Regardless how simple it may sound, hiring freelancers is one of the greatest challenges for any online business.
Engaging employees on payroll during the starting stages of the business may be expensive and therefore unsustainable. On the other hand, it is hard to expect that a solopreneur, or even teammates, could handle all the tasks needed to operate an online business, especially if the plans are very ambitious or the business starts to grow.
Simple as it is, freelancers tend to handle specific task for your business. Outsourcing could be explained as a process of hiring independent people skilled in areas important for your business operation. Quite often, online entrepreneurs browse sites such as Upwork and Freelancer to connect and find freelancers that could successfully complete their business needs. You’ll find freelancers specialized in every niche from website management, content writing, accounting services to UI/UX Designers or mobile app development. Normally, they charge by hour or by project. Initially, online businesses are driven to improve efficiency and extract most of the freelancers’ expertise. Surely, this means a win-win for the employer and the employee since both sides could be truly satisfied with the agreement.
Hiring freelancers, aka outsourcing, can be tricky for several reasons. It has its own benefits and downfalls. Crucially, this process was made to cut your business costs and of course improve your workflow. As you may know, it wasn’t always so easy to get access to services so affordable and accessible as nowadays. However, the bad news when considering outsourcing is that not every freelancer completes his/her responsibilities as required and meets deadlines. Also, you need to minimize the risk of a freelancer vanishing in the middle of a project.
Moreover, the most important part about outsourcing is to know your risks and possibilities. Thereby in this article we will walk you through your outsourcing journey to know what you might be facing through.
The advantage of outsourcing work tasks
Outsourcing a freelancer gives you the benefit to work with professionals to help your progress with your online business. Why should you start outsourcing? For several reasons:
- Help the growth of your online business (This is really simple and logical. The reason why teams want to outsource is to help them level up. Teams just need further assistance to achieve their strategy to give better products and services to their clients.)
- Cut your costs (Even with outsourcing you could find some really talented individuals that will help you save money. Mostly it’s up to you. You have many options regarding your budget. You can pay by project or by hour. You know exactly how much you’re paying and you know you pay for a completed project.)
- Be flexible (These times owners can decide what is the best opinion to outsource, hiring a completely new member to their team, or hire a freelancer. It all depends on the business’s needs but mostly try to stay steady. Therefore businesses practice to pay for a project and outsource freelancers repeatedly when they have to work for them. Again, for their benefits they get the work done and don’t waste time hiring and training another employee.)
- Be forward (Outside, there are tons of professionals willing to work for you. Significantly, they can help your business’s headway of bringing new references and perspectives to advance your products and services)
Choosing the right freelancer
Regularly, this is definitely the hardest choice for online businesses. Freelancers are advancing much more on their niche experience and industry expertise, but take this as your advantage and there are always some factors to consider when choosing a freelancer.
Here are some basic indicators that could help you choose the right candidate for your project:
- The Freelancer’s positive feedback from their past clients (mentioned as Job Success Score and the feedbacks about the finished projects)
- The Freelancer’s portfolio and cover letter (see if the candidate’s portfolio is filled with information regarding your needs about your specific project)
- The Freelancer’s experience and skillset (check the candidate’s past experience related to jobs similar as yours, and check if the candidate has a website)
- The Freelancer’s hourly rate (compare your candidate’s hourly rate to the average rate paid for his area of expertise, and see if his hourly rate is a good fit for your budget too)
Choose carefully and don’t forget to write a job description that will attract the right candidates for your needs. Also have in mind that freelancers can be a matter of uncertainty in several areas:
- In the quality of work ( It is often triggering to decide whether the things included in their portfolios are veritable and honestly written. But it is certain that they use their portfolios as a magnet for the employers. Indeed, how can you believe a developer can deliver his work when you don’t have coding skills?)
- In the project completion ( This is not an uncommon problem the employers are facing nowadays. Simply, it might happen the freelancers disappear in the middle of working on a project and are not able to deliver the work. When outsourcing freelancers, managers often forget to keep-an-eye on every single freelancer they hire. But, don’t worry because there are some veritable websites such as Upwork that care about the freelancer’s and employer’s rights.)
- In meeting deadlines (Even as odd it might be, not every freelancer delivers his project on time. This is a usual problem for employers because they can’t meet their own objectives on time. Being torn between their company’s deadlines and freelancer’s annoyance means it’s hard to focus on other issues. Be careful not to hire a preoccupied freelancer.)
- In Freelancer’s commitment and productivity (More importantly is to evaluate the freelancer’s project completion rate, and again to see his client’s feedback about some similar projects as yours. Just don’t be overwhelmed with your expectations for your project. Try to see things from the other perspective. Freelancers can be easily distracted, and it’s really a challenge finding a focused and dedicated outsourcer.
- In the protection of your business idea (Be aware that when outsourcing a freelancer, your business idea is fully disposed to him. Freelancers don’t have a 9-5 workflow so they can quit anytime. Unsurprisingly, they might start their own online business someday in the future. In fact, they can use your business idea and strategy for their own purposes.
Important note: The most relevant indicator for the quality of freelancers are their past project reviews (feedback) but even these can be tricky since successful freelancers could be overloaded, pricey, could engage helpers with lower quality and so on. Sometimes even happens that the reviews are fake (or negotiated) just in order to attract new employers.
The Communication challenge
This is another challenge regarding both sides. Apparently, people aren’t born with perfect communication skills including good spelling and grammar. It is highly recommended to invest some time and get better at these skills. It is a crucial thing to learn to communicate with great vocabulary related to your niche. The result, by communication skills, should always be, knowing how what and when to communicate. Of course, one of the most important parts of the communication process is to know how to listen. You can’t go wrong with this one. Listening helps both sides to engage more, leading to a natural and effective way of exchanging words wisely. In fact, where there is good communication, people are bound to make a good relationship. If you haven’t understood a part, ask again. Try to stay focused and don’t let other things distract you while your partner is speaking to you. The good point about the more experienced freelances is that they tend to keep the employer continuously updated about their work’s progress.
Closing Tips
To make sure you are going into the right direction, when choosing freelancers for the first time start with smaller tasks and smaller budget but don’t forget to point out your long term intentions in the job description. You will get the first impression for a freelancer from his/her bid wording. Dedicated and available freelancers will read your project description carefully and will accordingly explain their bid. Before you award the project don’t forget to initiate a chat with the potential collaborators to experience their communication capabilities. If you are not satisfied with the current bidders re-post the job until you find the right freelancer(s) for your projects. After they complete your small tasks you can decide whether you keep them as collaborators. If not, you could start the process all over again.
To summarize, we hope you’ll play smart and choose the best candidate, set up clear objectives, have realistic expectations, and follow your candidate’s work progress. These might be the perfect times to outsource freelancers. Many small businesses make the jump and think smart for their businesses. Hiring a freelancer helps them thrive and establish superiority in terms of competition.
If you want to learn more, read about the skills you require (or skills you may outsource) when starting and online business.
Sources (4)
1. Advantages & Disadvantages of Outsourcing Jobs to Freelancers (moneycrashers.com)
2. Online Outsourcing: Everything You Need to Know (bunnystudio.com)
3. Five Problems of Hiring Freelancers and How to Solve Them (pexelsolutionz.com)
4. Top 3 Problems When Hiring Freelancers (medium.com)
