If you have just two or three prospective freelancers left on your list after the due diligence process, then you can go ahead and hire them all.

There are two main reasons for hiring multiple people:

You can find out which freelancer does the best job for you.

Remember, even freelancers who do great jobs for others may not necessarily do a spectacular job for you. This usually happens because the two of you don’t communicate very well.

In other cases, you may simply not get along with a particular freelancer very well (e.g., your personality styles may clash). So even if this person produces good work, you may simply choose not to work with that person again. (Or, alternatively, that person may choose not to continue working with you.)

Point is, you want to test a variety of freelancers (the top two or three candidates on your list) to see who’s best suited for doing a particular project.

You’ll build a “second string” of freelancers.

Think of sports teams. They have their “first string” players, which are the guys who start the game and play for most of it. These are the best players.

But what happens if one of the first-string players is unavailable to play? Then a second-string player has to take his place. He/she may not be as good as the first string player, but he/she gets the job done.

The same thing can happen in your business. You may have your “first-string freelancers” – these are your favorites, the ones who do the best job for you. But your favorites aren’t always available.

So rather than wait months in order to get a job done, you may just hire another qualified freelancer (your “second string freelancer”). And that’s why it’s a good idea to hire a variety of people upfront, so that you can create a first and second line of freelancers.

Now, there are basically two ways to hire several people at once. Specifically:

Hire everyone to do the same job.

This obviously works best if you have an inexpensive job you need done, like creating a graphic. In this case you can hire two or three people, give them all the same project brief, and see who creates a graphic that most closely resembles what you had in mind. The advantage of this is that you get to directly compare different freelancer’s work and results.

But of course hiring different people to do the exact same job doesn’t always make sense (especially financially). In that case, you might try the second option…

Hire freelancers to do similar, but different, jobs.

Another option is to have your different freelancers complete different parts of the same job.Now, maybe you’re wondering what to do if your due diligence resulted in you getting left with more than two or three people on your list.

In that case, you need to rank your list in order of preference and then hire the top two or three. In order to do this, you may need to do one or more of the following:

Do additional research – In other words, extend your research to see if there’s one candidate that’s more qualified than the others.

Interview the person – (This step isn’t required for small, one-off tasks.)

Check the freelancers’ schedules – You may be prepared to hire someone, but perhaps you find out that the freelancer isn’t available for months. If you have a project that you need completed ASAP, then these long wait times may naturally disqualify a prospective freelancer.

Once you’ve ranked your freelancers in order of preference, then hire the top two or three to do the same or similar jobs (as described above). But keep these tips in mind…

Start small. Remember, this is just a testing period. You’re testing the freelancer to see if he/she produces good work. And for that matter, he/she is testing you to see if the two of you work well together, if you provide clear briefs and if you pay on time.

As such, you should start out by working on small projects together for a few weeks. Point is, don’t give your long or expensive projects to a new freelancer until after you find out if the two of you are a good fit.

Provide a clear project brief. Your freelancer isn’t a mind reader. And that’s why you need to offer a clear project brief and instructions.

Create legal agreements. In most cases you’ll need to talk to a competent attorney about this. However, you will want to consider creating and signing legal agreements which will protect both you and the freelancer.

Make your expectations known. Your legal agreements will cover the main points, such as payment terms and delivery deadlines. However, you should make your other expectations know as well.

Now that you’ve hired a freelancer and started working on small projects, it’s time to move on to the next step…

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All posts in the “Grow Your Business with Freelancers” Series:

• Growing Your Business with Freelancers
• Plan Your Outsourcing
• Brainstorm and Evaluate Your Needs
• Decide What to Outsource
• Types of Freelancers
• Posting Projects and Ads
• Sort Through Prospective Freelancer Candidates
• Evaluating Freelancers
• Hire the Best Freelancers

Okay, so now you know why you should invest time upfront to do your research and find the best candidates. Now let’s look at some of the steps involved in the actual due diligence process…

Check feedback ratings
If you’re hiring a freelancer from a freelancing site (like Elance.com), then you have the advantage of checking the person’s feedback and ratings from other business owners.

Ask around
Whether you’re hiring offline or online, you can ask around to see if anyone has any good or bad experiences with this freelancer.

Review the portfolio
This is actually one of the first things you should do if you’re hiring certain types of freelancers like writers, graphic designers and similar. Point is, you want to make sure that your freelancer is capable of  handling the type of work you require.

Look at testimonials 
Don’t believe everything you read, though, as a testimonial is easy enough to fake.

Use Google
Finally, one of the best ways to do your due diligence is to research the freelancer’s business history and background in Google.

Do NOT just cherry pick one or two of the above methods while ignoring the others, especially if you’re looking for a freelancer for a big, expensive and/or ongoing project.

Instead, go through all the steps above (where applicable) so that you get a clear picture of the freelancer’s:

• Ability to produce great work. 
• Ability to meet deadlines.
• Ability to be professional.

Once you’ve done your due diligence, you’ll find that your big list of prospective freelancers very quickly gets whittled down to a select group.

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All posts in the “Grow Your Business with Freelancers” Series:

• Growing Your Business with Freelancers
• Plan Your Outsourcing
• Brainstorm and Evaluate Your Needs
• Decide What to Outsource
• Types of Freelancers
• Posting Projects and Ads
• Sort Through Prospective Freelancer Candidates
• Evaluating Freelancers
• Hire the Best Freelancers

You’ve got your list of freelancers. But don’t hire anyone just yet. That’s because the next thing you need to do is sort through these prospective candidates in order to uncover those who’re most suitable for the job.

Before we get into the details of this process, let me make a couple points:

1. Spending time upfront saves you time and money down the road.
Yes, this process does take some time upfront as you do your due diligence and perhaps even go through an interview process. However, the time you spend now will save you time, money and frustration down the road.

You see, some business owners simply skip this process and instead assume that anyone advertising as a professional freelancer must be reputable professional who’ll produce good work. However, that’s not always true.

Some freelancers can’t seem to keep projects on track, meaning they’re always missing deadlines (and thus derailing major parts of your business).

Some freelancers simply aren’t very good at what they do. And worse yet, some freelancers are actually scammers, meaning their goal is to take your money without any intention of doing the work.

As such, it’s extremely important that you go through the due diligence process. Consider it a good investment of your time.

2. Make the process proportionate to the job and the relationship.
You’ll want to do your research and due diligence every time you hire a freelancer. However, you don’t necessarily need to do the same amount of research for every freelancer.

Instead, you’ll need to keep the amount of research you do in proportion to the relationship you expect to have as well as the cost of the project.

3. Good freelancers for others may not be good for you.
Another thing to keep in mind is that just because a freelancer has great feedback and comes highly recommended, that doesn’t mean this person will work well with you. You’ll learn more about this important factor just a bit later.

4. Don’t shop around based on price alone.
Finally, don’t base your research on price alone. High prices don’t necessarily mean better quality work. Low prices don’t necessarily mean inferior work. You’ll need to do your full due diligence and research in order to determine how well suited a particular candidate is for your specific project.

Point is, while there are legitimate reasons for spectacular freelancers to have dirtcheap prices, there’s a good chance that the prices won’t stay low forever.

So, that means you either need to be prepared to pay higher prices or you need to spend an incredible amount of time constantly looking for new freelancers at discounted rates.

Truth is, you waste a lot of time and money if your freelancing team is constantly turning over. It’s better to either find a good freelancer upfront (even if she/he charges more) or pay a good freelancer’s higher prices if he/she starts raising them. In other words, it’s not always a good deal to constantly be seeking out low-price freelancers.

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All posts in the “Grow Your Business with Freelancers” Series:

• Growing Your Business with Freelancers
• Plan Your Outsourcing
• Brainstorm and Evaluate Your Needs
• Decide What to Outsource
• Types of Freelancers
• Posting Projects and Ads
• Sort Through Prospective Freelancer Candidates
• Evaluating Freelancers
• Hire the Best Freelancers

Obviously, the way you approach finding a freelancer is going to depend, in part, on whether you’re seeking a local freelancer, a remote freelancer (or perhaps either one).

So let’s have a look at five of the most popular ways to find these freelancers…

• Post projects on freelancing sites
  One of the most well-known freelancing sites is Elance.com, but there are others. And some of them are better for certain types of tasks (like programming and other technical tasks). How it works is you post a project, your prospective freelancers bid on the project and then you select one vendor from among the applicants.
• Post advertisements
  You can post advertisements both online and offline, such as in your local newspaper and on CraigsList.org. You can also post flyers around your local area.
• Browse advertisements
  Yet another way to uncover prospective freelancers is to read their advertisements.
• Search Google
  Whether you’re looking for a remote or local freelancer, Google can help you uncover dozens of suitable candidates. Run your search and then check out both the regular search results as well as the sponsored (paid) results that appear at the top of the natural results as well as on the right side of your screen.
• Ask around
  Finally, if you have trusted business colleagues who’re outsourcing, then you’ll want to ask for their recommendations.

These are just a few of the most popular methods.

The key to your success is to cast a wide net, thereby attracting as many suitable candidates as possible. The reason you want such a big list of prospective freelancers is because once you start doing your due diligence and research, this list is going to get whittled down fairly quickly.

You’ll learn how to do that next.

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All posts in the “Grow Your Business with Freelancers” Series:

• Growing Your Business with Freelancers
• Plan Your Outsourcing
• Brainstorm and Evaluate Your Needs
• Decide What to Outsource
• Types of Freelancers
• Posting Projects and Ads
• Sort Through Prospective Freelancer Candidates
• Evaluating Freelancers
• Hire the Best Freelancers