Inspiring Tips On Organising Communication With Subcontractors

You have to be able to communicate well if you are to be successful in business. This is especially true with your subcontractors. Fail to communicate effectively with them and you risk the success of your project, your business and your ability to work with that subcontractor.

More than Just Giving Instructions

Whenever you work with subcontractors you have to understand that you need not only to be able to give instructions, but you also need to dish out and to take constructive criticism and advice whenever needed. It’s the ability to “give and take” as you communicate that will help you to build an ongoing, productive working relationship.

And that’s not all. As the project manager, you’ll need to be able to communicate with your client as well. Unless you can do this, the project is not likely to be successful and always remember that you are the middleman in this situation. You may be ready to subcontract a graphic design project and must clearly understand what your client has in mind before you start, so that you can tell your subcontractor exactly what to do. You need to be very adept at speaking both the language of your subcontractor and of your client.

Bear in mind these steps as you strive to communicate effectively with your clients and your subcontractors.

Be Organized and Clear

The first thing you want to do is make sure that all communication is clear and organized. While verbal communication may seem easier, written communication is more professional and more easily tracked, especially if you and your subcontractor never meet. Here are some effective ways to communicate in writing:

1. Email. While email is the most familiar form of conversing in writing, it’s also one of the most unreliable. You will find out how unreliable this can be if a certain subcontractor doesn’t complete the project on time, but then tells you that he or she was waiting for answers to questions that were posed in an e-mail sent several days back, which you never received.

2. Project Management Software. Basecamp is the name of a project management software solution which is perfect for these tasks. You have an online whiteboard for any brainstorming ideas and you can communicate via online messages sent to clients or subcontractors. Whenever an update is made, an e-mail communication is also sent to everybody. Even better, you can login at any time to see if there are updates. Basecamp hosts all of this on its website so you can access from any place.

When you’ve decided on your system for communication, you need to establish definitive policies. Now, online business consulting is perfect.

Always Be Professional

We can sometimes get frustrated, or even mad when we are working closely with others. We’re all human and sometimes we don’t think. You need to have a communications policy, so that you always need to know what to do in certain circumstances. Within this policy you can set down appropriate methods of dealing with whatever comes along, when there might be a temptation to act emotionally. Such as:

• Do you know what to do when a subcontractor goes “missing in action,” during a particularly time sensitive project?

• You might have to deal with a situation where a subcontractor has completely misinterpreted what needs to be done, even though this was communicated clearly to them in the beginning and they said that they knew what to do.

• What happens if a subcontractor is particularly chatty on the phone and likes to talk about nonbusiness related matters, ad infinitum? Consider a virtual assistant today.

These policies can also apply to how you treat your clients and how you allow your clients and subcontractors to treat you.