How to Outsource Anything to Anyone
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Table Of Contents
Chapter 1:
Why Outsource?
Chapter 2:
What Kinds of
Jobs Must Be Outsourced?
Chapter 3:
Finding
Professionals to Outsource Your Work to
Chapter 4:
Getting
Professionals from Online Jobsites
Chapter 5:
Selecting the
Right Person
Chapter 6:
Outsourcing and
the Money Equation – Deciding How Much to Pay and How
Chapter 7:
Outsourcing
Milestones and Escrows
Chapter 8:
The Three Rs
that Keep the Outsourcing Tide Flowing – Ratings, Reviews and Relationships
Chapter 9:
Getting Your Job
Done
Chapter 10:
Taking Outsourcing to the Next Level – An Important Step in Online Business Evolution
Introduction
With the amazing popularity that home businesses have achieved in current
times, the concept of outsourcing also has become immensely popular. People who
want to take their home businesses in a new direction rely on outsourcing to
get capable people to team with.
At the same time, even large scale corporations are outsourcing major
areas of their work to global professionals.
If there weren’t some very considerable benefits involved, outsourcing
wouldn’t have become as popular as it is today.
This eBook is about how you can outsource your business as well and
enhance its productivity several times over.
Summary
Let us begin by taking a look at why you must outsource your business.
Why Outsource?
Outsourcing
wasn’t much in vogue until a few years back. In fact, people even thought it
quite embarrassing to tell someone that they were outsourcing their work. The
general impression was that they weren’t up to the task and the unspoken belief
was that outsourced work would always be of an inferior quality.
But
times have changed. Today, not only has outsourcing become very popular but it
has also practically become the norm for businesses. With the grand popularity
that home businesses have achieved, the popularity of outsourcing has reached
its zenith as well. For, how could a single person working from home carry out all
tasks related to a business without depending on a freelancing professional
whom they can outsource their work to?
Here
are the top reasons why you must consider outsourcing your business:-
®
You can take up more work
from a better range of clients because you have an army of people working with
you.
®
You can get diversity in
your team. When you find different outsourcing professionals, you find that
these people are of different qualifications and skill-sets, which means you
can even take up work which you were initially avoiding because of your own
limitations.
®
You cannot handle all the
tasks related with a business alone. There will be several things you are not
very conversant with and things that you don’t like doing. If that is the case,
you might find outsourcing to be a great option to accomplish these tasks
adequately.
®
Outsourcing definitely
helps you meet deadlines better.
®
For some people,
outsourcing is also a means of reducing costs. If a particular service is
expensive in your part of the world, you could find a professional from another
part of the world where that particular service is cheaper. A lot of people
outsource work from the developed countries to the developing countries where
the economic equation helps them reap better savings and stay within tighter
budgets.
Most
importantly, when you work from home, you might find yourself to be quite
lonely, especially when you have to take important decisions. However, when you
have intelligent professionals in your team, you do find this task easier.
Summary
So, what can you outsource?
What Kinds of Jobs Can
Be Outsourced?
Any business – whether it is a home business or a large
corporate venture – entails a lot of things. With a large business, it is quite
easy to see that there are a lot of things involved, but even with home
businesses there are various processes, such as the planning aspect, the
finding work aspect, the execution of the tasks aspect, the communication
aspect, the payment handling and accounting aspect and the further investment
aspect. If you are planning to be a home business entrepreneur, you can see
that there are various things for you to do. So, which of these can you
outsource?
Now, with the Internet making the whole world such a
closely-knit domain, you can find professionals to handle all kinds of tasks.
They will even plan a whole business venture for you if you have the funds.
However, at least initially, you will be on a budget and would like to
outsource only things that you really cannot do.
The best idea, then, is to outsource some of the execution
aspect of your business. Like, if your home business is about handling content
writing jobs, you could outsource the actual writing part. However, the things
that are integral for keeping your business going such as planning, obtaining
work, communicating with clients, payment handling, etc. should be done by
yourself. A lot of people obtain work for higher sums of money and pay a flat
rate to writers whom they outsource the work to, keeping the difference as their
earnings.
It really helps when you outsource the execution part of
your work because of various reasons.
®
The execution part is
always the most laborious task. If you are running a website design and
development company, the actual designing of the website is the most difficult
thing. If this aspect were outsourced, you could focus on getting more clients,
while at the same time you are getting the jobs done as well.
®
Also, you can control the
execution part better. When some content is written by your employee, you could
check its quality and send it back for proofreading or editing if required.
When someone designs a logo for your client, you could review it and suggest
changes. You can thus supervise these things overall.
When your business grows, you will find that you need to
outsource many more things. You might need someone for data entry just to
maintain the records of your business. You might need someone just to
communicate with your various clients and keep them updated with what’s
happening. You might need someone to handle the bidding or other routes in
which you obtain work. You might even need a virtual manager to handle all
these aspects of your business at once.
Know that it is possible to find outsourcing professionals
for all your needs, from telemarketing to the complete management of your
business. The main thing is in knowing when to use these professionals.
Summary
How do you find people to get recruited in your online army of
professionals?
Finding Professionals
to Outsource Your Work to
Here are a few tips on finding professionals to whom you
can outsource your work requirements.
Online Jobsites
The best place to get outsourcing professionals is the
online jobsites. The following is a list of 10 of the best of these sites.
GetAFreelancer (http://www.getafreelancer.com/)
ScriptLance (http://www.scriptlance.com/)
EUFreelance (http://www.eufreelance.com/)
eLance (http://www.elance.com/)
Guru (http://www.guru.com/)
RentACoder (http://www.rentacoder.com/)
PeoplePerHour (http://www.peopleperhour.com/)
LimeExchange (http://www.limeexchange.com/)
oDesk (http://www.odesk.com/)
GetACoder (http://www.getacoder.com/)
You will find various categories here. These are job
categories. When you have a particular work requirement, all you do is post
your project in the relevant job category and people who are interested in
accomplishing the task for you will make their bids on it. The concept is quite
simple, and because only people who are genuinely looking for work can be found
on these sites, you can be sure that you will get your work done.
Forums
There are several forums on the Internet where people put
up their work requirements and other people take them up. There is a bidding
game involved here as well, but it is not as rampant as on the freelance
jobsites. Projects need to be posted as individual threads and interested people
make their bids on them. You can also invite particular people to work on your
project.
Digital Point Forums (http://forum.digitalpoint.com/) is
the best forum where you can find people to handle your jobs for you.
Social Networking Websites
All social networking websites can be looked upon as a
potential source to get professionals to handle various tasks. There are groups
for freelance professionals on the popular sites. You could become a part of
these groups and post your projects.
The following are 3 of the most popular social networking
sites where you can find professionals to work for you:-
MySpace (http://www.myspace.com/)
Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/)
Twitter (http://www.twitter.com/)
The only problem with social networking sites is that it is
not necessary that these people are looking for work because that is not the
primary focus on these sites. Also, there are no systems in place to protect
two individuals who work with each other, like you find escrow systems on
freelance jobsites.
Summary
Online jobsites are the best places to get your outsourcing professionals.
Here are some more details on how they work.
Getting Professionals
from Online Jobsites
Since the online jobsites are the
best places for you to get professionals, let us look at them in a little more
detail.
Here are some of the advantages
of getting professionals from here:-
®
People you will find on the
jobsites have registered here with the express intention of finding work. Many
jobsites are free to join, but some require paid memberships. Being a paid
member may reflect a bit more on their sincerity about being professional.
Hence, you can be sure you get some sincere people to give your work to.
®
There are various ways in
which you can find how good a particular worker is. Every jobsite has a rating
and review system (for the employee as well as the employer). This helps you
decide.
®
All websites have an escrow
system. This takes care of all disputes. Once an escrow is made, the website
will arbitrate any problems that arise.
®
You can make detailed
project posts, outlining clearly what you want to be done, what time and budget
you can afford. People make bids accordingly, so you can be sure you won’t have
to bargain.
®
You can ask people to show
samples of their past work.
®
You can also invite people
to bid on your project.
It is very simple to post projects
on online jobsites. Many of them, like GetAFreelancer, allow you to post
projects for free (though they do take a $5 refundable deposit for each project
you post). You only have to post all details of the work as you want it, spell
out the timeframe and the budget you can offer and post it in the relevant
category.
Once your project is live, which
is instantaneous, people start bidding. Then, all you have to do is to look at
the bids closely and make your decision on whom to select for your job.
You cannot communicate personally
with the bidders till you select them. However, there is a private message
board that helps you communicate with them, subject to certain restrictions
(like you cannot give out your personal contact details in any way). This helps
you decide better about whom to select.
Many people are forging fruitful
and long-term work relationships through these online freelance jobsites,
irrespective of geographical barriers, and getting mutually benefited. Without
the hassle of actually needing employers on their premises, they are able to
get their work done professionally and, in most cases, in cheaper ways as well.
Summary
So, how do you go about deciding who the right person to handle your
job is?
Selecting the Right
Person
When you select your outsourcing
professional from a freelance jobsite like GetAFreelancer or ScriptLance or
oDesk, there are several ways in which you can make sure you are selecting the
right person.
Firstly, you have to ensure that
you make all the project details quite clear. Write about everything you
expect. These are the things your project post should cover.
®
The nature of your work
®
The amount of work in total
®
Any milestones, like if you
want the work to be completed in small chunks and within what frame of time
®
The time you can give for
the completion of the whole project
®
The price you are willing
to pay
®
Any special qualifications
you are looking for in your employees
®
Any characteristics that
you don’t want in your employees
®
Special points that you
will need to make your decision, such as samples.
Most importantly, make sure that
you post the project in the right category. People will get alerts only based
on the categories they have applied for. So, if you put your project in the
wrong category, the right people aren’t going to get it.
When you take care to spell out
as many details as you can, you can be almost sure that you will get the right
people bidding on your work. You may get few bids, but they will be quality
bids.
Make sure to check out all the
samples of their work, because this is your most important judging point. If
you want an original sample, you can mention that in your project post itself
and people who are willing to give you an original sample of their work will do
so.
In any case, it is a good idea to
only post a short-term project initially till you build a trust factor with an
employee. Once that is set up, you can go for longer term projects.
Choose people for the following
qualifications:-
®
The quality of their work,
which you can see through their samples.
®
The ratings and reviews
they have obtained on the site.
®
Their responsiveness – It
is very important they respond to your emails quickly and it is best if they
have an instant messaging id that they can use.
®
Their pricing – Price
shouldn’t be an important factor unless you are working on a budget.
Once you get a good professional,
make sure you pay them promptly and give them a review according to their work.
This ensures they will stay with you long and you won’t have to undergo the
hassle of looking for employees repeatedly.
Summary
Money talk.
Outsourcing and the
Money Equation – Deciding How Much to Pay and How
In any business association,
money is of paramount importance because that is why business exists in the first
place. So, it is extremely important that you have the money equation set
right.
The beauty of looking for
outsourcing professionals on the Internet is that you can benefit from a very
wide range of budgets. Since it is people who are going to bid on your
projects, you can select them according to what you can pay. You initially set
a ballpark figure of what you can pay and most people will bid within this
range.
Whatever your budget is, you are
able to find good professionals to work for you within that range. Remember
that you are looking at the global marketplace here, and people in other
countries may work for much lesser or much higher than what they do for in your
local area.
Different jobs have different
money equations. It is quite all right if you bid a low budget project
initially just to get the feel of the professional’s work. You can tell them
that you will review payments after you have seen their work. This works well
and it also keeps the professional motivated because of the better payments
that are poised to come their way.
When you are posting your project
on a jobsite, do take some time to check out similar projects that are posted
by other people. This will give you a good idea of what you should pay. But,
more importantly, you must keep your own budget in focus when posting the
project.
Escrows
Escrows help the employer as well
as the employed in an outsourcing equation. We shall learn more about escrows
in the next chapter.
Online Banks
PayPal (http://www.paypal.com/) is the most popular online bank used by freelance outsourcers. It is followed (though not closely) by Moneybookers (http://www.moneybookers.com/). If you are going to outsource a lot, it is also a good idea to have a Payoneer debit card (http://www.payoneer.com/) since it is affiliated with most of the freelance jobsites including GetAFreelancer, ScriptLance and oDesk. Releasing money from these sites to this debit card does not attract any fees either
Summary
Milestones and escrows help in building mutual trust factors. Use them
well.
Outsourcing Milestones
and Escrows
If you want to get the best
people working for you, you simply cannot ignore milestones and escrows.
Milestones are especially important when you are working on huge projects and
want people to give you their deliverables in smaller installments so that you
could manage work at your end as well. And we have already seen how escrows are
important.
Some websites, like eLance in
particular, help you to state the form in which you want your deliverables. You
could actually set up milestones for the whole project. Among other benefits,
this ensures that your employee can manage the deadline in a much better
manner. You can also keep tabs on things better.
It is ideal anyway to post only
short-term projects at the start, until you have a rapport set up with the
worker. Even though everything might seem all right to you in the bid, there
are chances that something might go wrong when the actual project is underway.
If you have a long project running, it could be cumbersome to bail out of these
difficult situations. However, a short-term project can help.
On GetAFreelancer, the shortest
project you can post should be worth $30. However, on most other sites, there
is no minimum limit for the project you post.
The best way to make the payment
is through an escrow system. Most jobsites work with escrows (which is actually
the main reason why you should use these freelance jobsites because an escrow
protects both parties). When you select a bidder, you deposit some money into
an escrow account. This money is held by the website but not released to the
bidder yet. When they accomplish the task, you can direct the website to
release the funds to them.
Escrow helps you because in case
there is any problem with the project later on and you don’t feel like you
should pay, you could ask the website to arbitrate. No freelance website will arbitrate
if an escrow wasn’t made. Also, the worker knows that you have money for the
project and it motivates them to do a better job.
Summary
For long term outsourcing commitments, you need to stretch yourself a
little more than the ordinary.
The Three Rs that Keep
the Outsourcing Tide Flowing – Ratings, Reviews and Relationships
If you are looking for a
long-term outsourcing solution, then the best way to do that is to find one
good worker and continue working with them on your future assignments. Even
though it seems simple, when you go into the nitty-gritty of employing
freelancing outsource professionals, you will find that it is a difficult job.
You need a lot of things – commitment, devotion, quality, ingenuity, good
price, etc. It is not always that you will hit the jackpot when you are looking
at getting work from someone whom you have never met and probably know nothing
about their geographical or social position.
That is the reason why once you
get a good person to do your job, you must go all out to retain him or her on
your outsourcing payroll.
How do you do that? There are
three important Rs to remember here.
Ratings
Once a particular assignment is
over, you get a chance to rate the professional. This is usually a ten-star
rating system on most freelance websites, while even some forums have this
system. Don’t forget to rate the employee for their good work. For you, it is
more important to rate people for their good work than for their bad work. You
won’t work again with someone who has ruined your project anyway. But when
someone does a good job and you commend that with a good rating, they will be
happy and inspired to work with you again.
Reviews
Reviews work in the same way as
ratings. Only, these are much more elaborate because you say what you feel in
words. You could be as upfront here as you like, and don’t hold back on
mentioning something that you liked. For outsourcing professionals, both
ratings and reviews mean a lot – it is akin to having outstanding achievements
marked on the résumé of an offline professional.
Relationships
It is also a good idea to have a
friendly and frank rapport with a professional who has done a good job for you.
Remember that you probably need them more than they need you because there is
no dearth of jobs for them. Being a little casual and non-imposing in your
communication helps. However, at times, you might need to draw the line, but do
so subtly as long as it helps.
Summary
The ‘employer’ in you should hide till absolutely necessary.
Getting Your Job Done
If you have been following
closely until now, there is no reason why you shouldn’t get your job done to
your satisfaction. But, there are times when difficulties begin to creep in.
One thing that you shouldn’t
tolerate at all is non-responsiveness. On the Internet, the unsaid rule is that
any professional email must be replied to within 24 hours, or sooner if your
agreement is to that effect. If you are in the same time zone, there’s no
reason to wait for 24 hours either. If you don’t get your reply within that
time, you might as well begin looking somewhere else.
Another thing that is of utmost
importance is quality. Even if your outsourcing professional has been providing
you good work, do keep checking on it often. Remember that you are not seeing
these people. Some of them might pass on their work to cheaper people and work
as middlepersons. When that happens, quality definitely goes down.
If you are outsourcing your work,
make it a point to outsource it directly
to the person who will execute the job and not to a middleperson.
Avoid companies unless absolutely
necessary. For home businesses, individuals are the best outsourcing
professionals. However, if you are a large company and looking for something
like a telemarketing agency, then, of course, you need a team of people whom
you can outsource your job to.
The two major problems that can
happen even after you have selected your professional carefully are
non-responsiveness and deterioration of quality. Do not tolerate these problems,
or your business will suffer.
Earlier we spoke about keeping a friendly rapport with your professionals. This is fine but only till the time they are providing you consistent good work. If the professional aspect of the relationship begins to wither, you need to tighten things a bit. Let the ‘boss’ in you show when that
Summary
About going ahead and making progress.
Taking Outsourcing to
the Next Level –
An Important Step in
Online Business Evolution
When you have built a great
rapport with your outsourcing professional who you found one fine day on a
freelance work site, you can think on more permanent lines. After all, it is
always mutually beneficial to seal professional relationships.
Some companies who don’t want to
go through the hassle of having to find out outsourcing professionals over and
over again go right ahead and build contracts and agreements. These documents
are shipped to the address of the professional and they have to sign it and
ship it back.
The protection that a contract
gives to both parties can help in building better professional collaborations.
You won’t have to look for outsourcing professionals again; you will have
something who you know works in the way you want. Also, the professional won’t
have to look for clients because they have a contract with you. It is good for
the professional to continue working with the same clients over a long term,
because they know what the clients require and they also know that they can
produce that to the clients’ satisfaction.
You might not know it, but a lot
of relationships that began casually over the Internet have ended up in the
outsourcing professionals shifting their base, even sometimes to other
countries, and becoming integral parts of hugely successful companies that they
once worked for as mere freelancers. The companies prize these once-upon-a-time
freelancers as well because they were with them when the companies were
teething, which creates in them a factor of faith and trust.
So, don’t hold back on
outsourcing your work. You might get one or several faithful and efficient
business allies for life.
Conclusion
Outsourcing is the way businesses are moving nowadays, and you must
surely make use of this to multiply your business pursuits.
Whatever it is, you can find a suitable outsourcing professional for
it.
Now you know what it takes to find one and retain them as well.
All the best to you!!!
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