Not sure where to hire freelancers, or how to find local freelancers? I’m going to show you a few easy ways to find hard-working freelancers
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Finding good freelancers is difficult
Finding good, local freelancers is extremely difficult.
Finding good, local freelancers that don’t charge an arm & a leg, is impossible!
What if I told you it doesn’t have to be?
The seemingly eternal disconnect with hardworking business owners and great freelancers, has always been each party’s onerous search for the other.
I’m sure at one some point in your entrepreneurial career, you’ve been excited at the prospects that one of the many freelancing sites out there like Upwork and Fiver can offer:
One of the issues with sites like these is when you find a freelancer, they probably won’t be local.
This (as I’m sure most business owners will offer testament to) can be hugely detrimental, especially for a local business. Just a few issues you could run into when working with a freelancer from one of these sites are language/dialect barriers, local culture differences, or even cost of living creating a gap between what the freelancer can accept and what you as a local business owner will be able to offer.
As a local freelancer myself, working primarily with local businesses has been a massive boost to the level of quality that presents itself in the results of our partnerships.
A great example can be seen through my work with a lawn care company local to me — where I’m located here in central Pennsylvania. If I didn’t have a pre-existing understanding of local demographics, I wouldn’t have known which areas were and weren’t worth targeting in digital/physical ads.
If my client hadn’t chosen a local freelancer or myself, the non-local freelancer they used would’ve been forced to make a guess as to where the cities & areas were worth targeting the client’s ads to. Instead, I came into the partnership with invaluable local information, that saved the client money.
There were all kinds of examples like the one mentioned above, and if you’d like to see more, you can check out the case study I wrote on that client here.
Now we know why you should choose a local freelancer. So where do you find freelancers?
There are a few notable methods for finding freelancers. And since your time is valuable, I’m gonna give you the cliff-notes for them below
#1). The first, and possibly best way to ensure a potential freelancer’s quality, is through local networking events.
Local networking events allow you to evaluate freelancers on a personal level, without the need to schedule any meetings.
Here is the best site for finding local networking events (this is not a paid ad. The tool is just that useful for finding freelancers!)
#2). Another fantastic path for finding nearby freelancers is your own LinkedIn/Facebook network!
LinkedIn will generally be better for medium-larger businesses, who may actually prefer working with an agency over a single freelancer.
But Facebook should not be underestimated! While you can utilize your own network (friends), there are tons of groups dedicated to connecting freelancers and business owners. Plus, you’ll have the added bonus of other local business owners to get advice/recommendations from!
#3). Third, is simply contacting other (successful!) businesses in your niche.
It seems silly, but people love talking about themselves. All you need to say is “Wow! I read your company’s article on _____, it was extremely well written. Do you mind if I ask who wrote it?”
The only legwork you need to do with this option is googling “Best (your business topic) near me”! Or preferably, just go meet other business owners at those local networking events I mentioned previously!
Finally, a great option for finding competent freelancers is simply searching for blog topics in your local business niche
Just search up a topic you’re curious about, and be sure to add your local area to it. Scroll down to the bottom of the article, and get in contact with the author!
And that’s where to hire freelancers! Hopefully you feel better equipped to find a great, possibly local, freelancer
If you learned something from this article, and would like to have one written for your site/social: set up an appointment with me here!