Business Owner vs Freelancer: To Work a Business Rather Than “Work Within A Business”

Business owners and entrepreneurs are often pitted against each other – a businessman who is spending his or her time away from the office, and the freelance marketer who wants to work from home.

These two types of marketers have distinct advantages and disadvantages when working together.

Business Owner vs Freelancer

Businesses often find it difficult to find qualified freelancers because businesses are so busy.

As a result, they turn to hiring an outside agency. In this scenario, the business owner can focus his or her attention on running the business while the agency focuses on finding quality freelancers to perform the work.

This arrangement has worked out well for many businesses and owners, but it has its drawbacks.

On the other hand, an agency can help guide you toward your business goals and give you professional advice about how to reach those goals. In addition, the agency will have access to talented freelancers who have performed work for others in the past.

These freelancers may cost you more money upfront, but the perks of having quality work done on a consistent basis outweigh the costs for many business owners.

Although freelancers may cost you some extra money, there are also several benefits of using an agency.

Most importantly, an agency or freelancer helps you avoid hiring individuals who are not serious about providing quality work. It is far too easy for a freelance person to disappear once you start paying them.

10 Activities That You Can Develop as a Freelancer

Working independently is a way of life that can bring many benefits. However, there are many high-paying entry-level jobs as a freelancer.

Many times, people believe that their area of expertise or activities where more value can contribute is not applicable to a freelance work scheme.

   

Here are a few ideas for freelance opportunities that currently exist. Some of these you will be aware of already, and some are a little unexpected.

1. Online Research

Often, companies or entrepreneurs need to know what companies offer a certain product, make a list of websites with certain characteristics or get contact data from a large number of entities, just to give some examples.

For all these cases, the only skills that you need to have is knowing how to read and use a search engine. It is easily achievable! In addition, it is an activity that can be developed from the comfort of home or a temporary office.

2. Test Web Applications And Software

It is often identified as QA or testing, this is a crucial activity in any computer development, since it is the way to detect problems, bugs or even usability flaws in a program.

In summary, it consists of using a program in different ways to verify that it works well and as expected. For example, a system can sometimes stop working if data with a strange character such as & is loaded, whereby the error must be informed to the programmers so that they develop an exception or at least a coherent error message.

3. Text Editing

Did you ever write and revise a text so many times that it is no longer possible to realize if it is clear or if it contains errors?

It is very common, and that is why there are many people and companies willing to pay someone to read a text and verify that it is well written, transmits a clear message, and has no spelling errors.

4. Non-Technical Maintenance Of Websites

This activity refers to keeping updated the products that an eCommerce site has published, moderating photos and user comments, or publishing new notes from another medium, for example.

Usually, this type of website has content management tools for which you do not need to have any technical knowledge.

5. Review Of Plans, Architectural Sketches Or Engineering Schemes

If one has skills in areas of industrial design, engineering or architecture, he can easily offer his services not only to generate plans and the like, but also to revise or correct those of others.

For example, there have been many cases of people remodeling their home who wanted to get a second opinion from another architect before starting the work.

   

6. Legal: Contracts And Agreements

It is often necessary for a professional to read a contract and be able to warn the client if it presents any risk or if it has points that do not meet expectations.

It also happens, very often, that small businesses (which do not have a law firm at their disposal) need someone to draft the terms and conditions of a contest or a small privacy policy for their website. All those cases can be quietly solved by a freelance lawyer.

7. Cooking Recipes

Gastronomy is a topic of interest in many areas and can be approached in several ways. It is common for a restaurant to ask for recipes from a freelance chef to renew their menu, as well as for a magazine or radio program to buy a package of recipes in order to publish or communicate to their audience. Cooking recipes are not copyrighted anywhere in the world, so it is always possible to bring a personal touch and publish it.

8. Video Editing

The possibilities range from corporate videos of large companies to personal videos of birthdays, weddings, baptisms and the like. In addition to knowledge of the subject, it will be of great help to have an advanced computer that can properly run the necessary software.

9. Composition, Arrangement And Musical Adaptation

The world of music offers a huge amount of independent work opportunities. For example, you can get jobs to compose the music of a short animation, adapt a song to a ringtone, modify a composition to incorporate other instruments, etc.

10. Become An Excel Master

There are often those who need to “order” an Excel spreadsheet, eliminating repeated data and applying formulas in such a way that information can easily be extracted from it, for example.

Or there are those who need someone to assemble templates with formulas, macros and dynamic tables already loaded so that you just have to dump data and see the results. In all cases, the work can easily be done remotely.

   

How Can I Find Freelancers Online?

There are several ways to find qualified freelancers who can work for your business. One of the best ways is to go to a website called Elance, where you can post your job open and await bids from people who are interested in working with you.

This is a wonderful way to locate a reliable, friendly professional who will meet your standards.

If at first, you aren’t very impressed with some of the offers you receive, this is an excellent place to search for additional candidates.

When you find several individuals who fit your specific requirements, you can interview them one-on-one to get a better sense of who you want to hire.

You can also set up a phone interview with a freelancer by contacting an agency that specializes in finding candidates who can do contract work for businesses.

Using this method, you can get an idea of what to expect from an individual and how they present themselves in person.

You’ll want to take notes during the phone interview and get a feel for how the person communicates.

You’ll want to make sure the business owner and freelancer have a good relationship since this could help to speed up the process of getting an agreement on the details of the freelancer’s job.

Finally, you can contact other companies or individuals you know to find out if they are aware of any freelancers or business owners looking for freelancers.

You might discover that they are hiring a person through a service that they are signed up to use.

In this case, you could ask the company if they know anyone who is a freelancer who would be willing to work for their company.

This is an excellent way to use an external resource to help you with your business.

After all, the right freelancer can help get your business in high demand and help to grow it.