by Randy Pryor

If you’ve ever looked into outsourcing a project to a freelancer, you know there's a b’jillion of them out there. I've hired freelancers from Elance & Odesk (which was combined and is now “Upwork.com”), Freelancer”, Guru.com, and even Craigslist. There's just a myriad of places to hire freelancers. And they're all great! You can often find good people.

The thing is, there’s such a huge difference between hiring someone as a freelancer, and hiring someone as your employee. Below are some of them:

1. One task, but multiple clients

Freelancers are very used to doing, and getting paid for, one specific task, and going on to the next one. So the only way they can really survive is with multiple clients.

2. I’m only ONE of their clients

Whenever I hired a freelancer, I was one of their clients. So at any given time they may have 3, 4, 5 or more other clients with other projects that they’re working on at the same time.

So, it's difficult (and impractical) for them to focus on just my project. And they’re certainly not going to give my project any extra thought. In most cases, they're going to do the bare minimum to get their paycheck, and they're off to the next one.

And, of course, I understand that. If I were a freelancer, I would do the same thing. I would probably have at least five “in the hopper” at any given time, so if one of my clients “disappears” or doesn't pay me, I’ve got some others that can make up for that loss.

3. They can be really expensive

I've had some good luck with freelancers, and I've had some bad luck with freelancers.

For example: I used three different freelancers from the same online company (I forget which one), and I gave them all the same assignment, which was duplicating the format of a website that I liked, but then tweak it.

In other words, keep the overall “look” of the site, but use my logo and my content, etc. And I thought that the task should take two or three days, and cost in the neighborhood of around $50.00. But, as it turned out, by the time all three of them were “done,” I paid over $450, and NONE of them completed the task – in two weeks.

And I thought to myself, “That's just silly.” Sure, they were inexpensive, I think they were about 10 bucks an hour, and as they say, “You get what you pay for… if you're lucky.“

I'm sure you can do a better job with freelancers than I did with that project. But, that was a HUGE lesson for me.

My point is, they were not employees, they were freelancers.

4. Employees are Affordable

Then I learned how to hire overseas talent. The first person I hired was a programmer – as an employee. He’s still with me 4 years later, he’s super affordable, and he's awesome!

And although I have not given him that same assignment, I'm absolutely sure he could do it within three days, to my exact specifications, and it would cost maybe $20 – $25 total – for the whole thing.

5. Employees are competent and dedicated

And that's because my programmer is really good, and completely loyal. He doesn't have to be a freelancer. He doesn't have to worry about the other gigs. And he certainly never has to worry about getting paid!

He's on the clock, and he's working for me as much as he wants to work. And he gets paid for every single minute that he puts in. He’s absolutely thrilled with it because he can pretty much decide on how much he wants to earn. And, it’s steady work.

6. Huge Win/Win!

And on top of that, if he does anything above and beyond the “call of duty,” I give him a pretty healthy bonus right away. So it's a huge win – win situation. And, I couldn't recommend it more highly.

In my opinion… affordable, online employees are the way to grow your business. Think about it… It’s in their best interest to always be thinking about how to grow your business. (Job security) And you want people who are on your team for the long-term. That's what works for me.

If you're looking into hiring your first loyal, affordable online employee, make sure to check out our course here.