When hiring a virtual assistant online, you might be thinking if you need to hire either a freelancer or a full-time employee. In this article, I will clarify which one you need for your business, depending on the task and your business's current state and future goals.
What is a Freelancer?
A freelancer does not really work with you in your company. Although they work directly with you, they are not underneath your company. They are someone who is usually thought of as a contractor. They will probably work online with you because they are not in the same country or state. They will take care of their employees’ benefits, like taxes, social security, and health insurance.
Your relationship with your contractor may be short or long-term, depending on where your business is. It can be a kind of employer-employee relationship or just with someone outside your company helping you out with a few tasks.
Pros of Hiring a Freelancer
Self-Taught
When you are a freelancer, you are usually expected to upgrade your skills when you are a freelancer, such as getting your coaches or courses. Usually, freelancers are natural experts in their fields or the services they offer. Most of the time, they will be skilled in a specific niche or task by constantly improving their skills and not remaining stagnant.
Has a Specific Expertise
Whether you have to hire a more general or a specific virtual assistant will depend on whether you need someone more of a jack-of-all-trades or more specific.
Generally, freelancers stay as freelancers because they are really experts in their respective areas. So, for example, if you are hiring a web designer or a web developer, you do not have to instruct them a lot of the time fully, and they can get the job done by merely listening to your vision and your expected outcome. Most of them are also resourceful, so if there are things that they do not know, they will have a group behind them who can help them with their questions on how they can accomplish their tasks. Freelancers do not need handholding because they are presumed to be knowledgeable of what they do.
Output-Based Payment
Freelancers are more toward output-based payment. It means that they are more focused on the outcome, so their clients do not have to pay anything ongoing with them unless it was part of the arrangement. For instance, if you want to get a website or your social media done, they will get it done because they merely focus on the outcome. However, if you are into something more ongoing, that will be a different arrangement. The bottom line is that freelancers will just get things done and ready for their clients. In cases where you want to tweak, update or improve the accomplished task, it is another thing that you have to think about.
Hiring a freelancer will give you more freedom because you are not stuck with someone, and it is up to you whether you want to move forward with their services.
Cons of Hiring a Freelancer
Working with Multiple Clients at a Time
Something to think about before hiring a freelancer is that you are not their only focus, so other priorities might pop up. The task you will give them may not be the first on their list because of multiple deadlines from other clients. Sometimes, their inability to focus on a single task or to manage their priorities can mean a loss of quality in the tasks assigned to them. Although this does not always happen, it is something that you might want to consider first.
They will not have the time to come up with ideas to help ease or improve your work as their client because they have multiple clients to keep in mind. This is why I recommend you hire full-time virtual assistants because they are focused on helping you and your business to get to the next level.
Task- or Project-Based
When hiring a freelancer, you must remember that most of them are task- or project-based, so there is not a lot of growth or room for you to be able to ask them to tweak or improve things because you just paid them to focus on a single outcome. There will also be little to no growth in your company because they will not be as involved in working with you and getting you to hit your goals and where you want your company to be.
Lack of Loyalty
Unless you were able to establish a good relationship with the freelancers that you hired, there is a high chance that they will look for the next clients, and you will just be one of the several clients they worked with for a task. Although this type of relationship is generally not negative, it may not make sense for you when you start to scale and grow your business. You might want to have someone who knows your business, understands your goals, and wants to help you get to where you need to be, and hiring a freelancer may not be the best option for you unless they start to work in your company full-time.
Sadly, as important as it is to build loyalty with virtual assistants, working with freelancers will not work that way. However, it might just be who you need as you start your business and eventually find someone who can work as a full-time employee in your business.
Hiring a virtual assistant freelancer has pros and cons. By weighing all of the things mentioned above, you can effectively decide whether or not a freelancer is the best fit for your business.
If there is anything you want to add about this topic, or if you want to share your experiences on hiring a virtual assistant freelancer, feel free to comment down below!