Stop Juggling Freelancers: Build a Reliable Team

I had a client reach out last week in full panic mode.

Their video production agency was struggling to keep up with all the new clients they were signing—a great problem to have, until it isn’t. They were juggling a rotating cast of freelancers across multiple time zones, paying premium rates, and still struggling to deliver consistent quality on deadline.

"I'm spending more time managing freelancers than actually growing the business," they told me.

Sound familiar?

Here’s the thing about relying on freelancer websites and project-based contractors: it’s a band-aid solution that doesn’t scale. You end up paying markup fees to the platforms, dealing with inconsistent availability, and constantly onboarding new people—all while crossing your fingers that they’ll actually deliver quality work.

Let’s break down why this approach quietly drains your budget and sanity:

• The Freelancer Markup: Freelancers are often advised to inflate their rates by 50% or more to offset the unpredictability of project-based work. So that $50/hour editor? They’re charging you $75/hour to cover their downtime risks. You’re paying a premium for their instability, not their talent.

• Platform Fees: Take Upwork as an example—they skim 30% off every transaction. Spend $1,000 on a freelancer, and $300 goes straight to the platform. Your budget’s shrinking before the work even starts.

• The Onboarding Trap: Every new freelancer needs time to learn your systems, style, and expectations. Multiply that by a revolving door of contractors, and you’re spending hours—maybe days—re-explaining the same things. That’s time you could’ve spent landing new clients or refining your strategy.

It’s not just the money. Vetting new profiles, chasing late deliverables, and fixing misaligned work distract you from growing your business. You’re stuck playing project manager instead of visionary.

The key is to go directly to talent. 

Skip the platforms and find someone who doesn’t think of themselves as freelancers. This skips the platform fees and the freelancer markups.

Most talent is totally okay if you say, "It’ll be about 20 hours, sometimes more, sometimes less." (If you have absolutely no clue how much time your talent will need to complete the work, you might want to talk to my friend Zach at 8 Figure Agency for some guidance.)

So how do you find A+ talent that isn’t stuck in the freelancer grind? Here are the four tried-and-true recruiting channels you need:

1. Regional Job Boards: We dig into local talent pools across the US and globally—spots others overlook.

2. Headhunting Employed Talent: We poach top performers straight from big brands.

3. Region-Specific Content: We pull in pros with targeted blogs and ads tailored to their world.

4. Referrals from Partners: We tap insider networks for vetted, high-quality hires.

Master those four, and you’re golden—no more flaky freelancers or platform headaches. 

The thing is, setting this up takes time, effort, and a chunk of change. Worth it? Absolutely—it’s your business’s future on the line. 

But if you’re slammed and can’t tackle it yourself, well, Go Carpathian’s already got these channels dialed in. We’ll implement it faster and cheaper than you could solo.

Click here to book a free consultation with our recruiting specialists and explore how a reliable team can save you time and money.

Until next time,

Nathan

PS: Check out what one of our clients has to say about working with Go Carpathian: