9 ways your visitor attraction can benefit by hiring a freelancer
The world of work is shifting, a change that’s been accelerated by the coronavirus pandemic. From the rise in remote working – and all the tech that’s enabled it – to the newly valued flexibility in working hours that benefits both workers and businesses, freelancers are better placed than ever before to support your visitor attraction.
Did you know that there are currently 2.2 million freelancers in the UK? The freelance sub-sector is an anomaly in the self-employed population as it’s actually grown by 1% since 2019. In contrast, the overall number of self-employed workers has decreased by 5% (to 4.4 million).
That’s a sizable pool of freelance skill for your visitor attraction to dip into, especially if you’re looking for freelancers in the artistic, literacy and media occupations; people in these industries have largely driven the growth in highly skilled freelancers available. Marketing, copywriting, social media management, video production, IT, PR, design, photography, data entry and sales calls are just some of the areas freelancers can help you with.
If you’re not yet sold on outsourcing parts of your operations to freelancers, here are a few reasons why you should consider bringing in freelance support to enhance your visitor attraction – both as a place to work and a place to visit.
- Outsourcing can be less expensive and less hassle than hiring full-time team members, especially for smaller visitor attractions. Freelancers can bring the unique and specialised skills your team needs – whether for a short, medium or long-term project – without the overheads of holiday, sick pay and training costs. You also stand to save on office space.
- A freelancer can offer a fresh perspective on various aspects of your visitor attraction. Freelancer who know their stuff can offer advice and ideas for improvements you didn’t even know you needed – sometimes beyond the brief they were originally brought in for.
- If you need a project completed quickly, a freelancer can get stuck in without the distractions that come from familiarity, office politics and multiple responsibilities. As a rule, freelancers are highly specialised, with plenty of experience behind them. What might take a full-time member of your team days to figure out could take an expert freelancer a matter of hours. It’s likely that the quality of the work will be higher too.
- The growth in online collaboration tools, video conferencing and digital nomads means the workforce pool available to you is now global. If you hope to ‘crack’ a new international market as international travel re-opens, for example, you can find a freelancer to help you do exactly that. You could source a PR manager with local expertise to focus on an American or Chinese market, or a social media executive in a different time zone to engage with your community out of hours.
- One of the most frequently touted benefits to being a freelancer is the flexibility it offers but the same applies when you hire one, too. Freelancers are there whenever and whatever you need them for, and you only pay when you use their services.
- Bringing freelancers onto your team is an opportunity to make your visitor attraction a more diverse and inclusive place to work and to visit. You can find freelancers from different locations, educational backgrounds, cultures, races and of varying abilities, which can significantly improve your attraction’s ability to appeal to a wider range of potential employees and visitors.
- A successful freelancer’s working life is all about connections. A freelancer who has been in the business for a while will have a network of experts to tap into, so if you need a graphic designer to make your copywriter’s words sing, chances are your copywriter can recommend one.
- Freelancers thrive on repeat business and word-of-mouth so they have extra incentive to do the job well.
- If your visitor attraction is struggling to adapt to these new ways of working, there’s a freelancer out there who can help you get there, quickly and effectively. Whether you want a videographer who can help your attraction build a presence on TikTok, a diversity and inclusion manager to help enhance your VA team’s performance, or a mobile app developer to help improve your visitor experience, there’s a freelancer for that.
If you’re sold on the idea of hiring a freelancer, check back next week for tips on how to work effectively with one.
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