In order to succeed, agencies need to realise the value of freelancers
As clients demand more and agencies are stretched to breaking point, there’s one solution many don’t always consider: the freelancer.
Running an agency can be overwhelming. You’re constantly trying to balance client work with business development, and it can feel like an uphill battle, especially when you’re trying to scale.
Clients are beginning to expect more and more from their agencies, and there’s a growing expectation for agencies to be full-service. Resourcing is another major concern. There’s a constant toss-up between hiring to be prepared for new clients and being hesitant to commit to more employees before new clients sign on the dotted line.
Amen to that!
(Subtitle = “Pick me!Pick me!”) 🙂
Dear Mumbrella – In the interest of transparency, which by the way your writers and editors don’t have a problem banging onto us about every other week, I think it’s time you introduced a Paid Content tag for the ever increasing shameless self-promotion articles that scream commercial content under an OPINION guise.
If you’re not banking coin for these then you must be REALLY hard up for content.
This column should be renamed “Vested Interest Weekly”
@Stu(2) This article is obviously leveled at the beginner, rather than the industry experts who are very savvy with freelancing and have been doing it for decades with some of the world’s best talent, but perhaps there are plenty of start up SME’s that would find this of value?
The freelancer model is the back bone of our industry, and we’ve all been doing it for decades to scale up and down and to get the right people for the right job.
The new news here could be to empower brands how to do more themselves, and for them to learn how to do it like the agencies have for decades. The tricky part for brands is if they hire freelancers and don’t know how to keep the whole thing on track, it becomes a nightmare for all parties. An art buyer or producer in the middle keeping it all together really makes a difference, and that person must be working for the brand or agency with objectivity.
I’ve used resources like @99Designs (that I consider a low cost crowd sourcing option) and there are great ways to use a service like this, but there is also caution to be had too. The strategy is often missed when we stick to task-specific activity, we access the lower end of the talent pool, communicate only via an online service which has flaws for creative nuances, and when we don’t have custodians of the brand driving the business solutions are not integrated fully.
There are horses for courses… this is useful information for the start ups I expect.
Using freelancers and using more of them than ever is how we can solve many industry issues, as well as overcome diversity issues inherent in the current agency model. For the big brands there are insights even more powerful in how they can use freelancers to best effect.
I am not sure how this is news. Most agencies have loads of freelancers and all industries have used temps since at least the 80’s. 99 designs ads should appear in the paid content section of the site or have some obvious disclaimers.I run a digital agency – let me know if you would like an article on why you should use us!!
Wow, surprise, surprise…a freelancer agency advocating that agencies hire fleelancers!
C’mon Mumbrella, perhaps naïvely, I thought you were better than that
This true. I mean why not? I’ve used several freelance platforms – Upwork, Fiverr, Giggrabbers, and 99Designs and have been able to focus on bigger projects.