How Can You Build Loyalty Among Your Freelancers?

In the communications industry (though not exclusively), it’s fairly common to work with independent partners (aka freelancers).

Some companies own up to it, others don’t, but that’s not the point here.

The real challenge for all of us is the same: how do we stay in touch with and retain the freelancers we love working with? The ones who help us win competitions and who are so nice that we invite them to our Christmas dinner every year. In short, the ones who are (almost) part of the office “family.”

Because let’s be realistic—the annual petits fours and champagne party isn’t necessarily enough to turn Pedro-the-Free into our “secure” partner.

And from his perspective, it’s the same thing: how can he be sure that we won’t be unfaithful to him (or at least not very often)?

That’s where a tool like Furious comes in.

Catalog, centralize, and share

First of all, a good freebie is like a great sale deal: you share it sparingly, either because you’re afraid it won’t be available anymore when you need it, or because it’s become so obvious to you that you don’t even think to mention it anymore—except when Alice goes around the office handing out cookies as a perk…

But within the same company, it’s still better to share information, especially when it helps improve the quality of the work we deliver.

It’s also interesting that, given the wide variety of partner profiles, anyone can identify and contact THE rare gem in 3D animation (for example) without having to go around to everyone’s offices (especially since not all of us are there right now) or without spamming everyone with email or Slack requests.

When we were developing Furious, we felt it was essential to be able to clearly categorize and tag the independent partners our clients work with based on their skills.

All contact information, daily rates, portfolios, previous projects, and more are thus available to all teams, who can—with just two clicks—identify the most suitable freelancer for the project without having to bother everyone.

Then, all that’s left to do is add it to the schedule.

Fully integrate

Some freelancers—as we mentioned in the introduction—are sometimes so well integrated that it’s hard to imagine doing without them. And although they value their independence for one reason or another, they, too, appreciate a certain “security” in their projects that comes from an agency’s loyalty.

In fact, we have several clients who rely in part on long-term freelancers for certain aspects of their operations (sometimes even an entire area of expertise).

It is therefore clear that these partners, just like other employees, must be fully integrated into the management tools, particularly to streamline communication and optimize human resources. With Furious, they can access schedules and tasks independently, thereby fostering more effective collaboration and better project organization.

As a basic option, Furious allows you to grant external partners access to the schedule and TODO ticket views at no additional cost.

Furthermore, as part of a more comprehensive approach, it may be worthwhile to offer these VIPs (Very Indispensable Partners) the option to cover the cost of their Furious license themselves. Thus, for a fee ranging from 200 to 250 euros per year—while maintaining their independence—a freelancer establishes a privileged partnership with their client by becoming an autonomous operational resource through Furious.

This saves project managers from having to act as go-betweens between the planning and project teams, simplifies the sharing of creative resources, and strengthens the relationship between the partner and the agency.

An interesting win-win situation that some of our clients and their freelancers have really understood!

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