DYK: Hiring a freelancer might just be the secret to smashing your targets. But if you’re searching around on the Internet and landed here, that probably means you have some questions.
Luckily for you, we love questions. And: we have answers. (At least about hiring a team of freelancers. How to solve grade 5 math questions? Not so much.)
In this article, we’re diving into the world of freelancers. We’ll cover how they’re different from your typical employees and why freelancers have quickly become a popular choice for businesses. And of course, we’ll share our top-secret tip for hiring top-notch freelance experts.
Ready? Let’s do this thing.
Table of contents
- What is a freelancer?
- How is hiring a freelancer different from an employee?
- What are the advantages of hiring a team of freelancers?
- 5 services a team of freelancers can do to help your business grow
- How do you hire a freelancer?
- Hiring freelancers FAQs
What is a freelancer?
If you’re reading this, you might already know the answer. But just like our projects, we like to start by making sure everyone’s on the same page, so we figured we’d start with the basics.
A freelancer is an individual who’s self-employed and works for multiple companies, often at the same time.
Freelancers typically have a specialized skillset—think copywriting, design, or web development—that allows them to offer their expertise as a service. Instead of working for a specific employer, freelancers get to choose their own projects and set their own rates.
A freelancer might work by themselves. But they can also work with a team, so you can access a bunch of different experts at once for projects like emails or websites. Just like internal staff, a team of freelancers can come together to deliver a full project from start to finish—without you having to do the heavy lifting.
Sometimes you’ll see the term freelancer used interchangeably with independent contractor. And honestly, the lines here can get pretty blurry. But generally, independent contractors refer more to self-employed folks who take on longer-term projects or contracts. And let’s face it, ‘freelancer’ is just way more fun to say.*
*Though let us be clear, freelancers do not, nor should they ever, work for free. Cool?
How is hiring a freelancer different from an employee?
Freelancers and employees both help your company get things done so you can grow your business. But hiring a freelancer isn’t the same as hiring an employee.
Here are some of the things that make hiring a freelancer different from hiring an employee:
- Employment taxes and benefits: When hiring an employee, you’re usually responsible for providing paid time off, benefits, and other employment taxes. Since freelancers work for themselves, they manage their own income taxes and benefits. All you need to do is pay the invoice. (Which is kinda important though, so please do that?)
- Hiring and onboarding: Hiring the right employee takes time and resources. And then to set them up for success, you usually need a pretty robust onboarding process—that’s why most companies have a probation period of three months or more. With freelancers however, the ball gets rolling astonishingly quickly. Because freelancers are always working with different clients and adapting to different processes, they know what they need to get the work done and hit the ground running—no probation period required.
- Commitment: Commitment issues? Not a problem. Freelancers give you the flexibility of having an extra set of hands (or six) when you need it. Meanwhile, employees are permanent, meaning it can be expensive and challenging to make staffing changes.
- Cost: In the spirit of transparency—which we think is pretty important—a freelancer is probably going to cost you more on a per-hour or per-project basis than a full-time hire. However, that doesn’t mean they’re more expensive in the long-run. Because you’re only working with them on certain projects for a set length of time or hours, you’re not stuck paying for lunch breaks or those oh-so-fun company-wide weekly meetings. Instead, you’re paying for sought-after specialized skills and expertise for specific projects—not just a generalist—and to get the best results, that’s often worth what you’re spending.
What are the advantages of hiring a team of freelancers?
Full-time employees are great. In fact, they’re so great that sometimes we fool ourselves into believing that it’s “better” to have an in-house team. And hey, sometimes it is. But that’s not always the case.
Oftentimes, having a team of freelancers is an equally valuable—or dare we say, better—choice. Let’s look at a few reasons why.
Access to specialized experts
Unless you’re a huge company (and even then) it can be difficult to have someone cover every skill set within your team. In many cases, you might not even need those skill sets on a day-to-day basis—do you really need to do a website rebuild more than once a year? That’s where the unique expertise of freelancers comes in handy.
For example, think of a brand tone and voice expert. They do brand guidelines really well. Having someone with that particular skillset on your payroll can be expensive. And the reality is, since most companies only need one set of brand guidelines—maaaaybe a few, if you have different sub-brands—you probably don’t need someone with that expertise on your team full time.
On the occasion you do need new guidelines or want to revamp your existing one, hiring a freelancer gives you access to that expertise without needing to keep them on staff permanently.
Cost savings
“But wait—earlier you said that freelancers cost more.”
We did say that didn’t we? Let us explain.
Freelancers can cost more when you break it down by project, or even by the hour.
But think about it this way: you likely have projects or work that don’t fall under the skillset or the scope of an existing role on your team. At the same time, you might not have enough work to consistently fill another full-time (or even part-time) role.
Instead of paying for additional headcount that you likely won’t get the full value of, you can hire a freelancer. This can help you save on PTO, benefits, payroll taxes, and any other overhead that comes with keeping an employee on permanent payroll. Plus, freelancers only get paid when you need them, which can help you save some cash in between projects.
Flexibility
Hiring a permanent employee is a big commitment. And in many cases, it might not even make sense for your long-term business goals.
Let’s say you hire a bunch of full-time employees for an exciting new project. But your business goals change six months down the road and you end up no longer needing employees with those skills. That can leave you holding a big bag of salaries that aren’t contributing to your North Star, or force you to make some pretty difficult people decisions.
Freelancers give you the flexibility to access the skills and resources you need when you need them. Once you have a team of freelancers you can trust, you can just email them when you have a project. And because they work with multiple different clients, there are no hard feelings when you don’t.
Plus, reducing long-term financial commitments—such as salaries—can often be helpful for fundraising and budgeting efforts.
Diverse perspectives
You know that feeling when you stare at a word for so long that it starts to look like gibberish? Sometimes you just need a fresh perspective. And freelancers can help with that.
Because they don’t work directly within your company, they can bring an outsider's lens to your projects. And freelancers have seen it all—which means they can find the best strategy and solutions for your team. (Yep, even the ones you’ve never thought of.)
And of course, even two freelancers who offer the same services will do things differently. They might have different experiences that impact how they work, so you can explore different ways to reach your goals.
5 services a team of freelancers can offer to help your business grow
When freelancers come together, they can do some pretty incredible things.
Need to pump out a bunch of SEO blog content? Awesome, freelancers can help with that. Need to revamp your website? A team of freelancers can rock that. Want to kickstart a totally new brand and need a go-to-market strategy, new packaging, taglines, and a full social media campaign? Yeah. Freelancers can help with that too.
If you can name it, there’s probably a freelancer that can do it. But if you’re wondering what exact services you can hire a team of freelancers for, here are a few that top our list:
1. Graphic design freelancer
A graphic design freelancer supports your company with visual design work. This can include anything from creating social media assets and website design to storefront window signage.
The right graphic designer can do so much more than make things look ‘pretty’. By hiring a talented freelancer designer, they can help you craft a visual brand identity that makes you look professional and attracts the right clients. And if you already have visual guidelines? A freelancer designer can help you turn those guidelines into reality—in print or in digital.
2. Freelance copywriting
You have things to say. Copywriters help you find the right words to say them.
From crafting a catchy headline to creating long-form educational content for your help center, freelance copywriters can bring your brand to life through words. Whether you’re looking to invoke an emotion in an email or drive an action on that billboard, copywriters can write the right words to make that happen.
3. SEO specialists
Search engine optimization (SEO) specialists—or the Google Whisperers, as some of us like to call them—are experts in connecting customers with your website. They intrinsically know the factors that help search engines understand and categorize your content, so you can boost traffic to your website.
SEO specialists don’t just find the right keywords. They can audit your site and make recommendations for new content, highlight best practices, and improve site speed. SEO experts dig into all the nitty gritty on your website so you can get more eyeballs—and sales.
4. Web development
It’s 2024. Every business needs a website. (Try and prove us wrong.) But what you don’t need? To know how to build one.
Sure—you could DIY your website. But why spend hours trying to decide Webflow vs. SquareSpace, or Wordpress vs. Wix, plus hours on YouTube troubleshooting when you could have a website custom-designed specifically to meet your goals?
Whether you’re looking to refresh your existing website or starting from scratch, web developers can turn the website of your dreams into a reality. Bonus: they’ll do it better, faster, and when you factor in your time, probably for less money.*
*We’re still talking about marketing here, okay?
Freelance web developers often work closely with SEO specialists, copywriters, designers, and marketing strategists to create a website that you—and your customers—will be obsessed with.
5. Fractional marketing
Fractional marketers are expert marketing freelancers who support your team on a part-time basis. They can handle anything from making strategy recommendations to day-to-day execution. Basically, it’s like having an employee—without the cost and commitment of having a full-time employee.
For example, you might need someone to help manage your email strategy or to lead your paid ad campaigns. Instead of hiring someone for each of these roles or spreading your team too thin, fractional marketers can fill these gaps and act as part of your team, so you’re covering all your bases within budget.
How do you hire a freelancer (and how can the Freelance Squad help)?
Hiring a freelancer can get overwhelming. We know—we’ve been there (but actually).
On one hand, you can try Fiverr or Upwork, but it’s hard to know exactly who to trust with your all-too-important work. Or you could do a call-out on LinkedIn, but you’ll either get three responses or 300 that are almost impossible to filter through.
Let’s say you went that route though, and you’ve finally found those perfect freelancers. Bells ring! Confetti explodes! Crocodiles dance in party hats! But oh wait—now you have to manage all their individual invoicing, constant questions, set up a Slack channel, give them file access, and you know, generally be there so they can do their jobs.
Honestly, even thinking about it all makes our heads spin. That’s why we created a better way to hire freelancers: The Freelance Squad.
The Freelance Squad is your one-stop freelancer shop. We’re not an agency but we’re also not a recruiting firm. Just a cool collective of really, really talented freelancers to help make your life easier.
Our goal is to connect clients—like yourself—with trusted freelancers so you don’t have to spend valuable time trying to hunt down the right people. Don’t worry, you still get to choose your squad—you just don’t have to waste time finding them.
And because we take care of a lot of the administrative work that freelancers don’t love (*ahem* invoicing), it gives them more time to focus on delivering top-notch work.
The best part? Our team of freelancers actually work together as a team. We can bring together anyone from designers, to copywriters, to videographers (yep—we have those too) to help bring any project to life. As they say, teamwork makes the dream work, right?
Did we mention you also get cheesy motivational quotes as part of working with the Squad? Included free of charge.
