How to brief a subcontractor: the one page that makes the work come back right
Most "bad subcontractor" stories are bad-brief stories. The work a subcontractor hands back can only ever match the instructions it was given — and in most retellings, the instructions were a chat message, a forwarded thread and a deadline mentioned once. The subcontractor guessed at the gaps, reasonably — and guessed differently from the picture in your head. The fix is rarely a better person. It is a brief: one page that states the outcome, the edges, the assets, the deadline, the check-in shape and the money. This guide is the working companion to our guide to hiring your first subcontractor — that one covers finding help, pricing the margin and telling the client. This one is purely the document you hand over.
1. The one-page brief: six lines that carry the job
One page is the discipline. Longer, and you are rewriting the agreement — which exists separately, and should. Shorter, and one of the six things below is missing; the missing one is the one the job trips over. In order:
The outcome, in one sentence. Not the task — the finished state, described so it can be checked. "Six product descriptions in the house voice, ready to paste into the store" is a brief line; "write some product copy" is a hope. If you cannot write the outcome in one sentence, the job is not ready to hand over — that sentence is the deliverable's definition, and everything else on the page serves it.
The edges. What is in, and — just as important — what is out: no image sourcing, no uploading, no direct client contact, no second piece "while you're at it". Most subcontracting friction is edge friction: work one side assumed was included and the other never priced. Writing "out" down feels ungenerous for a minute; arguing about it at delivery feels worse for much longer.
The assets and access. Every file, link, login note, style guide and example the work needs — as links, at the point they are named, not "see attached" or "in the drive somewhere". A subcontractor who spends the first day hunting for inputs is spending your margin on archaeology.
The deadline, as a date and a time zone. "Friday" is not a deadline when your subcontractor works nine hours ahead of you — their Friday evening can land in your Friday morning. Give the date, the time and the zone, and define delivered: the file in the shared folder, in the agreed format — not a message saying it is nearly done.
The check-in shape. When you will hear from them, and how: a mid-point sample on day two, a short message each Thursday, questions batched. And say what silence means — on track, or stuck — because the two need opposite responses. Our hiring guide argues for a mid-point checkpoint; this is where it becomes a line in a document instead of a hope.
The money line. The fee, what triggers payment, and what counts as done for payment purposes. One line, pointing at the agreement behind it: the brief states the number for this job; the standing agreement carries the terms. Structure the deposit the way you structure your own client's — part up front, the balance on acceptance; our deposit and milestone schedule calculator builds the schedule either way.
Kept blank, the whole brief fits on an index card. Copy it, fill it in, send it:
2. Show, don't describe
Adjectives do not transfer. "Clean", "punchy", "professional", "in our style" — every reader fills those words with their own taste, and a subcontractor's taste is not what you hired; their hands were. What transfers is an example. One finished piece that meets the standard — a published article, a delivered design, a draft you marked up showing what you changed and why — teaches more than three paragraphs of description.
Attach the example at the point it is needed — in the assets line of the brief, beside the outcome it illustrates — not in a separate resources dump the subcontractor has to mine. Say whose standard it is, too: the client's own previous piece, or yours.
If no example exists yet, the first job creates it — one more reason the first job is small, as the next sections argue. And for a bigger or ongoing engagement, the brief is the summary, not the whole instrument: build the formal scope with our scope of work generator, and let each brief point at it.
3. Define "done" before they start
"Done" is a test, not a feeling — and the test belongs in the brief, written before the work exists, while both sides are calm. State what you will check, and in what order: format and completeness first (everything requested, in the agreed shape), then the standard (does it match the example), then the details. A subcontractor who knows the checklist writes towards it; one who doesn't is sitting an exam whose questions arrive with the marking.
Fixes split in two, and the split must be written down. Revisions — the work misses the brief: a section absent, the format wrong, the example not matched — are fixed inside the fee; that is what the fee buys. New work — the brief itself grows or changes — is a new fee, agreed before it starts. That is the change-log discipline from our guide to handling scope creep, run in the direction it usually isn't: the habit that protects you from your client protects your subcontractor from you — and being protected is why good ones stay.
Put a number on the rounds: two rounds of revisions inside the fee is a workable shape; "until it's right" is an open cheque neither side can price. Every unpriced round comes out of the margin you calculated when you hired them — the one the project profitability calculator checks project by project. Define done loosely, and the fix-up allowance becomes the budget.
4. The first job is a test — of the brief
Make the first job small, real and paid at the full rate. Small, so a miss costs a day and not the project. Real, because artificial tasks test artificial skills — the judgement you need to see is judgement on actual work, with actual edges. Paid in full, because a free "trial piece" selects for exactly the wrong pool: people with nothing better to do.
Then judge the brief as hard as you judge the person. When the output misses, ask the uncomfortable question first: which line of the brief allowed this miss? An outcome sentence that could mean two things. An example never attached. An edge nobody stated. If the brief allowed it, the brief takes the blame — fix the line, and let the second job separate document problems from people problems. Often there is no people problem; there was a paragraph missing. Add that line to the template, and the next brief starts better than this one.
5. When it comes back wrong
It will, sometimes. The repair conversation has one rule: point at the brief line, not the person. "The outcome line asked for six descriptions ready to paste; these need formatting work before they can be pasted" is a fact either side can act on. "This isn't up to standard" is a verdict, and verdicts start arguments about taste — the argument the brief existed to prevent. If no line can be pointed at, the gap is in the brief — and the document takes its share of the blame.
Pay for what the brief bought. Work that follows the brief as written gets paid for in full, even when the brief turns out to have been wrong — the fee is yours to pay, and so is the lesson. That is not generosity; it is the price of the arrangement working at all. Subcontractors work literally to briefs they trust will be honoured, and cautiously around people who move the goalposts at payment time. You are buying the first kind of attention.
Work that ignores a clear brief is the other case: the fix is inside the fee, and the conversation stays short because the document already said so. And when the pattern repeats — a clear brief, work that misses it, twice — end the arrangement cleanly: pay everything owed for work delivered to the brief, say plainly that it is not the right fit, and do not commission a third job to test a conclusion you have already reached.
Questions
Related: the brief in the chain
Briefing sits between hiring and delivering. The hiring guide finds the person, prices the margin and handles the client conversation; this page turns that agreement into the document the work is actually done from; and your checking at delivery — against the brief, in the order the brief promised — is what keeps the standard yours. The one page becomes the cheapest quality control in your practice: a short piece of writing, done once per job, that decides what the work looks like when it comes back.