How Freelancers Can Help Your Business Grow

There was a time when hiring a freelancer was an uncommon idea, to the point many people hadn’t heard of it. Today, more people are working as freelancers, and more people are taking advantage of the benefits this can mean for their business.

While many large and established companies benefit from freelancers, growing businesses have some of the most to gain from the value add freelancers can offer a company.

What’s so great about hiring freelancers to grow your business?

Do you need some paperwork to be copy edited? Do you need someone to start managing your social media calendar for you today? Have you been putting off a data management project that has now become a problem?

Sometimes you don’t have anyone on staff who knows how to handle this for you. Sometimes your team doesn’t have the time. Sometimes your business is a one-person operation, and you’re too busy right now.

You can find and hire a freelancer today, skipping a lengthy hiring process with long-term consequences. When you bring on an employee, they may not be a good fit for your company, their compensation is likely to include insurance benefits, and you’ll probably need to provide them with whatever equipment they need to do their job. There’s a commitment to keeping them on staff. These are all problems you won’t have bringing on a freelancer to handle a task today. A freelancer can be hired for a short term project. If they work out well, you may consider hiring them again, but there’s no obligation to do so. You’re not responsible for providing benefits to a freelancer outside of their contract’s stipulations.

Freelancers are often niche workers. Their experience is specialized in particular tasks. You can bring on a web developer specialized in apps specifically for e-commerce shops in the pet industry. Or someone with social media expertise.

One of the best ways to add value to your business is by expanding the skillset on staff. Freelancers are a great way to accomplish a greater variety of tasks.

These are highly skilled workers in their field. The more complicated the task, the more a freelancer may charge. However, when hiring freelancers for your business , you’re avoiding the overhead of keeping an employee on staff and in an office. You also benefit from the freelancer’s specialized knowledge in the industry, which may lead to cost-saving measures.

In the past, employers would hire temporary staff by using dedicated agencies, paying high fees, and getting someone to take care of a task. This is impersonal. In contrast, when you hire a freelancer, they have the reputation of their own work at stake. They are more invested, and this can mean a greater value in their work.

H iring freelancers can sound like an expensive idea. In practice, the tasks they get done with the lack of overhead and flexibility in their schedules can mean cost-effective growth for your business.

Originally published at https://richardsimonchicago.com.

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Richard Simon
Leadership Development and Career Advice| Rick Simon Chicago

Richard Simon is a Chicago-based business man and the President and CEO of United Service Companies.