New research into 43,000 users of PeoplePerHour.com reveals how freelance sales staff have helped UK small businesses cut costs and ramp-up sales to survive recession.
PeoplePerHour.com • the UK’s marketplace for small business services • today revealed the first findings from the survey of its top 316 small business users and data from its 43,000-strong user base
PeoplePerHour.com’s report • entitled The emergence of a remote, home-based salesforce, and published for the first time today • shows how demand for sales-related freelancers outstrips every other business service by over 150%. Since January 2008, sales have accounted for a staggering 25 percent of 12,000+ project listings on PeoplePerHour.com, despite being one of over 30 skills categories on the site.
The growth in demand for remote freelance sales staff has been fuelled by the recession, which has forced small business owners focus on cost-cutting but equally on ramping up their sales in as cost-effective and scalable way as possible. The average survey respondent reported annual saving of £24.5k on a turnover of £314k.
For example, Donny MacDonald • founding partner of new classified site Digital Directory • discovered that PeoplePerHour.com was the ideal solution for sourcing freelance sales staff. "We only wanted to hire professional sales staff that would be working from home," he says. "We found that through PPH we were able to access a lot of high quality people with a surprisingly small budget."
PeoplePerHour.com calculate that increased demand has led to more than 750,000 sales agents operating in a freelance capacity in the UK. 75 percent of survey respondents said they will continue using freelancers after economic recovery, which suggests the trend reflects a long-term structural change in the labour market.
PeoplePerHour.com founder Xenios Thrasyvoulou believes increasing numbers of small businesses will choose a flexible freelance sales force instead of costly in-house staff.
"What we are seeing may have been accelerated by the recession but it’s a more deep-rooted change in the way companies operate that is here to stay," he says. "Tapping into the now ample and readily-available freelance sales force just makes sense from a cost, flexibility and scalability perspective. Through PeoplePerHour.com you can now build a large network of sales agents across the country, quickly • something that in the brick-and-mortar world would take a lot of time and capital. Furthermore, risk is minimal as you’re paying for results."
Click here to download the report in full ».
For further information, photos, interviews and case studies, please contact:
Sami McCabe
t: +44 (0) 20 3393 8277
m: +44 (0) 7789 777 440
e: sami@ubiquitycomms.com
PeoplePerHour.com Background Information
PeoplePerHour.com has led the UK’s online working trend, connecting businesses with skilled individuals to get work done remotely.
The site serves the UK’s small business sector and has over 43,000 registered users growing at 15% per month, of whom 70% are micro-businesses (five or less employees) and 20% are between five and 20 employees.
The company started in 2007 and has been grown consistently, unabated by the recession. This growth has been fuelled by companies’ need to drive down costs and find more innovative, cost-effective and flexible ways of getting jobs done.
Main service categories on the site are IT& Web, Graphic Design, Telesales, Marketing and PR, Copywriting and Translation services.
$
£ GBP
€ EUR