Think about what qualities are important to you. If I'm going to be working with someone, I want them to be well-polished, personable, and not afraid to take risks. While they need the technical skills to deliver high-quality work, I need to make sure we will get along. If they are working directly with clients, I need to be confident they'll handle themselves professionally and positively represent my brand.

One thing that I found is that people tend to buy more (or buy in general) from people that they like. A product or service could be average, but if the person selling or offering it is likable, they often make the sale over a competitor. When you combine those two, having somebody highly likable and really good at what they do, that's a win-win situation.

Tip: I suggest writing down a list of qualities and traits you're looking for in a freelancer. After you pick the most qualified candidates based on their proposals, you can use those qualities as your grading criteria in the interviews.

Step 4: Interview candidates

Since I put a high value on compatibility, I take the time to interview candidates. Having a conversation, whether a phone call or video chat, gives me a better sense of whether or not I want to work with someone. You can schedule meetings and video calls right on Upwork, which makes it easy.

If you've never had to interview someone before, it can seem a bit nerve-wracking. As a freelancer, you know what it's like to be on the other end, but after a few times, you'll get used to it.

Write down a list of technical and functional questions you want to ask and plan to score each applicant on a scale of 1-10. Jot down your first thoughts and impressions while they are still fresh.  

Ask functional questions to check for compatibility with you, or with the role you are filling on your team. Ask about their work style, and get a feel for their personality. For example, are they someone who wants to stay behind the scenes and is dependable but maybe not right for a client-facing role?

Questions to ask include:

• Can you tell me about a time you had to deal with a difficult client?
• What would you do if you weren't able to meet a deadline?
• Can you tell me about a time when you didn't meet a client's expectations and what you did to fix the situation?
• What is your preferred work style?
• How do you manage multiple projects and deadlines at once?
• What do clients like most about working with you?

Tip: Always save time at the end so the freelancers can ask you any questions they may have about the project.

Shift to a collaborative mindset

When you're used to working independently without a team, shifting to a collaborative mindset can be challenging at first. You have to think of it as growth and become comfortable with managing and assigning tasks to other freelancers. Part of your new role will be project management.

It's your responsibility to set workflows and processes for freelancers to follow. The client wants their final deliverable, and it will be up to you to subcontract or assign work to freelancers under your agency. You'll need to regularly check in with your team, making sure everyone is on schedule and has what they need.

I use project management tools like Microsoft Planner and ClickUp to help me stay organized when working with other freelancers. A project management tool lets you visualize the progress and see updates. You can assign milestones on Upwork and message back and forth on the platform while also collaborating in the project management tool.

Tip: I always recommend starting with the quick wins when trying out a new freelancer or agency. Be on the lookout for projects that you know a new team can complete successfully. The job doesn’t have to be big. The goal is to get positive client reviews and establish your reputation and Job Success Score.

Build your team on Upwork

I've been able to take on more clients and increase my revenue by building a team on Upwork. Today, I run a successful business, Mr. Sharepoint, helping companies of all sizes set up and make the most out of Microsoft Sharepoint and 365. Under my brand, I can hire freelancers and accomplish much more than I could do just by myself.

As you become more successful and the demand for your service rises, you may reach the limit of what you can accomplish alone. Building a team on Upwork lets you grow and create a business to take on more clients and offer more services. Start by posting a job to the Talent Marketplace and see what proposals come in. Meet people you click with and build trusted working relationships.

On Upwork, you can find highly skilled talent (just like yourself) from all over the world and rethink what is possible. Feel free to reach out to me if you’d like support or want to learn more about what I do and how I can help you.