Nowadays competition has grown so much among
businesses that it has become difficult to hire permanent experts staff for
different jobs separately, especially
if you are a small businesses or a start-up.
Getting a start-up on its feet can require a
lot of hard work and patience, juggling many tasks at one time can be an
enormous burden on the entrepreneur.
To resolve this issue a start-up or a small business can always outsource the specialized tasks to
outsiders called Freelancers.
Freelancers are people who are self-employed and work
independently and sell their specialized services without any long term
commitment. Freelancers are paid on project basis either per hour, per call,
per word, or in lum sum basis. A freelancer
takes direction from its clients on what the end product should be or how the
task should be performed.
Freelancing is not an option, but has become a necessity
for start-ups and small businesses to stay competitive.
There is cost saving and enormous
benefits for tapping into the talent pool of freelancers. By outsourcing your tasks to a freelancer, a business saves time and money. For example, to launch
a start-up specialized skills are required which may be beyond the capabilities
of either the staff or the entrepreneur him/her self like launching a website,
writing a business plan, setting up the social network on internet like facebook,
linkedin,
etc,. Hiring a freelancer with
specialized skills for specific tasks will save a lot of time and money. “Outsourcing is going to be the distinction
for small business to stay competitive.” according to Lorri Rowlandson,
president of Rowlandson Inc., an outsourcing advisory firm.
An entrepreneur
may be jack-of-all-trades who can take any role, but if the task is very
specialized, it may get done faster if outsourced
to a freelancer who knows the job,
and this will give a chance for the entrepreneur to better spend time on
day-to-day tasks. There is a lot of stress on entrepreneurs to get so many
things done and time is wasted if you are teaching yourself how to do things,
where as time is critical for small businesses.
Expert freelancers can be hired from online
marketplaces setup to bring freelancers and the clients at one place. Employers
can hire freelancers to do work in areas such as software development, content writing,
data entry, designing logo and stationary, sales and marketing, and accounting
& legal services. Projects can be successfully outsourced through freelancer.com, Elance.com, oDesk.com and vWorker.com, to name a few. When using these marketplaces an employer can
limit the risk of security when confidential company information is being
exchanged. Freelancers can be hired by going through their portfolios and user
reviews.
While outsourcing
lines of communication should be open, the entrepreneur should be
straightforward and be specific when assigning tasks, avoiding using phrases
which are informal or acronyms. Make sure to leverage all kinds of
communication tools like email or Skype.
Payments can be made through PayPal or Western Union.
All in all outsourcing can be an effective way
to do business and succeed, where the only limit to what can be outsourced is
your own imagination.
