Guest Post by Lance Cody-Valdez
If you’re a solopreneur, you may be wondering if you’ll ever have any free time again. The daily demands of your business can take all of your time, sometimes causing stress, damage to personal relationships, physical and mental fatigue, and lower-quality work.
Part of scheduling your daily workload should include taking time for yourself. If you haven’t already, consider using freelancers to take some of those daily tasks off of your full plate.
How Does Hiring Freelancers Benefit You?
You’re the boss, but you’re also a human with needs. Be careful not to allow your business to overwhelm you; that’s almost certainly going to lead to being burned out quickly. You need assistance in tasks you can’t complete yourself. Since you have no business partners, that means hiring an employee, right? Not necessarily. Hiring freelancers can solve your need for help without having to pay regular wages and benefit costs. Many freelance tasks are done remotely, meaning that you don’t have to provide office space.
You may be required to report funds paid to non-employees who perform services for your business to the Internal Revenue Service. It’s a good idea to check with the IRS to be certain you comply with applicable requirements.
What Kinds of Tasks Can You Outsource?
There are things that you need to do yourself, but there are a number of business needs that can be met by using freelancers:
- Business communications, including editing, proofreading, and formatting emails, website verbiage, and issues caused by using English as a second language
- Website building and maintenance
- Social media marketing campaigns
- Bookkeeping
- Brand development
Many of these tasks require specialized knowledge, and all of them can take considerable amounts of time. One person can only do so much; if you need help, decide which tasks make the most sense to outsource.
Factors to consider include the amount of time you’ll save not having to do a specific job, the cost of hiring a freelancer, and how effective — or ineffective — you are doing it yourself. If you’re not familiar with social media advertising, for example, that can be a good task for knowledgeable freelancers to boost your business.
Where Can You Find Qualified Freelancers?
There are several online job boards you can utilize to find both domestic and overseas remote freelancers:
- Guru
- Indeed
- Fiverr
- Upwork
- FlexJobs
Using technology, it’s easy to work with people in other countries, especially freelancing hubs like India. Opening your job postings to Indian applicants can give you access to many more qualified candidates than if you only post your position domestically. Many times, you’ll save money by using freelancers from India.
You may want to hire freelancers from a certain country. Using Guru, for example, you’re able to narrow your search to find candidates in India. Keep in mind the sometimes-drastic time differences and be sure that freelancers from abroad can be available when you need for them to be.
Some of these job boards allow you to pay for freelance services through that site. If that’s not an option, traditional payment methods can be costly. Instead, consider using a money transfer service like Remitly.
Sending funds to some countries with Remitly involves no or low fees for the sender. To send amounts over $1,000 to India, for example, costs nothing. You can choose transfer speed, but exchange rates and fees are subject to change.
Are You Ready?
Hiring capable remote freelancers is easier than ever, and you’ll receive many benefits from doing so. Decide the best tasks to outsource and give it a try; you’ll be glad that you did.
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