Freelance Partnerships
Level up your freelance game and reach your business goals with strategic partnerships.
What does working as a team really mean? Think of a soccer team - all the players are working towards one goal - to win. But how do they win? The coach places each player in a position that plays best to their own personal strengths, you wouldn’t put a goaltender at center forward and expect a winning game - you have to put every person where their individual skills will benefit the team as a whole. It seems pretty straightforward when used in a sports setting but why is it looked at any differently when approaching business teams. As an agency we have the unique opportunity to reach out to other agencies and freelancers in order to reach our business goals and fulfill the needs of our clients. Our idea of working as a team comes together in the same way a soccer team would - we pick our “players” based on their own personal skill sets. In a bigger corporation employees may be forced to do something they may not necessarily have the skillset to do but need to complete because it way handed to them. When creating a freelance partnership you are working to each others niche’s and choosing someone to partner with based on what they're good at and more often than not what they actually enjoy doing. This results in a better overall outcome and will ultimately held you grow as a freelancer or an agency.
Giving clients a complete package of services
When we’re working with a client on a project and they ask for something outside of our internal structure we wouldn't want to turn them away because we personally don’t have the skillset to complete the tasks - instead we reach out to freelance colleagues we have worked with on projects in the past to zero in on their expertise. As a team there is only so many clients you can serve and only so many skills you can deliver. Partnering with other agencies and freelancers allows us to expand our business and give clients a more complete package of services. For example, working on our Volkswagen 360 campaign we created lifestyle content for six new VW models. In order to create this content we (the agency) came up with the ideas and brought those ideas to life by partnering with a production company as well as other freelancers for post production, sound design etc. Without partnering with other agencies and freelancers we wouldn’t bring the client the final product that they needed but instead just a portion of it. That would mean more time & effort on the clients end to figure out the rest. In the end our agencies goal is manage the whole project and eliminate any added work or stress for the client. We are able to bring a whole package to the client creating a beneficial relationship for all parties, giving those you work with the opportunity to expand their client base while adding value to your own business. This can also mean passing business on to one another after the fact - with multiple freelancers and agencies working together there will be far more opportunities for new gigs.
Additional benefits to strategic partnerships
The benefits to partnering are endless - especially in the creative fields. Working as freelancers allows the versatility to work with multiple partners, as we need by focusing in on their expertise per project. It also allows us to have more opinions and feedback on the problem at hand giving us an outside voice on how something should be done and even more creative ways to solve it - if we can bring bigger and better creative ideas to clients than they’re going to want to keep coming back to us. Another major benefit to working with outside freelancers is we have the ability to work with teams all over the world, thanks to digital we have relatively no boundaries, this allows us an even bigger roster of creative minds. Currently our post-production / SFX team are based out of India, working from the other side of the world allows the team to bring us new ideas and ways of doing the work from a completely different perspective, thus educating us in the process.
It’s no surprise that working together creates more favourable results - especially in business. Being a freelancer doesn’t mean you need to work alone but instead means that you can have the freedom to collaborate with others on your own terms and when it suits the needs of your business or the business of others. Choosing the right partner is going to give you the best results and enable you to take your business to places you never thought you could.
Have you ever been a part of a strategic partnership - how did it work for you? Leave us a note in the comments.