Especially for startups, customer acquisition is the lifeblood of a business. However, it’s possible to spend all your time on client acquisition and still fail to grow your business. Studies have found that startup failure is primarily caused by:
- 46% – Incompetence
- 30% – Lack of managerial experience or unbalanced experience
- 13% – Categorized as “other” (includes neglect, fraud, and disasters)
- 11% – No prior experience in product or service line
Startups are still subject to the pitfalls that commonly derail them no matter how good the economy is. To sidestep potential hazards and fill your skill gaps, you don’t need to hire a team of highly qualified professionals. As an alternative, you may be able to tap into a vast network of experts.
Finding freelancers for your small business or startup
Depending on your needs, you may be able to find freelancers or talents by checking out freelancer marketplaces. Although you’ll still have to do some serious candidate research, you’re likely to get a good selection of candidates.
Fiverr and other freelance marketplaces provide access to talented and professional creatives worldwide. Search filters on Fiverr make it easy to find what you’re looking for. Your skill requirements can be as detailed as you like.
Listed below are eight kinds of independent professionals who can help you avoid common mistakes and fast-track your startup’s growth.
1. A business plan writer
Often, entrepreneurs are so excited about getting their product to market that they sidestep writing a business plan, only to regret it later. The purpose of a good business plan is more than just a reminder of what your startup is and what you would like it to be – it is a blueprint for your company’s future.
Identifying your top competitors and developing strategies to beat them is one of its purposes. Among its contents are expertise, mission, vision, and guiding principles. In addition, it lays out a working business model you can use to develop your entire business operations and prepares contingency plans for those “catchall” scenarios like fraud and neglect.
2. A market researcher
In your business plan, you define your target markets in general, but you don’t go into great detail about market research. With the help of a market researcher, you can reach, engage, and convert your target market more effectively.
In addition, they can assist you in refining your product and service offerings to ensure that you can launch, sustain, and grow your startup with a sufficient customer base.
3. A virtual assistant
If you focus on the items that must be done right away, you may not be able to complete important tasks that need to be completed. Using a virtual assistant can allow you to get more done in less time by covering areas where you are spread too thin.
4. A web developer
Since so much modern business is conducted online, a website that is faster, more sophisticated, and easier to use will help your startup grow faster.
An experienced web developer can help you turn your startup’s vision into a digital marketing tool that attracts, engages, and converts prospects 24 hours a day.
5. A web traffic specialist
The movie Field of Dreams had a great line about building it and they will come, but it doesn’t apply to websites. If your startup is new, hiring a talented specialist to generate site traffic via SEO, social media, email marketing, and other methods can be important to attracting the visitors you need to grow your startup faster.
6. A search marketing expert
A startup’s margins are thin, and its budget for paid advertising is limited – every dollar must count! In order to ensure that you receive web traffic and leads from paid search marketing such as Google AdWords, Remarketing, banner ads, social media advertising, and other forms of search-optimized marketing, a search marketing expert can help.
7. A branding expert
In much the same way as writing a business plan, many entrepreneurs skip or skim the branding process, resulting in some pretty big holes in their marketing strategy. If these gaps aren’t filled, it leaves a lot of room for prospects to fall out of the sales funnel that you are trying to build.
In order to make your brand more compelling and appealing to your target audience, a branding professional can help you round out the look, feel, and appeal of your brand to give prospects even more reasons to choose to do business with you as opposed to your competitors.
8. Digital-marketing pros
If you devoted all of your time to digital marketing (which is probably not the best idea), you wouldn’t be able to reach your target audience effectively because you couldn’t take advantage of all of the digital marketing tools you need.
Digital marketing professionals may be able to help you with several tools (email marketing, social media marketing, content marketing) or they may specialize in some specific technique:
- SEO (search engine optimization) to drive more quality web traffic.
- Social media marketing for effectively engaging your audience with the use of a variety of social media platforms.
- Email marketing for cultivating referrals, nurturing prospects and repeating sales.
- Content marketing drives more web traffic and conversions with high-quality content on your website or blog.
Conclusion
There is no need for you to face it alone. You can take advantage of a large pool of expertise when launching your new business, even if it is still a small one. It would be more fiscally responsible to hire a freelancer part-time than to hire a full-time employee. With a part-time employee, you wouldn’t have to add to your already tight budget by hiring a full-time worker. Having freelancers on your team allows you to scale your recruitment needs as your business grows.
