In this gig-based economy, freelancers are becoming more popular--and more important--than ever. A study back in 2014 estimated that 53 million American workers classified themselves as freelancers, a total of 34 percent of the workforce. By 2020, that number is expected to grow to 50 percent.

Freelancers are less expensive than full-time workers, they tend to be more flexible, they're oftentimes more skilled or specialized, and they don't have a problem taking on partial contracts or short-term work.

However, there's no guarantee that your freelancer investment will be valuable; if you want to make the most of your investment, you'll need to employ certain strategies to improve it.

Defining Value

How do you define the "value" of a freelancer? There are a few different possible definitions here, but for the purposes of this article, we'll focus on two main principles:

  • Minimizing your time investment. Freelancers exist to save you time by doing work you can't do. We also want to minimize the time we spend looking for freelancers, and how much time we spend managing them.
  • Maximizing your monetary return on investment (ROI). We also want freelancers who can return the most productive and effective work for the least total monetary investment.

Maximizing Value

So what strategies can we use to maximize the value of our freelancers in these two dimensions?

  1. Know your worth. First, a counterintuitive measure of value: you need to know how much your time is worth. Why? Because it will help you determine which freelancers are worth your investment. Let's say you calculate your average hourly rate (or your market rate) using a tool like Salary.com, and you find that it's about $150 an hour. If you're overloaded with work that's below your pay grade, you could technically pay someone $100 an hour, and still come out ahead. This is an important metric when deciding who to hire, and for what tasks.
  2. Choose specialists. Next, consider working with specialists, rather than generalists. For example, it's better to hire five freelancers, each of whom specializes in one specific area, than it is to hire one who has fleeting knowledge in each of those five categories. Specialists tend to have more experience and are better-performing than their generalist counterparts. They may be a bit more expensive, but they're worth the extra money.
  3. Write a contract. When you hire a freelancer, Calendar.com recommends writing up a solid contract. Even if you're only using this freelancer for a handful of jobs, it's important to nail down, in writing, exactly what your expectations are, and what the limits of the arrangement are. If you don't put a contract in place, you'll probably run into disagreements and disputes later on.
  4. Get a referral. Though sites like Upwork and Fiverr can help you find some fast contacts to get some work done, if you want higher chances of your first contact being a success, try to get a referral from your existing network. Talk to other business owners and professionals you've worked with in the past, and see if someone has a freelancer in mind for your project.
  5. Give clear instructions. When you finally get a freelancer on your team, make sure you provide them with clear, specific instructions on what they're supposed to do. Don't leave any room for ambiguity; spending some extra time at the beginning of the project to make things clear will ensure the job is done right the first time around, and will prevent disagreements in the near future.
  6. Prioritize long relationships. Whenever possible, prioritize building long-term professional relationships with your freelancers. If you find someone for a one-off design project who does it fast and efficiently, keep their contact information, and keep them in mind for the next project. It will save you time gathering referrals and finding new people, and over time, you'll build up a better working relationship, allowing you both to work more efficiently. With enough work together, you might even earn a discount on future work.
  7. Give and receive feedback. According to the Office of Personnel Management, one of the most important elements of any working relationship is the open exchange of feedback. Specific, timely, and well-mannered feedback is important to maximize your freelancer's performance (especially over the long term), and you'll need to collect feedback from your freelancers to improve your management style as well.

These strategies should allow you to increase the value of every freelancer you work with, giving you the best return in terms of both time and money. The more experienced you become working with freelancers, the better your network will be, and the further you'll be able to grow.