As a business owner, you have to think about how you can out-fox and out-maneuver your competitors. Every slight competitive edge you can have over your competitor’s counts, and it could be the difference between getting a sale or losing it to a competitor.
One way that you can get an advantage over your competitors is by enhancing your knowledge and abilities by using consultants and freelancers. Here’s how.
Upgrading Knowledge Without Colossal Costs
If you add an expert to your in-house team then you’ll undoubtedly improve it. However, the cost of bringing in someone full-time can be extortionate; especially if it isn’t absolutely necessary. However, by adding a consultant or a freelancer to your team, you’ll gain the exact same level of knowledge at a fraction of the price.
For example, if you’re an IT related contractor, it’s unlikely you’ll need a full-time accountant; but you will need someone with a great level of knowledge of your industry, specifically how accountancy works in that niche to ensure your books are in order. You don’t want to hire an accountant for 12 months of the year when you only need them to help file your end of year tax return, so a freelance IT contractor from Just Accountants is a far better option, saving you thousands while ensuring your accounts are in the best shape possible.
Insight into Product Launches
In the world of business, not only do you need better knowledge levels than your opponents, but you also need to out-maneuver them in the marketplace with your products. Put succinctly, your products need to be better than theirs, whether that be: faster, smaller, more robust, cheaper or more multi-faceted.
For example, Apple outshone Blackberry simply because the iPhone was better than various Blackberry models. It took the best elements of the Blackberry and improved upon them, whilst adding extra features, too. Now, Apple dominates the market, although Android is catching.
Bringing in freelance designers, buyers and tech guys can help you with this (admittedly on a much smaller scale). You can use freelancers to do market research on your product and then feedback to you and your freelance tech guys who can then improve it. Again, short-term freelance contracts will also mean there are no exorbitant costs. So for minimal outlay, you’ll have a much better product.
These are only two ways that freelance consultants can help improve your business and there are thousands more. One thing is for certain though. If you’re looking for an edge over your rivals for minimal cost, freelancers may be the way to go.
