Every sixty seconds, the internet explodes with content, inundating audiences with:
- 500 hours of YouTube video
- 149,513 emails
- 3.3 million Facebook posts
- 1,440 WordPress posts
- 448,800 Tweets
…. and that’s just a drop in the bucket. How’s a small or midsize business supposed to compete?
When SMBs are looking to scale, freelancers are the virtual Sherpas ready to guide clients to the top. How can your brand benefit?
Populate in a Hurry
You can launch a site with no content, but you’ll have the same results as a retail store that opens its doors without anything on the shelves. In other words, it’ll be a disaster. When people start visiting your Paleo Headquarters or Stock Stop, they want to feel that you’re an authority on the topic at hand. One or two blog posts won’t do that but a bevy of recipes or a ton of trading tips will. It may take you months to build up that kind of content library on your own, but a team of freelancers can churn out content quickly without sacrificing quality.
Make Like an Accordion
No, don’t play a bunch of polkas. We’re talking about expanding and contracting your team on demand. Sometimes business will be booming, and you’ll need to create a ton of marketing collateral created for your end clients on top of in-house needs such as whitepapers and weekly blogs. Other times, your inbox is empty and the last thing you need is a bunch of full-time writers who have nothing to do except raid the fridge and trade Supernatural GIFs. You can call on freelancers when you need them most and scale back when you’re experiencing a lull, protecting your bottom line in the process.
Compete With the Big Boys
Remember the super-sized account you talked yourself out of pursuing? Surprise! That mega-contract is now in reach because you have the vetted manpower (and womanpower!) to get the job done—and you can probably do it for less money than your competition. Freelancers don’t need desk space or health insurance, and they aren’t as affected by snow days or the office flu epidemic. Contract out for your content needs and you can cut your overhead, pay skilled writers the wages they deserve, and crank up productivity to near-stratospheric levels, all while gaining a seriously competitive edge.
You Do You
One survey of 242 entrepreneurs found that a staggering 49% had a mental health condition. Running a business is an indescribably arduous task, especially if you’re trying to hoe the entire road yourself. As Sam Altman of Y Combinator put it, “There is a huge amount of pressure as a founder to never show weakness and to be the cheerleader in all internal and external situations. The world can be falling down around you—and most of the time when you’re running a company, it is—and you have to be the strong, confident, and optimistic. Failing is terrifying, and so is looking stupid.”
That quest for perfection and unqualified success can drive execs to micromanage and overextend. Can you write all your blogs, manage multiple social media accounts, develop a comprehensive content strategy, ideate, and implement your many ideas by yourself? Maybe, but what will you be sacrificing in exchange?
Partner with a freelancer (or three, or four, or…) and you can scale your business without surrendering your wellbeing on the way to the summit. And isn’t that a worthy accomplishment in and of itself?
Alana L is passionate about helping her clients conquer their own entrepreneurial expeditions. When she’ s not dreaming up highly effective content ideas, Alana’s busy studying up on the latest trends in digital marketing, event planning, wine education, and baby wrangling.
