If you’re a business owner, it’s possible that you spend a lot of your time dealing with various challenges. After all, you’ll have to implement new strategies and technology, you must efficiently communicate with your staff members, and more importantly, you need to ensure that you hire the right professional for the job you need to outsource.
But, there are two options when it comes to outsourcing your business tasks – you can choose to hire freelance services or the services of an agency. There are differences between the two options and in order to make the best decision, you’ll have to understand those differences. Luckily, this is exactly what we’ll discuss in this article today, so, let’s take a closer look:
1. The Experience, Skills, And Knowledge
Freelancers: Generally speaking, people operating in this field are experienced and knowledgeable professionals in their fields. Some of them already have a lot of experience since most of them have already worked in physical businesses and companies. When searching for an organization online, you’ll surely be able to find a person that will suit your specific needs, no matter if you need someone to run your advertisements or if you need an SEO consultant such as Lucatagliaferro.com to take care of your SEO ranking. But, it might be difficult to find someone with a wide range of skills, which is why in most situations, you’ll have to hire several of them.
An Agency: If you opt for hiring a professional organization, you’ll be operating with a team of qualified experts that have a wide range of skills and experiences. Since it’s a company, you’ll probably have to sign a contract in order to hire a group of experts. The main difference between the two options? Well, when working with them, you’ll have an official and written guarantee that the outsourced tasks will be completed, whereas, with a freelance organization, you won’t have that since most of them don’t offer contracts.
2. The Scope of Services Available
Freelancers: We cannot really say that they don’t care about their reputation with their clients, however, not all of them will be responsible and trustworthy. In some situations, they might simply disappear without previously finishing the tasks or notifying you that they won’t complete them. And since people don’t sign contracts with them, you won’t have anyone to turn to when the task isn’t finished when agreed.
An Agency: On the other hand, an agency will provide the best possible services to their clients mostly because they really care about their clients’ experiences. Additionally, they’ll be operating in a team, which means that they’ll have frequent meetings where they’ll monitor the progress of the outsourced tasks.
3. The Expenses
Freelancers: When it comes to the expenses you’ll have, hiring a freelancer is cheaper than hiring a team of people. After all, you’ll be paying one person to do the job, which is definitely more affordable than hiring an entire group of people that will work on the tasks you outsource. Additionally, they don’t need to share their salaries, nor do they have to pay taxes.
An Agency: We already mentioned that it’s more expensive to hire a professional agency that will provide you with a team of experts working on your business tasks. But, you should know that, in most cases, they will charge more than 35 percent more than the previous option. And since they’re a company, they’ll also need to pay monthly taxes.
4. One Person VS a Team of People
Freelancers: Hiring the services of a freelancer means that you’ll be hiring one person that operates alone. In most cases, they don’t have a boss, nor a manager, which means that you’ll need to frequently communicate with them in order to learn about the progress they made, meaning that you’ll need strong managerial skills.
An Agency: If you hire an expert team of people, you’ll probably have fewer things to worry about. All you’ll need to do is provide them with information on what they need to do and they’ll start right away. Hence, if you aren’t up for some management tasks, hiring an agency might be the option you should choose.
5. The Working Hours
Freelancers: The very first thing that you should know is that they don’t work the normal business hours, which means that they’re more flexible with their schedules. But, keep in mind, not all of them are online 24/7, it’ll depend on the person you hire. Some will have specific business hours, while others might not.
An Agency: Like any other company out there, these organizations will have their business hours. Hence, if your organization has non-conventional working hours, this option might not be suitable for you. Nonetheless, most agencies follow the requirements of their clients, meaning that they’re always ready to help if needed.
6. The Support
Freelancers: As mentioned earlier, when you’re working with a freelancer, you’ll need to constantly get in touch with them, hence, they might not provide you with the necessary support. Also, they might not provide you with useful advice and tips, mostly because they’ll have a lot of clients and it would be difficult for them to focus on one person for a longer time.
An Agency: Agencies are different when it comes to the support your receive. For starters, you’ll hire a team of people, which means that there will always be someone there ready to talk to you. This will allow them to provide you with various tips and advice, especially since they’ll always have someone to speak to you.
Conclusion
Determining whether you should hire the services of a freelancer or an agency is often quite daunting and time-consuming. However, since you now know all the differences between the two options, you should be able to make the entire choosing process easier, as well as less time-consuming.
So, now that you’re aware of all the differences you need to take into account when determining which option might be suitable for your business, you should not lose any more time. Instead, take a look at this article one more time and then determine which option suits your needs best.
