What tactics can my small firm (8 staff) employ to compete with freelancers?We are increasingly finding that freelancers are winning work by virtue of being able to commit substantially more time to a project within a given budget.The freelancers invariably do a pretty poor job. Nonetheless, they have the gift of the gab and, combined with their low daily rates, do very well at winning projects. How can we compete against this?

become a firm of 8 freelancers.

Essentially your costs are too high or the quality of your output is too low.You should be looking at competing with larger small firms in your space rather than losing out to freelancers.I'm afraid it is not actually true to say that they 'invariably do a pretty poor job' in absolute terms. The history of the management consulting industry does provide examples to the contrary.Moreover seasoned troubleshooters may be able to offer better quality communication skills than are available in your firm.Look at your turnover figures. If they are healthy you might consider investing in better quality communications. If they are weak you might be forced to cut costs.

Hmm, I smell a rat.It would appear that your sales efforts are "pony" at best. Rather than address the issue, you seek to blame freelancers. Suggest you look closer to home.I am a freelancer and the quality of my work is very high. It is by necessity - I work on the strength of my network and the recommendation of all my previous clients.

Guys, I'm not trying to generalise about freelancers, I'm just saying that I very often lose out in a competitive situation to freelancers who are able to undercut us. Very often, I later hear that the client was dissatisfied with their work. On several occasions they've had to kick out the freelancer and have somebody 'rescue' the project. Yes many freelancers are excellent, but the ones I consistently come across aren't.When posting your answers, please use the assumption that the freelancers I'm competing against are cheaper (half the price) but do inferior work. However, please also assume that they are excellent at selling themselves.As the previous poster mentioned, our sales efforts may well be "pony", in fact I'm sure this is the root cause of it all. We do great work (evidenced by client feedback, repeat work, referrals, etc) but we're poor at marketing ourselves. Any tips for how we can improve in this area?

...employ a freelance marketing consultant who's low fee's and competitive manner will suit your needs...

not such a bad idea... thanks bingoany more suggestions? :)

A-ha...you have fallen into my trap. See how easy it is to accept the services of a contractor. They're desperate for work and cheap, why not give them a go?!!!That's the thought process you're competing against and you need your pitches to leave a thought in the buyers head that says results rather than costs.You need to understand why you are not winning your deals, I work for a Big 4 and we always chase for feedback - it's in the prospective client's interests to foster a competitive market for their work.You need to understand (and get over) the fact that you cannot compete on price against one man with a laptop and a mobile. So you need to differentiate, remember the reason why you started a business in the first place and sell consistently on that message. You must want to be better, faster, more engaged than whoever you worked for before. If not you are filling market space rather more than filling a need and the end is nigh!Build sales into the performance regime of your people, those who are not contributing on that level are very expensive to a small business such as yours and you should consider culling them. If that is not a possibility due to some specific factors in your niche then hire someone to take the lead in generating sales, someone who knows how to do it and understands that they will be paid on results.Good luck! God loves a tryer!Now that took me 10mins, with my discounted evening contractor rate that's just £100 please...

Thank you bingo, that is quality advice.Commoditisation of our work is definitely a problem, things that we did 5 years ago are now easily copied by clients as well as freelancers and we're finding it difficult to differentiate ourselves. Obviously (as you mention) we cannot compete on price within our target market, so we need to find a 'unique' or niche service I guess.Your cheque is in the post :-)

Only as good as your last project/contract and absolutely refute and refuse to entertain the idea tht freelancers deliver a poor service/result

I am so glad you came with a comment that NOT all freelancers are awful consultant. I am a one man band and work hard on providing the services the client has paid for. Almost 100% of my work has been repeat business. I am sure there are bad apples out there but then I can find you bad apples within the major/smaller consultances too. This not me saying this but my clients.

Thanks for the comments - however, in the nicest possible way, please can we get this thread back on track?This isn't a debate about the quality of work produced by freelancers. We're talking about a specific situation here, as follows:The freelancers I come across do a poor job, but are cheap and are excellent at selling work (emphasis on them being the ones I come across; yes I agree that many freelancers are good but lets please just work on the basis that the ones I often find myself competing against really do produce poor quality work for their clients). Their clients are more often than not disappointed with them at the end of the day (the clients tell me so), but it's a big world out there and the freelancer simply moves on to the next 'mug' and the cycle perpetuates. Basically I'm finding myself losing out to people who quite frankly could almost be called charlatans, simply because they're cheap and very good in a sales situation. They are also usually quite old, which I'm finding seems to often be mistaken for 'experienced and knowledgable'. How do I deal with this?

Let me repeat, I too have had clients complaining about consultancy firms that have promised this and that BUT delivery being well short of expectations. Again due to fantastic sales pitch BUT low on quality, which is the same accretion with regards towards SOME Freelancers. As I said bad apples in both camps. I can ask the reverse, how do I deal the might of organisation with their sexy all dancing and singing pitches, promising the client the earth. They provide guarantees in terms of quality of delivery (e.g. we have many consultants that can do the job, so don't worry Mr Client) which is true, many can do but then again with some its all talk. I use to work for a major consultancies as a Principal Consultant but now have my own practice, so I know how it operates. Sales and utilisation is everything, the bottom line. However, not all consultancies are like that, some do take client satisfaction very seriously. But still ringing in my ears, the famous cry 'lets win it first then worry about how we deliver it'. Its terms of your issue, not easy with dealing with the freelances that are good at sales, but nothing in the back office so to speak. I am strong believer in what goes around comes around. These people come and go, they are not able to sustain repeat business. I guess we are both fighting the same war but on different battle fields, how do I deal with consultancy firms that have great pitches but lack delivery and you with agile freelancers that do the same. I will of course will not accept the behaviour of these dodge freelancers. Good luck, keeping fighting the battle. Lets hope they reading this forum (not that it will do any good). Thanks

This is an irritating little thread.You are complaining because you have competition? Your competition over-promises and under-delivers? Well lever-f%&ing-age off the situation then!Stop moaning, grow a pair of bo%&*cks and start selling.Jesus!

Why not see if you can hire one (or more) of these guys who are better than you at selling, but not as good as you at delivering?

You should also be aware that you are less likely to hear about the freelancers that do a good job versus those that do a poor one. Afterall client is much more likely to say:'These freelancers are doing a poor job, lets have a moan to eight man band and invite them to pitch in for some business' rather than,'These freelancers are sh*t hot - but lets get eight man band to pitch in anyway'Also if you keep losing to freelancers, when you have eight people versus their one, you do have a real problem and resilient anon probably has a fair point.

Anon - good idea, although we've already tried that! They make a tidy little earning and are content as they are. :-("More resilient anon" - I'm not complaining about having competition, I'm asking how to deal with a challenge I have with the competition - specifically, that many of the freelancers I find myself up against have an advantge on me. They simply sell some work, do a bad job, then move on to another client who has never before heard about the poor job they do. Because they're so good at selling and the market is reasonably large, they can just keep on doing this. All the meanwhile, my small business is losing out to people who a) are more persuasive than us in a sales situation, and b) are far cheaper. Any tips for how to compete effectively in this situation (or even better, how to deal with it at the sales stage)?

Anon - your honesty and openess to share the challenges faced by a small consutancy firm is amirable.Perhaps we should each volunteer to do a pitch for you and see how we get on. Alternatively I know a couple of scousers with a big van and a private woodland...now which freelancers are stealing your work exactly?!Still haven't recieved my cheque for previous advice as posted above by the way....