Monday, April 30, 2007

When to Hire a Freelancer

If you are just starting your ebusiness, you might find yourself on such a tight budget that it is tempting to do everything yourself. From web design to copywriting, you can manage to learn just about everything on your own, especially with all the tutorials on the internet. The question is should you be running a one-man (or woman) show?

The problem with learning to do everything yourself is that you will never be an expert at any of the tasks. Not to mention the amount of time it takes to learn through trial and error. And let's face it, some people just aren't good at some things. Graphic arts might not be your area and attempting to dabble in it can result in poorly done graphics for your website.

Hiring a freelancer can be the best move you make in your online business. You will certainly end up paying for the service, but it is more than worth the cost if you can get your business up and running in days instead of months. The cost of doing things yourself is far higher. Imagine how much money you lose if you buy your domain name and web hosting and then spend 3 months learning to program HTML and create a basic website. That is 3 months that you earn nothing, but are still paying for!

You should hire a freelancer when it is more economical to do so than to try and learn the skill yourself. For example, you could certainly learn HTML and do your own website, but you will frequently run into problems and it can be difficult to get the scripts to do what you want them to. However, a freelance web designer should be able to create just the site you want in a week or less.

Freelancers come in all levels of expertise, most of which will be better than your own! You can go to places such as FindAFreelancer, Elance, and Rentacoder to look for freelancers that will do the job you can't, for an affordable price. Just post your project and wait for the bids to roll in. You can also get freelancers for any area, from banner design to copywriting, so just decide which areas of your business you are unable to do effectively and hire someone to do it for you.

This is really the best way to get started in your ebusiness. Freelancers don't have to be terribly expensive and just the fact that they are experts in their field doesn't mean they are hard to get along with. Most freelancers will willingly work for a decent fee and make changes if you aren't happy with the finished product.

Hiring a freelancer can be far more economical than you doing everything yourself. Instead, focus on your areas of expertise and get the business up and running and earning you money faster by hiring someone to help you out!

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