In the Globe and Mail, there is a recurring feature where an entrepreneur states a business problem that they are having and three experts provide a point of view.

In yesterday’s G&M, the business issue concerns a one man operation that is bursting at the seams and the owner/operator is asking, should he hire an employee or take on a business partner. An important factoid in this story is that he already tried to work with freelancers but with no success. See the full article and expert opinions here.

I’m an owner/operator too so I thought, what would I suggest he do? Employ someone or take on a partner? Answer: Neither.

He needs to go back to freelance option.

• Its the most prudent financial choice. No regular payroll to make or ownership forfeited.
• It provides maximum flexibility though peaks and valleys. Source freelancers only when you need them.
• Niche providers. Identify freelancers with specialties, broadening your menu of services to clients.
• Local or abroad. By using services like Elance.com, you can source freelancers anywhere in the world. Plus you get suppliers competing for your business.

I’m not suggesting that doing any of the above suggestions is going to be easy or not time consuming. But taking on an employee or new partner will also take effort and time.

Next step for this fellow: He needs to REALLY carefully evaluate how he went about sourcing and managing the “failed” freelancers and figure out what didn’t work.  Give this option another try before going down a path that curtails his flexibility as the business owner.

Thanks for reading my blog and please visit again.

Vincent out

Tags: employees, Strategy

This entry was posted on Thursday, October 27th, 2011 at 7:45 am and is filed under Business Practices, Entrepreneurs, Management, Small Business, Small Business Case Studies, Strategy. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.