So What's Stopping You From Outsourcing?

by mikesan

Posted: 13 years ago 23 replies

INTERNET MARKETING

Just wanted to hear some opinions/reasons about what's stopping you from outsourcing.

Here are the top reasons I repeatedly hear from friends, colleagues and clients:

It just seems like it would cost too much to get this and that outsourced so why bother.
It would take too much time to figure out what exactly I need done and I just don't have time.
I don't know who is trustworthy. So who or where should I get my tasks outsourced to.

I've been on both sides of the fields and I'm thinking about putting out a free report on my domain HowToOutsource.com (no content on there yet). So any discussion about the topic would help.

And any questions you have about outsourcing, I'll definitely give my input.

#outsource #outsource articles #outsource baclinks #outsource seo #outsourcing #stopping

ValentinJed 13 years ago

If you don't know what you want to outsource or it will take you more than 1 hour to come up what would you like to outsource then I guess you don't need it or you are not earning enough money.

Know your business and watch what tasks are you doing. Outsource tasks that are not making money (for example answering email).
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Chris The Traffic Blogger 13 years ago

Unless you understand the ROI on an investment, no one will ever take it.

Educating people on the benefits of outsourcing and how they can evolve their business to allow for outsourcing are the keys to making it happen.

This is a real challenge for people like me who try to convince bloggers to start using tools like aweber to basically outsource part of their emailing duties and also to build better relationships with their clients.
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TheCopywriter 13 years ago

It's taking the first step that is the hardest...trusting someone you've never met in a foreign country to deal with important parts of your business. Once you are over that hurdle and start to see the advantages, outsourcing becomes the only way to go...
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mikesan 13 years ago

These are all great answers guys. I think one of the biggest ones I keep seeing and hearing is the one Rob brought up. The trust factor. But like you said, once you take action take the time to set it all up, the advantages become clear.

So I'm wondering how important is it for those of you who outsource to actually see what their workers are doing? For example, odesk.com has their own software that takes screenshots every few minutes your hired freelancer is working on the clock. That is a great feature but of course you pay a bit of a premium for that.

Does anyone know of any software outside of odesk that can be given to outsourcers/freelancers so we can monitor their work? I know of one, timedoctor.com but I was wondering if there were others?
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- davidjames42973 13 years ago
  
  It definitely does take a bit of practice to get the outsourcing thing right. But once you have an exact blueprint on how you want your business to run, you will begin to succeed with outsourcing.
  
  I did lose some money with outsourcing in the beginning, but looking back today, it wasn't due to poor outsourcing, it was due to poor management.
  
  Thanks
  
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stevmark009 13 years ago

Well, I haven't tried outsourcing a working to other people. Maybe this month because I have a lot of project.
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- donsean 13 years ago
  
  @Mikesan. I'm in the process of starting my own outsourcing company, since you already have the domain and have some knowledge on it already, I know a few good people that I've personally trained and have full directions, spreadsheets, and know exactly what tools to use in order to demonstrate credibility to the prospects.
  
  Certain softwares that will rate productivity, downloadable pdf's on what exact activities are taking place, link tracking, etc. Send me a pm or contact me on skype.
  
  Thanks
  
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iAmNameLess 13 years ago

I don't outsource much at all. Especially with web design and the reason is, I tried outsourcing 5 projects, none of them were capable of finishing the project.
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eppingvonryan 13 years ago

I guess doubt about the quality of work would be the main reason i do not outsource.
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williamo 13 years ago

HI Mikesan

I have used outsourcing on a few occasions,

Although the prices were right on the subcontinent and the workers had good feedback and finished projects in the end the projects I advertised which were simple enough were never finished.

This resulted in significant loss of time, a missed market opportunity and the inability to provide negative feedback on the contractor because they did not complete the project and did not get paid.

This is taken from a reply I made on an outsourcing company's forum that I use where a subcontinent provider mused that sometimes Saying "Yes may not mean Yes from a subcontinent contractor!"
-----------
"How would you intepret this answer "Yes"

- A project is advertised.
- 9 Replies and quotes including a top Guru recommended quote by an Indian Contractor
- All documentation is provided with a clear understanding of what is required.
- Negotiations occur,
- the contract is agreed to and project agreement completed.
- 50% upfront is paid by me the employer.
- The Indian Contractor then says "no I dont want to do it and refunds my money.
"In the meantime I have lost 3 weeks of valuable development time.

I call that bad business ethics my friend - not a cultural inability to say no.

I also now have a great reluctance to deal with freelancers in India"
---------------------
This contract was readvertised and a similar situation arose so that in the end I abandoned it.

I have since teamed up with an US programmer who is more expensive but does get the job done in a timely manner with good communication.

Unfortunately its a fact of life that you need to outsource because it is impossible for one person to know everything and you cant leverage your available time and your own unique talents without doing it.

Trust and communication are the key and certainly similar cultural ties and lanquage help.

I hope that helps Mikesan good luck with your report

regards
WillyO
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HorseStall 13 years ago

Here are some reasons I think twice about outsourcing based on past experiences I have had.

1. Bad Past Experience
2. Outsourced Idea Stolen By Outsourcer
3. Did not meet Deadlines
4. Required far too much management
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jeeps 13 years ago

I have used people from India, Philipines, and china. India, technically competent, poor understanding of English. China, the one I have, poor technical good English. The Philipines people I tried (3 of them) said yes to everything and could not deliver.

If I had a serious project that could make real money i'd use good people from the west and maybe outsource the lower level stuff to the east.
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akira07 13 years ago

This topic is really "me"
This month I'm starting to outsource some of my job, especially for english article. I hire some local people, but got bad result.
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PMinc 13 years ago

Quality.

Customer service is a lot of work, but honestly, a quality product or service requires back-up that is equal in quality.

When I look at some of the crap I've had to put up with regarding defective products and having to deal with less-than-stellar CSRs, I want to make sure that anyone who gives me their money is treated as best as possible.
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akira07 13 years ago

This rule is really exist on outsourcing activity:
More higher price rate, more quality
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Rumpleteazer 13 years ago

For a relatvie newbie like me it is the whole spending money to make money thing. Whilst we all know that often you need to invest in order to make real money, there is bound to be a reluctance when you are making little (or no) money in the first place.
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celente 13 years ago

anyone can outsource, but picking and choosing good reliable people is hard.

Once you have someone good, pay them more than you say. I have found tipping your outsourcing team help them work hard and brings in more money for you anyway...win win situation? u betcha!!
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Microsys 13 years ago

It is difficuelt to find a serious service that provide:
* quality like oneself would do it
* invoice capable service

There are certain things I would like outsource like content writing and relevant link building (NOT e.g. xrumer and blog spamming), but it's difficult to find, in particular if you want a service that can invoice as well.

Also, if you do things yourself, you can always be 100% confident in the quality.
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zigato 13 years ago

I'm actually looking for a web developer but what is stopping me is that I don't know whether that person/company is trustworthy. I have outsourced other things before but those were for smaller items such as logo design.
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matt5409 13 years ago

at the moment i'm simply not earning enough to consider outsourcing. i would rather get my affiliate sites earning a good amount before trying to automate the process.
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eta32 Banned 13 years ago

I outsource everything apart from switching on my PC, reading my emails and checking my earnings stats.

I don't see the point in doing stuff myself when I can pay someone else to do it.
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- garben2011 13 years ago
  
  I've outsourced some article writing, some link building work and some graphics work. Used Guru for about 300 articles (multiple projects) and 10 sketches. Used Fiverr for various things and NeedAnArticle for maybe another 75 articles.
  
  The biggest issues I see with it are:
  
  1. Admin / Management Time - I actually wonder about the effectiveness of piecemealing the work out. I've found that, of course, to get decent quality work back requires me to be very specific with what I want and for articles this includes me providing a general outline for each one. By the time I do all of that and then check the finished articles I am about 5 minutes away from completing each article myself.
  
  So, yes it does save about 5 minutes per article and that adds up after awhile but it would be awesome to not have to micro manage things. I always hated working for someone with the micro-manage mentality and now I really do not like having to do it myself but I found that unless I do this I do not get what I want at the quality I want.
  
  2. Piecemealing in general - I am sure this is just due to the way I outsource (and is linked to #1 above) but it would be a hell of a lot more efficient to be able to just hire a writer and say look I want you to
  
  (a) write articles on this subject all day every day this week and (b) then next week, I want you to write articles all day every day on this subject.
  
  For backlinking, instead of outsourcing 50 manual blog comments or 50 forum posts, etc. I would much prefer to just hire someone and tell them look, I just want you to...
  (a) build squidoo lens and other web 2.0 pages linking back to these pages using these keywords. Do that all day this week.
  (b) Then next week I want you to comment on blogs in this market and link back to the web 2.0 properties and also link back to my own pages with these keywords and when you get bored of that do the same thing with forums putting the links in your signature. Do that all day, every day, for the second week.
  (c) Then the third week, I want you to social bookmark all of the forum pages and the blog comment pages and the web 2.0 pages and then go ahead and ping them all too. Just do this all day, every day, all week.
  After you have completed the work each week send a report of all of the URLs and logins and such to me. At the end of the third week I'll give you the next 3 weeks worth of work to do.
  
  So, I think it is just a matter of changing the way I am outsourcing really. This piecemeal approach I find to not be very efficient at all. What I want is someone out there just working every day doing this stuff. When I say all day, I don't literally mean they need to spend 8 full hours doing it. I am assuming they would work from home and take breaks and be doing other things but it would just be nice to know that every day they are spending at least a few hours getting stuff done pushing things forward.
  
  Probably the answer is to graduate from purchasing specific predefined work to hiring a virtual assistant. So, that is what I am now looking into.
  
  Heck, I could even hire a VA who would then piecemeal everything out buying predefined work packages (50 blog comments, 50 forum posts, building 5 squidoo lens and so on) and that would probably work too. I just don't want to be tied down so close to the work.
  
  EDIT -- Forgot this...
  
  3. Trust - as others have mentioned. Finding someone to trust to actually do this work. I'll test the approach with a small work sample at first. Maybe 1 day on each to see what they can do and what the quality is. I think this is definitely the biggie though. In the end we just want to be able to know the work is getting done and getting done the right way.
  
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BloggingPro 13 years ago

I only outsource my backlinking because its boring as all hell. But for the most part I enjoy writing and design so I do everything "in house"
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So What's Stopping You From Outsourcing?

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