March 7

Why Hiring Freelancers For Your Startups Makes Good Business Sense

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Why hiring freelancers for your startups makes good business sense

Creating and building a business from scratch is a different kind of challenge. Apart from the satisfaction that can come from achieving success from an idea brought to life, it is the chance to turn that idea into your living and career.

 

Starting the business is the part where you need to learn to juggle both input and your cost of input. What we mean by input, is the amount of human capital you will ideally be making use of to grow this business. Having people help you in different areas of the business is one of the many ideal ways you can look at growing your business while ensuring you yourself concentrate on doing things which you are strong in.


But this is the tricky part. How much money you spend on that help and it’s tricky because you’re just starting out and want to be saving each cent you have to ensure the survival of the business but not spending money on critical input is just as crippling for the business.

 

Enter the idea of freelancing services. You could say this is the best of both worlds. The chance for you to get the required input you may need without having to commit to the responsibility of paying full-time staff.

 

Plus you get to have the benefit of people skilled in different areas of the business so that your business has that fighting chance to grow and position itself to make its way past that period of uncertainty every startup goes through.

 

So if you’re thinking why you should consider hiring some freelance staff, let’s go through some other reasons why its not only a good idea but a great one to help make your business a successful one.

1. There are freelancers out there for every industry

You’ve likely chosen a particular niche to operate within and as such you will be pleased to know that there are likely to be freelancers who operate by selling their services for this industry.


When you’re looking for a freelancer, don’t just look for someone who you think can do the job you need to be done. Look for people who have a record of working in your specific field and can show you their experience. You don’t want to hire people unless they can address the challenges your business may encounter being a startup, you want their input to be of benefit.


Also, keep in mind you want to be hiring people who are passionate about their field because that passion drives their motivation and this is something of extreme importance with something like getting a startup going. NOt everyone is cut out for startup roles and it's important to get the right people on your side when getting started. Remember every cent counts for you as a startup.

2. Be sure to hire people who understand the role of marketing

This is a non-negotiable point we think because no matter what business you are starting, you are going to need to embark on marketing it to bring in sales. You’ll, therefore, be wanting to work with someone who understands the importance of that but also understands how to market the business.

 

Again, remember every cent counts so the level of marketing you make use of will depend on your budget restrictions. But it’s worth mentioning that whether your budget is tight or not, it is important to make provision to embark on marketing because this is what is going to help grow your business as well as bring you the leads to build a client following.

 

Try to concentrate on finding freelancers that understand the strategic importance of exploring leads for your business versus simply making people aware of your brand on the market.


Good freelancers will understand this point and will be able to work around it by ensuring that all marketing prompts people to do something instead of simply acknowledging your brand exists.

3. Get the finances right

This is a non-negotiable point. Whether you are starting from scratch or you have the capital to play with when you start your business, you need to be able to plan your finances well. Having this part of the business secured and dealt with adequately can be what helps sustain your business in the long run.

 

Planning around the financials is therefore essential and you should bring in a professional to help you make a financial plan and stick to it.

4. Respect the role freelancers can play

From being like minded people to having passion and commitment for something like startups are only two of the many reasons freelancers are ideal for when you need help but cannot afford to hire a full complement of staff. 


Start small if your budget does not provide for more than one hire. Find the most crucial point in the business where you require assistance and work from there. Think about it, if paying for the services of one freelancer helps you to secure enough money to keep operating for the next 6 months isn’t it worthwhile to direct some resources towards that instead of not hiring them and battling for another 10 to 12 months on your own?

5. Location is not an issue

The name of the game with freelancers is that they can operate from anywhere around the world. You don’t have to have them sitting in the office in front of you for them to do what they need to do for your business to benefit. You can essentially create an entire virtual team of freelancers from all areas of the world if you wanted to that can communicate and work together to achieve the same result as a team sitting in one office can do. 


It’s all about having the right perspective and ensuring communication channels are strong and always open.

 

Plus, think about your budget. If you were to hire these services from around the world, you may even find cheaper rates opposed to if you were hiring a local. So while you can find people at a lower cost, you should always remember that they need to show you they can provide the results you need instead of simply going with the cheapest freelancer out there.

6. Freelancers can become your second eyes, ears, and hands 

When you use the services of freelancers properly, you can essentially save yourself a lot of time because you can rely on them. So if you’re not an admin person and you find yourself wasting a lot of time battling with it, hiring someone to do that for you will allow you to spend more time on the things you ARE good at which can help you grow your business.

 

A lot of people think “I’ll save money by doing it myself”, however, this can have its downfalls especially when it comes to what it can do to us mentally. You can defeat yourself by thinking this way because you will eventually be so busy with so many things that you land up getting nothing done and going nowhere.

 

Having someone to help you with things you can outsource will not only help to keep your mind sane but can help you to actually get things done, a step which is crucial for taking a business from startup to ongoing.

7. Think about your startup costs

Some may think that keeping your startup costs in mind goes against hiring freelancers to do work for you but in fact, this could not be more wrong.


Think about it. You are investing in the right person to do something for you which means that you are paying them to get it the right first time. Because they are experienced, you will not have to train them to have the skills you need them to have so it’s like hitting the ground running for your business.

 

The mistake some startups tend to make is thinking their business needs to grow a bit before hiring people to help but this is totally wrong. If you are investing in the right human capital to help and investing in them the right way, the payoff will be a success. Plus it works out WAY MORE cost-effective, in the long run, to pay someone to help you get off the ground instead of wasting time and money trying to get there on your own before paying someone to help you.

8. You have a vast pool of freelancers to choose from

Gone are the days when freelancing was a small network of people. The digital age has helped to bring momentum to this industry and helped to create a very wide pool of choices when it comes to looking and finding a freelancer.


And because the field is so large, freelancers know that they need to be results-driven in order to make the cut against their colleagues in the field. It is in their best interest to be the best choice when it comes to hiring staff.

 

Think about it also from this perspective. Freelancers are not pushing 9-5 jobs that can leave them feeling mentally drained and operating like robots. They are constantly changing up their environment as well as what they are working on so their challenges are always changing.

This can help in terms of how fresh they are when approaching a job and also has a lot to do with how passionate they can be. Each project they embark on is exciting and has the potential to be great and this attitude they have can have an incredible effect on the outcome of the project.

 

The last thing you want is to have someone working for you in ‘robot mode’ where  you simply feed the tasks in and they shoot out the deliverables. You want passionate people helping you grow your business and it’s up to you also to maintain a work environment that is conducive to having people produce results.

In the end, you don’t only want someone to come in and get the job done but you want that it is both an enriching and valuable interaction. You can benefit a great deal from freelancers because of the way they tend to work and because they are skilled and have something to offer.


Make sure your business gets the best fighting chance to grow by effectively hiring freelancers to help in their relevant areas and that way you can work on what you do best to ensure that there is a business there to run at the end of the day.

Startups are tricky yes, but learning how to best work around the tricks while making sure you have the right things done at the right time can ensure your survival and help you to grow and scale your startup in no time.


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