Scaling Your Business With Global Freelance Talent

When it’s time to expand your business in new directions and build on the momentum you’ve created, taking a big-picture approach to talent is a smart alternative to traditional routes. For many companies, tapping into a pool of global freelance talent unlocks access to the best talent and allows them to grow in a scalable, cost-effective way.

Wondering why more businesses are enhancing their on-site teams with virtual talent? These recent articles from The Hiring Headquarters—Upwork’s resource for entrepreneurs, executives, and freelancers—showcases the benefits of working with freelancers on a larger scale and highlight how innovative companies use remote teams to drive growth.

Benefits of Scaling with a Freelance Management System

If you run a small business that needs specialized talent to tackle a unique one-off project, hiring an individual freelancer from a pool of remote candidates can bring the right partner to the table in a fast, efficient way.

But what if you work for a larger company and need to scale rapidly with a team of remote professionals to meet the demands of the project at hand? “How to Create an Effective Talent Pipeline” explores how an enterprise-level Freelance Management System (FMS) can expand your operation on a much broader scale than traditional ways of finding freelancers.

Executives from Instapage and Zendesk share how their companies have found value in this approach. Among the other advantages of using a FMS to scale, here are several top perks they cite.

• Direct access to a larger talent pool. Flexibility and options are invaluable when you’re eager to leverage the brightest talent for your company. Access to a global pool of freelancers gives you a lot of choice, and it’s easy to contact them directly before you make any decisions.
• A verified work history for all candidates. When promising candidates float to the top of the pile, getting a look at their previous experience on Upwork takes a few clicks. It’s also easy to see client reviews and specific skillsets.
• It speeds up the process exponentially. Traditional ways to find great freelancers—like word of mouth—can be sluggish and uncertain, and don’t always connect you with the right people. AFMS can cut down on wait time and give you better access to help you make decisions quickly.

Innovative Ways to Amplify Your Business with a Remote Team

Building a strong network of contingent specialists can provide invaluable support to your company’s permanent staff, but the way you focus your freelance team members can add even more value to the mix. If you’re looking to generate new revenue streams and growth for your company, creatively scaling upward and outward with freelancers can help give you a jump on the competition.

“5 Clever Ways Companies Drive Sales and Growth with Virtual Teams” deep dives into case studies of a handful of companies that have found success by leveraging large virtual teams to overcome challenges in their businesses. Each example provides interesting tips and insights you can apply to enhance your own brand’s upward trajectory.

Here’s a quick look at three strategies highlighted in these customer stories.

• Create new services to upsell to existing customers. When you have a strong customer base that you understand well, it’s possible to engage freelance experts to create entirely new product offerings tailored to meet the needs of your existing users. One company created a new add-on service it cross-marketed to its client base, and it quickly turned into a popular source of additional ongoing revenue.
• Capitalize on customer trends. Another tech company saw an immediate customer need among its clientele and scaled rapidly to create a solution geared to provide maximum value. Bringing freelancers in to augment an existing team allowed another company to meet its specific customer demands on a tight turnaround at a fraction of the cost and time of creating a new in-house department.
• Solve your own problems. Rather than leaving it up to the competition, a third innovative company identified a deficiency in its existing services and chose to take fast action by absorbing the expense to create a value-added service to address a problem for specific customers. Bringing in quality freelancers with the right expertise allowed them to solve a customer problem they couldn’t otherwise have easily tackled.

Looking for more insights into scaling your business with top freelance talent? You’ll find many more articles over at the Hiring Headquarters.

The post Scaling Your Business With Global Freelance Talent appeared first on Upwork Blog.

from Upwork Blog http://ift.tt/1RzOsM4