First, what is freelancing? The actual term goes back to the times of knights and swordsmen. A lance is a weapon. Soldiers used their lances in battle. Being a free-lance meant you didn't fight for one king or landowner. Instead you hired out your lance to anyone who paid you. Kind of like a soldier of fortune today.
But today freelancers don't offer their weapons for hire. Rather, they offer their services. These services can range from transcribing your recorded meetings into typed documents, doing your taxes or creating a new cell phone application from start to finish. Almost anything is possible. As long as most of it can be done through the Internet or electronically.
So what are the benefits of using a freelancer? How about saving money. Sometimes a LOT of money. Freelancers compete from all over the world. That means people in places where the living standard is much lower can often do jobs much cheaper than people in your immediate neighborhood. And usually just as well and sometimes better. And always cheaper!
As an example, say you want your taxes done and you go to 2 or 3 accountants in your neighborhood. You might get an average price of between US$460 - 500. Each accountant's price will be pretty close to each the others Why? Because they know what they can charge in your neighborhood. Plus they know what their competitors are charging as well. So their prices don't vary very much.
But what if you could ask all of the accountants in your state? The prices would have a much larger spread (the difference between highest and lowest price). Maybe the most expensive price is $550 and the lowest is $400. Why the larger spread? Could be a lot of reasons. Perhaps someone lives in a much poorer neighborhood so they can charge less than the others. Maybe someone's business is just very slow, or new and they'll charge less to get a reputation or to generate new clients. It doesn't matter so much why, it matters that you are going to save cash.
Now imagine you post your job for the entire world to see! Now you have people competing in third world countries that can charge as low as $100 to do your taxes. That would be a savings of $400. Not bad! And sometimes it can be a LOT more $$$.
Again, why, how? Because the cost of living is very different from place to place. And by going global, that's a lot of places! You are leveraging people (goods and services) due to their geographic location.
That's the basic idea of freelancing. And the reasons for using freelancers to save money for you or your company are numerous and are continuing to grow. So check out some freelancing sites and see what all of the talk is about. Soon you too can be saving on all kinds of services all from the comfort of your sofa.
Bill Allen runs Freelancer's Edge, a website that helps people looking to use [
http://freelancersedge.com/]freelancing sites to save themselves or their company money. Find out how easy it is to leverage the global market place to save thousands of dollars. You can also use freelancing to make millions of dollars as well.
You can find out more on how to use an [
http://freelancersedge.com/]outsourcing site, choose good freelancers, and many other tips and reviews at Freelancer's Edge.
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http://EzineArticles.com/?Freelancing-and-Why-Use-a-Freelancer?&id=5758452] Freelancing and Why Use a Freelancer?
