Canada is home to about 1.39 million independent sales consultants! These and other professionals in sales and marketing help business owners across Canada to access their target markets, as well as create lasting and profitable relationships with prospective and current customers.
Your business can also benefit from hiring freelance sales and marketing professionals to add to your current workforce. This article looks at the benefits of hiring freelancers, the skills to look out for, and finding and hiring the best.
Why Should You Hire Sales and Marketing Professionals on a Freelance Basis?
Highly skilled freelance marketers ensure you give your customers precisely what they want. These professionals help you anticipate your customers’ needs and develop innovative solutions to satisfy those needs.
Talented and experienced freelance salespeople are your boots on the ground. They close sales and nurture your customer relationships. Some roles you can fill include field sales, sales managers, telesales, and key account managers.
Hiring freelancers rather than full-time staff benefits your business in several ways.
Freelancers are cheaper.
Freelancers require less supervision.
Hiring freelancers gives you access to a global pool of talent.
Freelancers are easier to find.
Freelancers work efficiently.
As an entrepreneur, you maximize the value of your workforce by hiring freelance sales and marketing professionals to augment your full-time staff.
What Should You Look For in Sales and Marketing Professionals?
The specific sales and marketing skills you should look for depends on the roles you want these professionals to play in your business. Nonetheless, every sales and marketing professional should possess the following skills and abilities.
Essential Skills: problem-solving, communications, digital proficiency, numeracy, and ability to learn new skills.
Role-Specific Skills: sales techniques, customer services, persuasiveness, negotiating, decision-making, analysis, and managerial skills.
Personal Skills, Traits, and Abilities: energetic, driven, resilient, adaptable, creative, confident, and thirsty for knowledge.
As competition stiffens and customer expectations rise, you’ll need freelance professionals with a higher skill level and not necessarily a different skill.
What’s the best way to hire freelance sales and marketing professionals?
To find and hire the best freelance sales and marketing professionals for your business, you may have to engage a few recruitment avenues.
Internal Referrals. If your internal salespeople and marketers may be part of a larger community of professionals, ask them to refer some professionals.
Recruitment Agencies. Recruitment agencies in Canada have a vast pool of professionals from which you can find and hire suitable professionals. You can find suitable candidates from within your community by posting flyers at strategic locations.
Employment Websites. Posting job listings on employment sites such as Indeed and FlexJobs can give you access to an endless pool of excellent candidates.
Before you set out to hire outside sales and marketing professionals, write a thoughtful job description to guide your recruitment process.
Other Ways To Reduce Your Business Costs
Besides hiring freelancers, you can save time and money buying off-the-shelf services, such as business software and incorporation. These services help you minimize the time you spend on non-core activities and direct that time to serve your customers. Furthermore, incorporation services further drive down your costs because corporations pay lower taxes than individuals.
A Vast Talent Pool
Finding and hiring freelance sales and marketing professionals gives you access to an endless pool of expertise while minimizing your staffing costs. Visit BizPlanPlus to learn how you can get help in business planning.
Guest Author:
Amy Collett is the creator of Bizwell.org, a website that helps professionals and entrepreneurs build and strengthen their personal brands.