You may be accomplished or struggling, settled or managing; the truth is that no business can become a success with solitary efforts. Since help is needed, this brings us to another question – should you seek for a full-service agency help or go knocking on freelancer doors?
In the business community, there is a major struggle between two schools of thought. Many people often assume that freelancers are the best choice for their work and many others find that handing it all down to an agency is the lesser headache. Honestly, it all boils down to your business needs. There are many advantages and disadvantages, no doubt. Keep reading on to find out more.
Freelancers are self-employed individuals who work for more than one client at a time. They are their own boss and do not depend on companies to provide processes for them. They also have their own way of getting things done. Yes, in some scenarios, freelancers best serve the purpose to a business where a niche service is required. It is the truth that freelancers might cost less than an agency. But we often neglect the scalability factor. Let us cover a few parameters to highlight the discussion over why full-service agencies might be better than freelancers.
An agency relies on the talent of the team. Hence, they would only hire specialised personnel to do the job. At no cost will an agency bend deadlines, push deliverables or withdraw unceremoniously from a project (not saying that freelancers do it); because they have a reputation to withhold and obviously seek more business.
When you hire an agency, you have immediate and scalable access to aggregated resources, processes, technologies, etc. A client will benefit from the agency that has all the latest tools and technologies. Now imagine building up so much within your company! Doesn’t it sound like too much of a time consuming and expensive task that may not always prove worthwhile.
It is also safe to assume that an aggregated pool of talent will produce more ideas, innovation, insight and harmonious strategies as opposed to one brain on the task. A freelancer, no doubt, is abreast with all the technicalities, however, agencies push their employees to get to the top of the verticals. Agencies empower their employees in terms of knowledge access, experience and industry trends so that they can cut the competition first hand. Agencies understand that they might look bad incase the client isn’t happy with the deliverables. So they make it a point that their employees succeed to get faster and better results.
A freelancer is the best option when you have a smaller budget, smaller scale of competencies and agencies are the de facto choice when you require vast competencies to integrate in your project. Say for instance your brand isn’t that massive yet and mostly a social media strategy to promote the sales is required, then freelancers are the right choice. Agencies are a better choice when you want to leverage strategic partnerships and want to invest in growing your brand to the optimum level (say internationally) with a robust strategy.
One of the key dilemmas in running a business arises when the choice between freelancers versus full-service agencies has to be made. While we have discussed at length how each of these options serves a solid purpose, you have to make smart choices depending upon need of the hour, organisational structure, employees, business goals, talent pool, investment goals and ROI strategies.
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