Outsourcing to india

[coitax]

Have any of you done this? I'm curious not just for backlinks, but writing content, small programming jobs, design work, etc.

I've just read the 4 hour work week and am very interested in outsourcing more of my jobs.

Any reviews, suggestions would be helpful.

Thanks

 

[SuperLinks]

I highly recommend the Philippines from my own personal experience. Nothing against India, but just talking from my own personal experience.

Check out sites like oDesk, which will allow you to see feedback, and monitor their work progress.

 

[GreenGoblin]

Personally, i recommend India

 

[SuperLinks]

At the end of the day, who cares where you are finding virtual assistants, just get start doing it.

Most people wait WAY too long to start outsourcing, and in the meantime wastes a ton of time on doing things that AREN'T scalable for your business.

 

[saradanes]

If you need an SEO virtual assistant who can help you solve basic SEO tasks, please PM me. I have good experience & good understanding about SEO.
Thanks,

 

[BHopkins]

Outsourcing is a great idea, but you should be really, really busy before outsourcing.

Outsourcing to scale up in my opinion doesn't work well. You need to start scaling up, then work so much that you have 140 hours a week worth of work, then outsource the stuff you dislike the most.

 

[dgaunn4114]

I would caution against thinking outsourcing as a panacea to all your problems. You need to have everything that your outsourcees do EXACTLY detailed down to the square inch. Also, many of them will suck. if you get a good one, keep him. I would even say pay him US wages or better, because one good VA will do more work than 10 bad ones. Getting one good person is worth paying a lot more... in any case, in general, do you want your company to be represented by people making $1/hour? Ideally, I think you want to be Microsoft or similar. Microsoft has (or did have) more MILLIONAIRE SECRETARIES than any other company in the world. (Maybe FB or Apple has caught up now). So figure out how you can "OVERPAY" for the BEST PEOPLE! Good luck!

Dan

 

[Union]

Have any of you done this? I'm curious not just for backlinks, but writing content, small programming jobs, design work, etc.

I've just read the 4 hour work week and am very interested in outsourcing more of my jobs.

Any reviews, suggestions would be helpful.

Thanks

Very Bad Experience with INDIAN Guys !
WRITER - they think that they are smartest people on this Planet Sent me 60+ Articles, impossible to read and understand something...
Coders - after i paid ($300 upfront and $2800 Deposited) for a project on Scriptlance, Project was for 30 days, but after 2.5 months they told me that they need another part of those $2800 to be released and a few hundred more to be added to that project... Every day they told me , come tomorrow at this time, online, and we will give you an update to your project... Never Delivered NOTHING !... after 2.5 months they sent me a FULL of BUGS SCRIPT and they told me that they Coded it... Actually they send me the script i have in my collection, but i asked them for CUSTOM PROJECT, no SCRIPTS, no stolen projects....

Ahhh, just do yourself a favor, STAY AWAY FROM THEM

The only thing i heard every day from them, was: Sir, we can everything and we will do everything...

I sent a message to Scriptlance owner, and i sent him all Our Conversation and Agreement, and this Guy Refunded all my money back... later those guys tried to sell me that script for $200 People dont understand difference from Script and Custom Project !

 

[BHopkins]

Just because you had a bad experience hiring from India doesn't mean they're all bad. There are bad workers in every country, including ours. If you've ever had a job, you probably worked with people who were lazy and did as little as possible while still collecting a check, I've worked with my fair share.

 

[txhepoker]

I have had mediocre success on freelancer. I just had one named tantanh from veitnam that was a freakin nightmare....

Based on my india experiences I have no problem hiring again. I know this is completely stereotypical and a few bad apples shouldn't spoil the bunch but it sure does leave a bad tast in your mouth...

 

[Union]

Just because you had a bad experience hiring from India doesn't mean they're all bad. There are bad workers in every country, including ours. If you've ever had a job, you probably worked with people who were lazy and did as little as possible while still collecting a check, I've worked with my fair share.

Yes, of course, i dont wanna say that Indian's are all Idiots, No!, there are people who can work and can do their job, but Believe me, I wont Try to hire them again, i dont WANT to do EXPERIMENTS on myself i lost a loooot of money because those guys last year, i didnt ask them for a stupid site, IT was a CUSTOM SIMPLE PROJECT, but they FUCKED everything...

P.S> Even Google don't want to do business with Indian no more adsense...

 

[sam.hunt0710]

Very Bad Experience with INDIAN Guys !
WRITER - they think that they are smartest people on this Planet Sent me 60+ Articles, impossible to read and understand something...
Coders - after i paid ($300 upfront and $2800 Deposited) for a project on Scriptlance, Project was for 30 days, but after 2.5 months they told me that they need another part of those $2800 to be released and a few hundred more to be added to that project... Every day they told me , come tomorrow at this time, online, and we will give you an update to your project... Never Delivered NOTHING !... after 2.5 months they sent me a FULL of BUGS SCRIPT and they told me that they Coded it... Actually they send me the script i have in my collection, but i asked them for CUSTOM PROJECT, no SCRIPTS, no stolen projects....

Ahhh, just do yourself a favor, STAY AWAY FROM THEM

The only thing i heard every day from them, was: Sir, we can everything and we will do everything...

I sent a message to Scriptlance owner, and i sent him all Our Conversation and Agreement, and this Guy Refunded all my money back... later those guys tried to sell me that script for $200 People dont understand difference from Script and Custom Project !

This is what happens when you hire cheap programmers over freelancing sites like freelancer.com and script lance.com

My advice to you is avoid these cheap sites where the cheap programmers stick around who can't even speak proper english, forget they will write proper code, instead of avoiding India lol. You can't avoid it, India is the future of 21st century with 1.2 billion people and 9% YOY growing economy.

As the old saying goes -"You get monkeys, when you pay peanuts"

Hiring a good team or programmer is a tough job, there are several ways to do it online. That's a separate topic of discussion altogether.

Good and Bad programmers are everywhere, not just in India.

Don't generalize like that, else companies like Microsoft, Sun, Facebook, IBM, Accenture, Google, Symantec wouldn't have there development centers in India

 

[silentthunder]

At the end of the day, who cares where you are finding virtual assistants, just get start doing it.

Most people wait WAY too long to start outsourcing, and in the meantime wastes a ton of time on doing things that AREN'T scalable for your business.

What this guy says. ^ ^ Let's face it. It's not about races but economics. India seems to hold the promise of cheap rates but if quality suffers it isn't cheap no matter the race. BHW is your best bet for outsourcing because they have the most realistic merit system. For instance, 9 ratings of 100% don't mean squat on Digital Point as I discovered years ago. Even Elance's ratings aren't as trustworthy as "this guy is The Guy" from BHW Mods and Members.

 

[Union]

This is what happens when you hire cheap programmers over freelancing sites like freelancer.com and script lance.com

My advice to you is avoid these cheap sites where the cheap programmers stick around who can't even speak proper english, forget they will write proper code, instead of avoiding India lol. You can't avoid it, India is the future of 21st century with 1.2 billion people and 9% YOY growing economy.

As the old saying goes -"You get monkeys, when you pay peanuts"

Hiring a good team or programmer is a tough job, there are several ways to do it online. That's a separate topic of discussion altogether.

Good and Bad programmers are everywhere, not just in India.

Don't generalize like that, else companies like Microsoft, Sun, Facebook, IBM, Accenture, Google, Symantec wouldn't have there development centers in India

It was a joke about Google

But about the PRICE of the Project... Honestly, i choose those guys because of their HIGH PRICE YES, EXACTLY ! i've got more than 20 Bids from $300 to $3500 ... the guys i choose, their Bid was one of the Highest, So you are wrong here, telling me what i need to pay and how to choose

 

[teflonbrain]

There's a lot of good advice here, and some truer than others. The book you read got a lot of buzz, but IMHO, it's not practical. You will not save time outsourcing for two big reasons I found from experience--you spend a lot of time writing a specific job description, sorting through a flood of candidates who try to give the impression they can do your task in their sleep when nothing in their work experience files even resembles what you're asking, and then communicating with a few finalists before making your final decision. In the meantime, all of your work is piling up. Then, even after you decide, you have to manage them. I did not save any time hiring people to do the work I was doing, managing them, evaluating their work, and then marking it up for corrections, and then managing them all over again.

If you feel like you really have to try outsourcing to see for yourself, then I suggest a couple of things:
1) buy a WSO or a guide on outsourcing, read it, and do what they suggest. No need to reinvent how to outsource when someone else has already traveled down that road and made mistakes. Learn from them. If you can't afford a WSO or ebook on outsourcing, then you shouldn't be outsourcing in the first place.

2) Require candidates to put a secret phrase in the first line of their response (it could be something simple like "I like Oreos") to weed out all of the form letters you will get. Not having that phrase shows they never read your job description in the first place, and can't follow directions.

3) If you go to oDesk or Freelancer.com, you will get a lot of agencies that apply for the job. I've found agencies require less hand holding and return jobs on spec more often than individuals. I've had exceptions to that, but I usually go with an agency after I've asked them a lot of questions about who will be performing the job or how they will manage the person(s) doing the job.

With all that said, I woke one day and realized I was working just as hard managing, evaluating, correcting, and re-evaluating three employees as I was before I started paying them, so I scaled back. But you may have to experience it before you believe it. IMHO, it just doesn't work out like they present it in books like the one you read.

Nevertheless, good luck in your business. I wish you success.

 

[Digital Marketer]

This is what happens when you hire cheap programmers over freelancing sites like freelancer.com and script lance.com

My advice to you is avoid these cheap sites where the cheap programmers stick around who can't even speak proper english, forget they will write proper code, instead of avoiding India lol. You can't avoid it, India is the future of 21st century with 1.2 billion people and 9% YOY growing economy.

As the old saying goes -"You get monkeys, when you pay peanuts"

Hiring a good team or programmer is a tough job, there are several ways to do it online. That's a separate topic of discussion altogether.

Good and Bad programmers are everywhere, not just in India.

Don't generalize like that, else companies like Microsoft, Sun, Facebook, IBM, Accenture, Google, Symantec wouldn't have there development centers in India

You are absolutely right indianbill007
I do completely aggree with you
I was about to post comment but you did it before me...

 

[sam.hunt0710]

It was a joke about Google

But about the PRICE of the Project... Honestly, i choose those guys because of their HIGH PRICE YES, EXACTLY ! i've got more than 20 Bids from $300 to $3500 ... the guys i choose, their Bid was one of the Highest, So you are wrong here, telling me what i need to pay and how to choose

Then I will call you a fool since you had $3500 to pay and still choose the wrong guy. You need to better learn how to outsource stuff since $3500 is not a small amount.

 

[nightrider]

For simple graphic jobs you guys can try natasha92_gigs at fiverr. Seller is pretty good at what she does.

 

[arpitagarwal82]

I am an Indian and I can say that Indians are hard working and intelligent.
But again you cannot generalize the things based on geo locations.

All I can advice is to go with established service providers. You will find many indians on BHW and various forums (and freelancing sites) with established reputation and work ethics. Give them a try. No need to experiment with newbies.

You will get a full value of your money invested in right Indians

 

[peerless2acme]

Very Bad Experience with INDIAN Guys !
WRITER - they think that they are smartest people on this Planet Sent me 60+ Articles, impossible to read and understand something...
Coders - after i paid ($300 upfront and $2800 Deposited) for a project on Scriptlance, Project was for 30 days, but after 2.5 months they told me that they need another part of those $2800 to be released and a few hundred more to be added to that project... Every day they told me , come tomorrow at this time, online, and we will give you an update to your project... Never Delivered NOTHING !... after 2.5 months they sent me a FULL of BUGS SCRIPT and they told me that they Coded it... Actually they send me the script i have in my collection, but i asked them for CUSTOM PROJECT, no SCRIPTS, no stolen projects....

Ahhh, just do yourself a favor, STAY AWAY FROM THEM

The only thing i heard every day from them, was: Sir, we can everything and we will do everything...

I sent a message to Scriptlance owner, and i sent him all Our Conversation and Agreement, and this Guy Refunded all my money back... later those guys tried to sell me that script for $200 People dont understand difference from Script and Custom Project !

My dear friend, Just because you had one bad experience doesn't mean you will brand the entire Indian population is crap and not worth outsourcing. I am not sure whether you are aware or not but a majority of content writing and many other tasks is being regularly outsourced to India. Directly or indirectly. I agree, there are many idiots in India who are always eying to cheat potential clients. They don't deserve to be in the IM industry. If you keep aside these idiots who are worth nothing, then you will come across a vast number of hard working population working at dirt cheat rates and trying their best to match the standards of native English speakers. Please don't make perceptions based on isolated cases. This is not a rant or insult to someone, it's just a request.

My personal viewpoint is that you need to outsource only when you are having abundance of work and it is beyond your handling capacity. Once you reach this situation, slowly but steadily start outsourcing and understand the technicalities of outsourcing. And please take a note my friend, outsourcing doesn't mean you can start holidaying. Your initial days would leave you with some harrowing experiences and at times it would give you sleepless nights but if you are good at finding out gems, then you can churn out tons of money. Outsourcing your work in Philippines and India would be ideal because workers of both these countries are reasonable and hard working. You need to always keep trying because you can always get diamonds in the coalmine. Keep trying until you hit the gem. As per me, finding freelancers for any given work is a trial and error process. Enough for this post, hope I'd present my views without digressing from the core point of this thread.