Freelancing has taken the world by storm over the past several years. With the rise of remote work, people everywhere are starting their own companies and finding clients for themselves. Believe it or not, 46.5% of the global workforce is not suspected to be self-employed.
No, bringing in an outside party to work for your business isn’t easy. You don’t know if the person you hire will perform poorly or if they’ll do fantastic work.
Keep reading to learn why it’s worth taking a chance and hiring freelancers.
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Get Immediate Help
There are times in business when you need help straight away. You’re facing immediate problems and need experts’ help to fix things.
But it’s hard to find help if you need to hire employees. You must post job postings, interview candidates, and vet people for the job. You may not have the time to go through that process.
You can streamline the hiring process when you hire freelancers. Many freelancers have feedback on freelance websites, like a Fiverr review, that help people find the best workers. As a result, you have better insight into who the best freelancers are in the industry.
On top of that, you can also reach out to other business owners to get recommendations. Many companies hire freelancers these days. You can likely find someone who has been in a similar situation before and can recommend a freelancer worker.
Once you find a reputable freelancer, you don’t have to go through the hiring paperwork. Tell a freelancer what you need, and they’ll get to work. You can have someone on the job as early as the next day.
Get Flexibility
Even if you have a lot of business needs, that doesn’t mean you need a full-time employee. You may end up with someone sitting around much of the day without work. That’s just a waste of money.
You have a more flexible relationship with a freelancer. One of the biggest freelancer benefits is working when you want. You aren’t confined by a schedule.
That means freelancers won’t work regular hours or commit to a traditional schedule. You can hire a freelancer for an hour or a week. It’s up to you and your current needs.
You have a lot of flexibility going this route. This means you don’t need to commit to a large salary and hours if you don’t need that much work.
Save on Cost
As mentioned above, you don’t need to hire a freelancer to work with you for an entire month. In some cases, you may only need to hire someone to perform an hour of work.
The good thing about this is that you only need to pay for that hour of work. Yes, the hourly rate may be more than you would pay for an employee. But you won’t need to pay for multiple hours when you hire a freelancer.
Of course, some freelancers offer service packages. You may need a set amount of work every month, so working on a retainer will guarantee those hours.
Even so, the cost will still be cheaper than hiring an employee. This can add up o a lot of cost savings over time as you need more work done.
You aren’t limited to your local area when working with freelancers. If you have work you can accomplish on a computer, you can usually send the work anywhere in the world.
There’s a lot of talent globally, so you can pay below-market rates for experienced professionals in other countries.
Less Supervision
You have to become a manager when you hire an employee. Sure, you may be able to find some people who work well independently. But many people require direction from you to know what to do daily.
That will take time away from you during the day. It means you’ll get less done on the work you’re great at doing. You’ll be too busy managing people.
Freelancers are used to working independently. Many of them don’t enjoy having someone look over their shoulder, which is a big reason they started freelancing in the first place.
You will need to explain your needs initially, but your freelancer will primarily work independently after that. You may get some questions to clarify the work, but you won’t need to spend nearly as much time managing a freelancer.
Less Risk
You’re taking a big chance when you hire an employee. You’re counting on them sticking around long-term and providing a lot of value. That means you’ll offer great benefits, invest in training, and hope your new hire doesn’t leave in a few months.
You can avoid all that risk when you hire a freelancer. Yes, you will risk hiring a freelancer who can’t handle the job. But that less is much less than investing resources in a new employee.
Even better, you can quickly cut ties with a freelancer if they don’t work out.
With an employee, you have to go through the process of firing them and dealing with the headache afterward. If you decide to hire another employee to replace the one that didn’t work out, you’ll suffer from the same risk as before.
Fresh Perspectives
It’s not always easy to get honest feedback from employees. Many people are afraid to convey their true thoughts. Whether it’s because of bad experiences at past companies or fear of reprisal, many employees don’t want to make waves.
That’s an issue when you’re looking for feedback and ideas. You want to change things up, but many in-house team members don’t want to rock the boat.
A freelancer doesn’t have that obligation. Freelance workers have plenty of options to find work, so they aren’t afraid of telling the truth when speaking with business owners.
That means you can get a fresh perspective when hiring a freelancer as a consultant. You can use this perspective to shake things up and try things in new ways.
Unique Expertise
There are times when you’ll need unique expertise in a business. Working with normal employees may not be the best choice because you’ll find generalists everywhere. Working with a freelancer makes more sense in these situations.
Here are a few situations where hiring an experienced freelancer makes sense.
You Need IT Help
It’s hard to go without an IT department these days. Companies of all sizes use computers and the internet to do business. Without them, you won’t be nearly as productive as your competitors.
This also means you have to concern yourself with cybersecurity. When a cyberattack takes place every 39 seconds, you must do everything possible to protect yourself.
You can hire a freelancer to help with this process. You can hire experts in troubleshooting or security to handle your company’s IT needs.
Your Financial Books Are Wrong
Finances for business are much more than adding your profit and expenses together. You have to consider debt, deductions, and countless other things.
It doesn’t make sense to hire a full-time accountant because they won’t be working most of the time. That leads some business owners who handle their books on their own to make mistakes.
You can hire a freelancer on an as-needed basis to manage your books instead.
You Have Trouble Managing Employees
You have more responsibility for managing employees than ensuring they’re on task. There are countless things you need to keep track of to do this correctly:
- Manage sick time
- Look for benefits
- Handle payroll
- Take complaints
Of course, there are more things you need to do. Luckily, you can outsource this task to a freelancer or external HR company. This will keep you and your team on track while an HR professional manages things.
You Have a Lot of Data Entry Tasks
There’s no getting around data entry in business. Most companies have countless amounts of data to enter and manage. On top of that, you have to get that data into your system.
While you can automate this process, that isn’t true all the time. You may run across websites and other data sources that make it too hard to automate data collection.
You’ll need to enter data manually in this situation. Send this job to a freelancer to ensure you can work on more critical tasks.
You Have Too Much Admin Work
It’s no surprise if you have a lot of admin work every day. You need to read emails, manage your calendar, manage employees, and much more. Luckily, you can outsource much of that work.
Outsourcing virtual assistant services might help you handle much of your day-to-day business. They can organize your email and point you to the most critical messages and handle calls to set up appointments.
This frees up your time to focus on high-focus work. Once you train your assistant, you’ll find them invaluable to your working life.
Your Projects Are Failing
It’s not easy to manage a project. You have to keep track of employee tasks, project status, and countless other things. Even if you’re an experienced manager, your projects can still fail.
Many freelance project managers can help in this situation. A project manager can get your team back on track and help create processes that set your projects up for success.
Find Passionate Workers
It’s not always easy to find employees genuinely invested in what your company does. Some enjoy their work but stick with established companies for the paycheck. They may not care much about your business’s impact on the world.
Unfortunately, that can lead to some employees not giving it their all. They’ll do their job but won’t push the boundaries and do everything they can to help the business.
Freelancers can be selective about the companies they work with. Because of that, you’re more likely to find a freelancer that’s really invested in what you do. As long as you pay your freelancer fairly to ensure you hire someone who doesn’t compete on price, you’ll find someone you can quickly integrate into your team.
That freelancer will also have a stake in their project and see it as a success.
Build Connections
One advantage of working with freelancers that you don’t get with regular employees is connections. A freelancer won’t only work for you in most situations. They’ll have several clients that they handle work for.
This is an advantage if you know how to use that knowledge. Freelancers may work with businesses that are in adjacent industries to yours. You may be able to work together on projects that benefit both companies.
A freelance can act like a connector. They put you in touch with other business owners in similar industries.
You may be able to find some of these connections on your own, but it will take more work. You must use every resource at your disposal to make these connections in business.
Hiring Freelancers Is Worth Doing
You’re limited by your time more than anything when you run a business. You have countless tasks and not enough time to complete everything.
That’s why it’s critical to find help to handle the work you struggle with. However, you may not have the resources to hire employees on your payroll. This is where hiring freelancers help.
A freelancer is a cost-effective way to get help handling your business tasks. Start interviewing the best freelancers today to find someone who can help your business grow.
Check out the blog if you want more tips to help anyone running a company.