Dediacted Virtual Employee and a Freelancer serve two different markets
A freelancer should really only be hired by clients that have short term projects e.g. they want a logo designed – they have a small website that they want to design – something that can be completed in 2 weeks – 1 month -2 months …max – why is this the case?
Because working with a freelancer remotely is very difficult …why? Because a freelancer works from home – and so has very poor infrastructure – so working with someone remotely that has poor infrastructure on a LONG term basis would be highly inefficient – coupled with this you have issues such as –
a)They are unsupervised – psychological a person working under supervision from a office will always do better than someone working from home
b)They work with several clients at once and so your work is not their main priority
c) There is no security – no contracts – no physical body -what if they run off with your work – your data – your idea ….so would you want to work with a person like this on a long term basis?
For these exact same reasons – a Virtual Employee has resolved all these issues – making it more efficient and hence more cost effective – hence why hiring on a long term basis a Virtual Employee is much better than a freelancer.
The key point to remember is that a Virtual Employee and a freelancer serve two different markets – freelancer short term – Virtual Employee long term – WHEN clients hire a freelancer on a long term basis – the Virtual Employee will outperform a freelancer – hands down – no doubt What advantages does a freelancer have over a VE? I would say more it is about that they are better places to offer short term, low budget solutions than a Virtual Employee – because – you can work with them on a hourly basis – there is no one month upfront commitment – you can hire them Virtual Employee quickly etc…
Are they really cheaper? If you were to hire a Virtual Employee and freelancer both for a year dedicated – you might actually find that a freelancer is more expensive because they charge by the hour in most instances.
Even then a freelancer is not actually cheaper than a Virtual Employee when calculated on a per hour basis – BUT we must acknowledge the fact that a Virtual Employee has a higher degree of commitment from the client than a freelancer (so the more short term a contract goes – generally in the work world the higher the rate goes up that the employer must pay) – so they might not actually b cheaper but given the fact that you can hire a freelancer on a hour basis you could argue that taking this factor into consideration they are actually cheaper. So – a Virtual Employee is for more long term work – or more high level – high value projects – would you want someone working from home unsupervised on a 1 million dollar project? – Probably not the risk assessment jus wouldn’t be worth it.
If you have a $100 – logo you want designed – would it make sense to hire a Virtual Employee – do you need all the interaction – support etc probably not – you probably want to save as much as you can hire someone quickly get someone to work from home for a cheaper possible rate.
THE MISTAKE – clients make is to be lured by the low prices some freelancers offer – get fixated on price and think “oh this freelancer is so cheap il hire him for a year” – that is when a Virtual Employee would hands down beat a freelancer It is when clients start mixing the two markets – because they are ill informed about outsourcing and don’t know how to do it – and hire a
freelancer for a 6 month project – when things go wrong …so our job is to educate them – and teach them how to outsource – and explain to them why this is the case.
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