Freelance Help and Services to Boost Your Small Business

Freelance Help and Services to Boost Your Small Business

When you own a small business, you get used to doing everything on your own. But the truth is that you don’t have to, and there are ways to insert powerful talent into your organization without taking on the expense or headaches of a full-time employee. A freelance workforce awaits.

Can you afford it?

You’ve likely heard that freelancers charge more by the hour than a traditional employee. While this is true, Recruiterbox points out that hiring freelance talent will actually cost you between 20 and 30 percent less than a full-time employee. This is because you do not have to pay benefits, such as insurance or vacation. However, if you are struggling to justify the added expense, there are a few companies offering small grants to help businesses affected by COVID-19.

Back to basics

So what kind of help can you find on a freelance basis? The answer: pretty much anything. One of the first projects to outsource is bookkeeping. A bookkeeper, which is similar to an accountant, will process payroll, help manage cash, and handle invoices and payments. This can help you get a grip on your financial situation so you can evaluate business decisions.

The Small Business Administration also advocates using a virtual assistant. VAs are not new, and they have been a staple in business since the mid-1980s. Today’s virtual assistants can do so much more than their forefathers and can help you grow your business by capturing and organizing data, filtering communications, and handling “busy” tasks.

Writing, graphic and web design and social media marketing are other examples of jobs you can outsource. You can match a freelancer to any aspect of your business that needs help.

Beyond the everyday

More than just the people that help you run your business daily, there are plenty of services and freelance professionals with niche talent that would take years to acquire on your own. Managed IT services is one of these. A local Chicago IT services provider can ensure that your systems are always ready to go. You’ll enjoy less downtime and better online security.

Even if you’ve hired a marketing guru, there are some areas that require specialized knowledge. Search engine optimization and link building, for example. Each of these utilizes search engines to help your website gain higher page rank. This means that when customers search for your type of business or set of keywords relating to it, they are more likely to see you pop up on Google. Moz explains that links were one of the primary reasons that Google became so efficient as a search engine in the 90s.

How to find freelance help

It’s not enough to just know what type of help you can get, you also have to know where to find it. A good place to start is by networking with your current contacts. You may be surprised to find out just how many people have taken to offering their services outside of a corporate schedule, particularly in the COVID age. You can also utilize freelance job boards and social media to seek and find the right help for you.

Freelancing is not novel. People have been doing it since the dawn of time in one way or the other. And today, you do not have to look far to find professionals that can take your business to the next level. So whether you need to fill day-to-day roles or would like assistance managing the technical aspects of your online business, there’s a freelancer for that.