Occasionally you’ll find that you can land a job that is too big just for you.
At this point you can do one of several things. You can refuse the job because it is too big, accept only part of the job, or accept the whole job and farm out the bits that you can not do.
The latter is interesting, because it allows you to put a margin on the work that you contract out, but that comes at a price, the fact that you are now responsible for other peoples work.
I would advise against this strategy as long as you are not yet able to successfully estimate jobs for contact work for yourself, and as long as you have not taken on jobs that are roughly 1.5 times as large as what one person normally should be able to do.
That’s pretty much the maximum level of efficiency a freelancer can operate at, it means long days but lots of money, if you can keep that up for a sustained period then it is time to look at farming out some of the work.
Farm out the simple work first, build in some room for error so that if things go pear shaped that you can catch it and fix it without the customer finding out. Make sure the person you hire understands their status, if you are the main contractor then you are the conduit to the customer.
Make sure you check the “IP” section of this book in case you are doing work that is creative work for hire, or you may be in trouble. Treat your ‘underlings’ the same way you would like to be treated.
If you find yourself hiring freelancers on a regular basis it is probably time to wonder about moving up one step in the corporate ladder and hiring people for a regular job.