What is a freelancer? Do I need one for my business? If I do, how can she help me make it grow?
Judging from these common questions about hiring a freelancer, even though the gig economy is growing, many entrepreneurs and professionals are still in the dark about them.
Freelancers are people working on contract basis for one or more than one business or professional. They do so remotely, like from home or a coffee shop. Aside from help cut costs, they provide skills or expertise to those unable to acquire it where they are based or located.
There are plenty of freelancers, each providing a specific set of skills. That makes it hard for some to figure out the type of freelancer who can help them run their business even better or elevate their productivity. Make sure you get the perfect one for you by choosing from these 5 types of freelancers who benefit businesses most:
Virtual Assistants
If you are just starting out, you can handle the simple, day-to-day tasks, including responding to emails, taking phone calls and scheduling meetings, yourself.
Once your business starts growing, you need to delegate these to focus on the tasks that require you to be hands-on, including product development and quality process improvement.
A virtual assistant (VA) is more than capable of taking care of your daily tasks. Not only does she have the skills to get the job done, including knowing how to do research, handle customers and manage projects. She also has the experience to do it remotely.
Customer Service Specialists
All businesses need to provide great customer service to attract, gain and keep customers.
For instance, you will always be at risk of losing customers if your customer service representatives (CSRs) repeatedly mishandle their complaints by not being able to offer appropriate solutions.
The process used to be done in-house. Thanks to technology, it can now be outsourced to a third party, like a call center.
But what if you have a small business that does not usually get a lot of calls from customers? You can hire a freelance customer service specialist instead. She has the skills, equipment and experience needed to focus on and help keep your customers satisfied and happy for a fraction of the cost of hiring a call center.
Accountants
If you are a one-man or one-woman team, it is possible to do your accounting without asking someone for help. All you need is a spreadsheet.
When you start hiring, you need a professional who can crunch all the numbers and handle all the paperwork.
Aside from taking care of it, a freelance accountant can give you more benefits that an office-based accountant cannot. For example, you can call on her only when you need her, keeping your business lean and your overhead low.
Content Writers
You need a content writer if you have a website, a blog, both, or are planning to launch one or both of these.
Aside from writing all the content, if she is highly skilled, she can take care of all the tasks that make sure your content reaches your target audience, including search engine optimization (SEO) and newsletter management.
There are various tools that allow such work to be done almost entirely online, so a freelance content writer can deliver the same quality work as an in-house content writer but for much less cost.
Social Media Marketing Experts
Social media marketing (SMM) and content marketing go hand in hand. There is no guaranteeing your content can reach and engage your target audience without promoting it on social media.
Due to social media’s always-on nature, SMM is a 24/7 job which changes practically every day.
An SMM expert can handle it. Mainly done online, you can hire a freelance SMM expert instead of giving the job to one of your office-based staff. She will nail it with hardly any effort on your part, letting you focus on growing your business or becoming even more productive.