Outsourcing Do's and Don'ts

[Whatthe?]

Ok... I'm looking down the road on this, but it is still in the back of my mind. Outsourcing...

Now I don't have a clue on where to start, hence, where do I start? I have so many questions.

I'm not too worried about where to find them, it's all the other questions that I don't have answers to. How much to pay for what duties, how to do you pay (paypal?), if I was to pay hourly, how will I know I'm not getting shafted? How do you manage them if you get to the point of a full 'staff'?

So I ask you fellow BHWers, post what you have learned. Any good courses/sites/doc's to read?

Open for comments and options.

 

[Monrox]

Never pay by the hour, Find a 'foreman' from the same country and let him do the recruiting. Pay him a bonus if you are very happy with the result. Never pay in advance. It's not medical doctors or astronauts you'll be recruiting so it is you who makes the rules. But prepare to invest time in finding someone with good work ethics and not virtually clueless.

Don't have much time right now but this is what works best usually.

 

[bigpurpleguy]

Do not expect these people to think for themselves in any way.

You must tell them what to do, exactly, and then you must tell them again.

Do not assume any knowledge- even the simplest things.

This is not because they are stupid, but because they are culturally different from you. You are the boss, they will show you respect, but don't expect any independent thinking or out-of-the-box solutions.

 

[Whatthe?]

Thanks for the reply Monrox, good point about using someone as a recruiter type.

Now I wouldn't be paying advance, but about pay per 'tasks' like linkbuilding, as I am thinking they won't have the tools to do any on auto so it would be all manual, how do you figure what is a win-win for both. Like pay 'X' amount for 100(?) backlinks. I'm just trying to get a means of being able to measure from.

I'm so used to my trade (construction) that I know how long and what materials it takes to do most jobs by labor units. And this is my thinking process on this as well.

 

[marikoe]

Get John reese outsourcing force its free on the net.

 

[Whatthe?]

Get John reese outsourcing force its free on the net.

Thanks... I'll start looking for it. Is there any others out there that are good?

 

[AGSniper]

Yeah as someone else has posted. NEVER assume that they can figure things out for themselves. You have to clarify EVERYTHING when giving instructions.

Paying wise, you will be shocked at how little they will be willing to work for, but don't go ridiculously low.

I would use Freelancer.com and make sure you have some filter to weed the better one out from.

Never pay in advance, and make sure they understand the conditions fully.

Pick someone who has excellent communication, and you can tell how committed they are by the messages they send you for being hired. These are some basic guidelines to follow when you outsource people.

If you want more tips, feel free to PM me. I just briefly typed up a few.

 

[MrSmith]

Never get design outsourced unless your wallet is really tight!

Outsourcing should only stay to a minimum.

 

[Whatthe?]

ok... going to kick this thread up again as I a have a new question and could use some input.

Going to be heading out to the different outsourcing sites for some content writers. Now I would like to have some type of dead line, but I would just like to get some replies as to how long should a 'average' 400-500 unique article take to write. 20 minutes?

How much do you any of you guys take on average for writing such content. I suck at writing and it takes me forever.

Also, how much time would it take some one to manually do some blog backlinking (just the actual postings, if they had the urls, so no searching needed), say per 100 posts? Just on average so I have some type of measuring unit.

 

[neilbradydom]

Where is the best place to outsource? Odesk, Fiverr?

 

[portalweb]

Try vworker

 

[alba56]

Plan it all out no matter how easy you may think it is plan it out.

Ask yourself this question is there any way I can get shafted, by this I mean anyway they can get you to think the work is done and take the money because they are very good at that. If Articles you must Netscape, they will copy from anywhere including your own sites.

If you can hire someone full time, the Phillipines have people who can do SENUKE etc and will do Article writing and posting for $250 to $400 a month.

If your plan gives you enough consistent work this is the way to go.

Beware the phrase, I want to be your long term partner, that just means as long as I dont get caught.

 

[thisismymp3]

When outsourcing dont put the clients url on the web or i will take it and call them

 

[len2503]

I've tried a number of different outsourcing outfits but I come
back to Odesk.

Some things I make fixed price usually design work. In design
work always check their portfolio of past work to see whether you
like their stuff. I usually go for eastern europeans as their work is better.

For admin stuff like research and posting stuff, I go for
phillipinos and never more than $5 an hour - usually 3.50.

It always ends up more than you think.

If anything goes wrong it is ALWAYS your fault .
You need to speciy STEP-BY-STEP-BY-STEP and so its useful
to have instructions that you can use over and over. Never miss out a
single step.

It might also be useful to do it yourself first and shoot a camtasia
video or something.

Hope thats useful.

Outsource Force is good and also the whole years documents from
Jimmy Brown.

Enjoy

 

[Ramsweb]

Do not expect these people to think for themselves in any way.

You must tell them what to do, exactly, and then you must tell them again.

Do not assume any knowledge- even the simplest things.

This is not because they are stupid, but because they are culturally different from you. You are the boss, they will show you respect, but don't expect any independent thinking or out-of-the-box solutions.

I beg to differ on this. People outsource their articles to me and I come up with my own ideas to suit their business agenda. Many have appreciated me for this. I don't think you can make such a generalized statement. It might be true with low cost providers who sort of learn along the way although established providers from other countries will definitely try to use diligence in their work. If you think that every single instruction needs to be provided in excruciating detail, you might as well do the work yourself as writing instructions that can be followed without an original thought process will be a very difficult task to accomplish. It will probably take you ages.

 

[macdonjo3]

Pay per contract. Interview for a few days before deciding. Talk to all freelancers on Skype. If they don't have Skype, tell them to make one. If they don't make one, that says there are stubborn and you can filter them out.

Use slightly complex language when interviewing and examine there ability to speak English and communication skills.

Do not rush it. I usually post 1 ad on Freelancer.com and get 20-30 freelancers that apply. I get 1-3 out of those.

Examine there TAT for your emails and the time they are on Skype, etc.

Good luck.

 

[MoreMoneyMoreProblem]

I have found my best results come from non internet savvy people... as long as the project is simple enough for you to teach them to do it and repeat the process then post in your local paper for people looking to earn per job with on-site training. Make the trip to meet the people / do your interview / then show them exactly what they need to do and pay them at the end of each week and keep track of the jobs.

The key with this is that since they are not internet savvy knowing how to do their own research to make money then they will not know where the work is coming from and there for not search for their own money making opportunities... they usually are happy with the pay per job part also and weekly pay.

Also if you want your work on time / cheaper give the people a deadline to have work completed (before actual due date) and if they have not completed the work by the date needed tell them you will deduct $5 or so from the job per day that its late.

 

[Whatthe?]

I've tried a number of different outsourcing outfits but I come
back to Odesk.

Some things I make fixed price usually design work. In design
work always check their portfolio of past work to see whether you
like their stuff. I usually go for eastern europeans as their work is better.

For admin stuff like research and posting stuff, I go for
phillipinos and never more than $5 an hour - usually 3.50.

It always ends up more than you think.

If anything goes wrong it is ALWAYS your fault .
You need to speciy STEP-BY-STEP-BY-STEP and so its useful
to have instructions that you can use over and over. Never miss out a
single step.

It might also be useful to do it yourself first and shoot a camtasia
video or something.

Hope thats useful.

Outsource Force is good and also the whole years documents from
Jimmy Brown.

Enjoy

Great post len2503, I had planned on doing video ALL the tasks that I plan on having 1st timers. I will have an area where they will have a 'training center' so they will be able to vew videos on the tasks... step by step by step. I will be looking for one (and more) that can do this. I have nuke and scrape, but would just like to know about how long it 'may' take, on 'average' to post 100 blog post. And I'm not talking about they even have to THINK of what to post, as I will have that all taken care of for them as well. Looks like I'm just going to have to do about 500 wp posts and pull an average so I will KNOW how long it takes... I like to work with labor units

I've done the Outsource Force... some good items in there. But will have to look for Jimmy Brown, have any links about it.