How To Hire Freelancers With Confidence
Businesses today are weighing the options when making decisions about hiring permanent employees or freelancers. Many freelancers offer expertise and value as a result of their highly-specialized background. They can provide a wealth of information to support business objectives. However, onsite employees are easier to manage to ensure productivity. When looking at it from a financial point of view, one major benefit of hiring freelancers is cost efficiency. Here’s how to hire freelancers with confidence, and reasons why you should:
Less Overhead Cost
QuickBooks Resource Center attributes this to burn rate reduction. Freelancers are expected to reduce costs because your business would no longer require overhead expenses like fancy offices, intel core processing computers, and fully stocked break rooms service. Owners would be unaffected by healthcare costs and rising overhead. There would no longer be a need for validated parking and perfect attendance incentives.
This is especially beneficial for small businesses. When funding is a challenge, evolving businesses can seek out talented professionals who are ready and willing to deliver strategic solutions. Small businesses must avoid risk factors that may limit their ability to continue operations. Hiring freelancers will allow these entities to gain years of experience at a fraction of the cost.
Access to Quality Talent
Human resources executives are seeing the benefit in hiring freelancers more and more. Although they may still maintain traditional employees, the blended work environment has continually changed. This modernized workforce may include seasonal candidates, project-focused resources, and internal teams. The primary benefit is a plethora of professional talents with less operational responsibilities.
When considering content marketing experts, the value is even more transparent. Marketing professionals can easily develop strategic campaigns, produce quality messaging, and drive results at a portion of the cost of hiring permanent employees. They may also offer more current knowledge of the industry and understand coming trends as a result of their exposure. Your business would gain from a mastery of skills as a result of this.
No Commitment Required
Another major benefit of hiring a freelance content marketers is having the opportunities to uncover challenges or skillset deficiencies before making a permanent decision. The cost of hiring and firing an employee is expensive. According to Suzanne Lucas of Inc., hiring includes the cost of sourcing the new employee, recruitment, and coaching.
New employees must go through a rigorous hiring process, complete training, and follow formal onboarding steps. You must also market the position, maintain documentation, and adhere to various regulations. Freelancers are typically vetted, reviewed, or referred by trusted business resources.
Financial Flexibility
The number of invoicing solutions for freelancers has also continued to grow. This minimizes the cost that may be incurred through accounting, payroll, and account receivables. These new systems help businesses streamline finances by balancing the burden of financial management. This may help small business owners hire freelancers with more confidence who are outside resources and quantify the value of these external employees using accounting platforms.
How To Be Successful When Hiring Freelancers
With many businesses operating according to traditional business development methods that involve more structured environments, it can be difficult for organizational leaders to adapt to this anticipated change. There are many considerations regarding the ability to source strong freelancers who deliver quality solutions without the micro-management.
There may be many remaining questions regarding the pay expectations, locating individuals who you can trust, and avoiding the possibility of making disastrous mistakes. The opportunity itself may sound appealing, but there are few clues as to how to effectively make this adaptation.
Small businesses particularly may be at a disadvantage when considering the countless resources available to provide business support. How do you know who really does what they say they do? Here are several steps to follow so you can hire freelancers with confidence:
1. Secure the Right Talent
One of the biggest reservations of hiring freelancers or outsourcing is securing quality professionals who get the job done. Business owners can mitigate this risk by searching within their own vast networks and by relying on business associates who may already be using alternative resources themselves.
As your business builds a database of trusted advisors, you can feel confident about the level of talent your organization has access to. But on the other hand, if your business is new and you are in the process of establishing supplier networks, there are plenty of organizations that screen freelance writers to meet your needs. Companies like CopyPress take care of this process for you. In allowing another established company to find the right talent, you can feel more confident about using freelancers to complete your projects.
2. Monitor Performance
Another concern is often overall performance. When you want to be a sure to that your projects will be completed properly, you can develop integrated systems that allow freelancers to collaborate with internal teams seamlessly. Microsoft and Google offer the ability to create and edit documents in real time, making it easy to monitor the productivity of employees who are not working onsite.
3. Establish Goals and Deadlines
Corporate leaders can also establish clear objectives and timelines. Freelancers are most likely accustomed to following detailed project guidelines. Adapting communication methods can be advantageous to the overall partnership. As you establish concise project plans and express the specific areas that require attention, outside resources can fill in these gaps efficiently with limited distractions.
With reduced costs for overhead, access to quality content marketing experts, streamlined accounting, and limited long-term commitments, there are many reasons why outsourcing is a rising alternative for businesses of all sizes. Small businesses have even more to gain with the ability to make pricing adjustments to meet their own business needs. They can access a wealth of knowledge at a reduced price and minimize business risk.
It sounds like a-no brainer for tactical leaders who are open to adapting to this changing workforce. However, traditional business methods are still effective. Ultimately, it is up to each business to decide what works best to facilitate rich content with key messaging that truly engages their target audience. Using these key suggestions, you can hire freelancers with confidence for current and future content marketing campaigns.
Published copywriter, social media marketing manager, and creative content developer. Brain behind the So Healthy and Well Blog.
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