You may be so overworked, that you can’t remember the last time you spent a weekend without logging into the office. But chances are, if you ask your boss for more freelance help, they’ll say no. However, it’s not surprising if they put the kibosh on your request. Because most people take the wrong approach.
The advice you often hear goes something like this: list tasks you do that are not in your job description and tell them how many extra hours you’re working. Although valid, this tactic puts you on the defense and can come off like you’re complaining.
This could unfairly scuff your reputation and cause your boss to think, “Hey, toughen up! We’re all working hard here.” So if you want them to say yes, approach it from the company’s perspective.
You’ll enjoy more success when you show how adding more freelancer help can fatten the company’s bottom line. The key here is to quantify, quantify, quantify. It backs your request with fact-based reasoning. And quantifying focuses on the company’s benefit, instead of just yours.
Before approaching your boss for more freelance help, review these five foolproof reasons and tips on using them. They’re so logical, that you’re sure to get the help you need.
1. Freelancers help you save money
An obvious saving from using freelancers is you can get specialized projects done while avoiding unwarranted employee expenses or agency markups. But when people compare the cost of an independent consultant to an employee, many mistakenly compare straight hourly rates, which makes the consultant look more expensive. However, once you factor in recruiting costs, training time, daily administrative costs, office equipment, office space, and so on…the highly skilled consultant often comes out much less expensive.
Then there’s this question: Do you need to hire an employee if you only need an expert’s skill sets on a project basis? What’s more, when you compare freelancers to traditional agencies, the cost savings become more apparent. Depending on the project scope and level of expertise required, typical agency mark-ups range from 25-100%.
Tip: Identify 2 or 3 freelancers you could use now and compare their rates to how much it would cost to accomplish the same work with an employee or a traditional agency.
2. Freelancers help you make more money
Saving money is great, but making money is even better. What some bosses overlook is how being short-staffed often cause lost opportunities. Are you losing contracts because you can’t respond quickly enough? Are customers going to your competition because they offer a product or service your company can’t match yet? Are your project deliverables taking too long, causing you to lose referrals or repeat business? Are you getting more customer complaints?
Tip: Brainstorm critical areas where you see lost opportunities from being short-staffed. Then estimate the quarterly or annual revenue potentially lost from them.
3. Freelancers help you stay competitive
Everyone in your office may be brilliant, but chances are, there are some needed skills no one possesses or doesn’t do as well as you need. Freelancers fill these talent gaps. Just as important, they bring years of experience that may help improve your project’s outcome. By using their skills and valuable experience, you could stay on the leading edge of your industry, serve your customers better, or go after new markets.
Tip: List ways your company is losing its competitive edge. Quantify lost business because of it. And quantify potential future loss based on growing competition and their expected service improvements.
4. Freelancers help you increase productivity
When you’re short-handed, you may end up responsible for tasks that kill your productivity. Like a CFO doing data entry training. It may seem hard to believe, but it happens when you have things to do and no one else to do them. The problem is, this pulls you from other tasks better suited for your skills. And the company isn’t optimizing what they originally hired you to perform. Another benefit of using more contingent talent is it frees you to focus on other tasks. The extra help may also get projects done faster. When productivity increases, output increases, and revenue increases.
Tip: List the tasks outside of your skill set that someone else should handle. Calculate the hours you spend doing them at your hourly rate versus a freelancer. Then list the tasks you could be doing—tasks more suited to your skill set. Estimate what you could accomplish if you focused on those tasks. You could even roughly calculate your productivity increase.
Or, calculate how contingent help may improve turnaround time for deliverables. Show how that increased output increases company revenue.
5. Freelancers help you keep your employees
Passion and loyalty have their limits. Overworked, burned-out employees eventually leave. These days, they jump to other companies sooner as people demand greater satisfaction and balance at work. But losing valuable employees is just part of your problem. Many times, their morale drops first, bringing negativity to the office and impacting the overall office vibe and productivity.
And the added stress from carrying heavy workloads can affect your health too. Numerous studies show constant work stress is linked to increased sick days and higher healthcare costs. Stress and deteriorating health also increase presenteeism—where people show up, but are too ill, stressed, depressed, and otherwise distracted to work. Some estimates say presenteeism accounts for 75% of lost productivity. And up to 60% of a company’s healthcare costs.
Tip: Calculate the cost of replacing your team and include the cost of what the company’s invested in them so far. And/or include statistics on increased sick leave, presenteeism, health-care use, and so on.
Your boss agrees…now close the deal
Congratulations, you laid out a surefire argument for more freelance help and your boss agrees. Before they start worrying and coming up with reasons why you can’t have more freelance help, offer a compelling solution.
This solution may include a new technology called a Freelancer Management System (FMS). More companies are using them because a full-service FMS provides an incredible marketplace of freelance talent, streamlines onboarding, provides compliance services, and pays your remote talent in real-time. From one dashboard, you can also view engagement status, pull reports, and communicate with your talent.
This convenience doesn’t just save you tremendous administration time, it also saves you money over using a traditional agency. By avoiding agency markups, you typically save an average of 20-30% for the same, high-quality talent.
So now you can save the company more time and more money, amp up everyone’s productivity, improve your competitiveness, and revive everyone’s sanity. And provide an automated solution to make it all happen easily. All in all, a pretty successful day’s work.
