Nowadays, there are plenty of freelancers around the web offering all kinds of services you can imagine. As a freelancer yourself, the question rises, which category of freelancing do I fall into?

Oh, but wait…

What kind of freelancers are there? From working with numerous freelancers, I find there are two categories it all boils down to.

1. Specialized Freelancers – Individuals in this category are highly specialized in one field of web development. This is usually in graphic design, a coding language, domaining, search engine optimization, or internet marketing.

2. Know-it-All Freelancers – These folks know just about everything you need and can create a website from start-to-finish all by themselves (or so they say).

The question I recently came across, is am I a generalist or specialist? This, I believe is a very important focal point in every freelancers ‘career’ and it is important to know which path you wish to take.

Let’s examine the advantages and disadvantages of each category.

Freelance Generalists

Advantages

• These guys can usually solve all of your web development problems quickly. They hold a large databank of knowledge of the entire development process and visualize the entire process from a birds-eye view.
• The end product may turn out better since the individual knows what they want the results to be and take only the necessary steps to achieve that goal. In essence, these people are very results-driven.

Disadvantages

• Do not know everything like they think. While they do know a little about a lot, the majority does not know everything at the level a specialized freelancer would.
• Development process takes a long time. Doing an entire website development project, for example, may be fairly time-consuming and even stressful at times. Breaking up the work between several specialized developers would be a much better approach.
• The end product may not turn out as excellent as a client would expect. This is due to the fact that an individual who works with all aspects of the development process tends to lose that creativity flow and some things become overlooked along the way.

Freelance Specialists

Advantages

• Highly specialized in one (or several) key areas. The folks I’m talking about are graphic designers, hardcore coders, internet marketers, and SEO guru’s. These guys and gals know their thing inside-out and their work is not disappointing.
• Their creative juice does not stop! They work hard and fast and know what they’re doing. I particularly enjoy working with designers who have absolutely no end to their creativity.

Disadvantages

• Do not always see ‘the big picture’. A naturally talented designer loves to design. It’s their thing. But sometimes you can over-do your job and add too many unnecessary elements to your design, that it becomes a hassle to code and does not serve any particular purpose to the user.
• Are limited to only what they can do. If you’ve got talent, sooner or later you’ll come across a client who will want more than what you can do. Knowing design is great, but knowing how to slice up a design and turn it into some structured XHTML is even better.

Final Thoughts

• There is no right way of being a ‘freelancer’. The only right way to success is being unique and consistent.
• To be most efficient and productive in the development process is to have one or two freelance generalists who see the big pictures, and a group of specialists who can develop flawless work. This structure will lead to a very successful and results-driven development firm.
• Personally, I found it inevitable to  be specialized in design only. I could never find a good enough PHP coder and while I have not had any formal training in coding, little by little I began to understand systems, databases, marketing, and so forth. I cannot say I am specialized in any of those areas because I am not, but the knowledge I gained from learning the core aspects of the entire development process has enabled me to know how to work with specialists in those areas and direct them effectively and explain the job in a language they understand.

I would really appreciate some input on this. This is something I have seen through my personal career and would like to know if others have gone through the same phase in their life.

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