No More Outsourcing Horror Stories for me - Here Is Why!

21 replies
Hi Guys,

I have heard some horror stories and in fact I am one myself. Last year I wasted 3k in outsourcers that were lazy, never emailed me, never showed up, one guy the plainly ripped me off with a bit of social engineering. Not good.

It left a bad taste in my mouth, I can tell you that and I promised I would never outsource again. But after talking to a very reputable warrior, who has some awesome tips I realised I was not in control and needed to hone in on managerial & delegation skills.

Every since Feburary 2011 I got back into outsourcing my business tasking. And things have been going smoothly. VERY smoothly.

Best thing is I know what I have to outsource and just report my jobs or offer better rates to my current outsourcer that i have already pre-employed and know do a fantastic job. The secret is having a team, and testing people out at a lower rate to make sure they are competent.

Once you have them in, praise them consistently and tell them exactly what you want. Treat them like a baby, with flash cards.....LOL. I mean down to the last detail. Once I learnt how to do this, I was surprised at how well they responded and how much more efficiently and smoothly everything went.

Here are my outsource tips for those taking the plunge :-

- Realise you are not a master of outsourcing. So learn the ropes for other successful warriors. You will hear great stories and horror ones also. Just forget the bad ones.

- Make sure you word your jobs as best as you can. The more you tell the more offers you will get. That is what I have noticed.

- Once you have a good team under your wing, dont go hunting around for people you think will do better. If someone can do the job, and do it properly keep them on your team.

- Always offer incentives. I always post in my first job ads, things like 'for the right person there will be ongoing work at higher premium rates' adding this to the bottom of my ad doubled my response rate.

- I always give bonuses to my workers for doing a good job. I do not tell them. I just say check their account. You will notice doing these things is not only good karma for you and your client. You are making them want to work harder. Who ever gets bonuses these days. Do it frequently and watch them want to work for you more and do and even better job and get everything done quicker.

- Alway communicate while the job is underway. This is where I failed in the past. Now I do not have to worry, I just email them every few days and check their work and tell them what they are doing fantastically and what needs improvement. Again I am not rude, I just nudge them softly. You will find that this actually does not affend them, it makes them see the light when you converse with them. This will keep both parties happy.

- Praise your workers when they do something right or do extra work for you. I have outsourcers add links to my site. But instead of building 500 links. They will go out of their way and give me 550. Hey it might only be and extra 50 but over time these add up and bring more traffic...so like i said, thank them and give them bonus money.


There are tons of tips I can add. But These are the ones that I feel are more important to people getting into outsourcing. I do not want to see people lose the money I did when I got started.

Feels good to be A GENERAL IN THE ARMY, and NOT A SOLDIER IN THE TRENCHES doing all the hard work.

When you can work on your business and not in it, you really see good results.

Cheers

Celente.
#horror #outsourcing #stories
  • Profile picture of the author Coby
    Celente another good nugget from you!

    I just started dabbling in outsourcing myself and luckily it has been going very smoothly. However, this is all due to posts like this one that helped me get educated before I took the plunge. It helps to if you had to start at the very bottom and were once one of the people looking for the 'job' and can relate.

    Cheers
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  • Originally Posted by celente View Post

    [SNIP]Once you have them in, praise them consistently and tell them exactly what you want. Treat them like a baby, with flash cards.....LOL. I mean down to the last detail. Once I learnt how to do this, I was surprised at how well they responded and how much more efficiently and smoothly everything went.[/SNIP]
    Great to hear this is working for you, though I'd like to warn others that this is not always the case. If you hired people who can train themselves on their own to complete necessary tasks for a project and be the best at what they do: Most of them won't probably like being treated as babies or given detailed instructions, only to learn they wasted their time reading a lot of things about something they already know how to do or could learn in 5 minutes or so...
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    • Deep Learning & Machine Vision Engineer: ARIA Research (Sydney, AU)
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  • Profile picture of the author Dimitris Skiadas
    Outsourcing can be very tricky indeed.And every single one of us has a story to tell.Most of the outsourcing stories are nice.There are some that are a little bit scary,but with this piece of advice, i think we should be more careful
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  • Profile picture of the author Don Schenk
    Celente,

    Where are you advertising to find workers - elance, odesk, others?

    When you have outsourcers do a task, as in the linking example you gave, are you finding people who already know how to perform the task, or does it require complete training starting from a zero point?

    Thanks

    :-Don
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    • Profile picture of the author celente
      Originally Posted by Don Schenk View Post

      Celente,

      Where are you advertising to find workers - elance, odesk, others?

      When you have outsourcers do a task, as in the linking example you gave, are you finding people who already know how to perform the task, or does it require complete training starting from a zero point?

      Thanks

      :-Don

      Don,

      These are some great questions.

      I use all three, but have my team built over a elance. Odesk is ok, but I hear mixed stories. I say test all three, but my best results have come from elance. I find it easier to use.

      Don I have an interview technique downpacked now. This is something crucial to the whole process. As you will want someone that has some sort of experience.

      I have a guy who I outsource blog comments. I am blown away because I asked him to give me a sample of these, and the great thing is I found out by using my interview technique he knows alot about my niche. So when he posts and builds links he is actually adding value, not just spamming. To me that is very valuable and I pay him well, because of his work. One of his blog comment bought in about 500 subscribers over a month. That is very valuable to me.

      You need to make sure you talk to them. Also look at their ratings. They cannot fake their ratings. So I use that as a good guide too. But you need to go through and interview process. Do not worry it is just conversing via email a few times to see if they know what they are talking about, or you can see samples of previous work. That is my secret. If they can show you sample of their work you can see if they have a good english and are switched on. I sort the wheat from the chaff this way so to speak.

      Hope this helps.
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  • Profile picture of the author joan2009
    Outsourcing saves you time and money. If you don't have technical skills, you don't have a choice but to outsource the job. You have to know where to hire skilled and dedicated workers and make sure that once you find your right kind of workers, you have to treat them well and always be considerate when they make mistakes.
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  • Profile picture of the author WebRank1
    Great tips Celente!
    Do you communicate by email only?
    I like to talk face to face with my workers and answer any questions or clear any misunderstandings up right away.
    I saved so much time since I started doing that, I don't even know why I ever even used email communications!
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  • Profile picture of the author Gubaru
    You should have tried Fiverr.com. It might have saved you a little money.
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  • Profile picture of the author Big Al
    We've have a ton of problems and use outsourcers for backlinks, building websites, graphics and video editing.

    As part of the employment process we often give several people a small task to test their skills first. For the most part we found that outsourcers tend to exagerate what they can do.

    Secondly we always ask good workers if they know anyone we can hire and try to get referrals.

    Monetary incentives do work well and seem to get even the most difficult workers up in the middle of the night to reply to your emails.

    And we always accept that even if you employ someone for you full-time... they never are.
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  • Profile picture of the author aneel90
    Luckily most of my outsourcing ventures have been really good ones. The few bad ones have been on fiverr. Just something that doesn't feel right about fiverr. Even though it does work for a lot of people, it just isn't for me...
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    • Profile picture of the author celente
      Originally Posted by aneel90 View Post

      Luckily most of my outsourcing ventures have been really good ones. The few bad ones have been on fiverr. Just something that doesn't feel right about fiverr. Even though it does work for a lot of people, it just isn't for me...
      Dont worry I have been scammed on Fiverr, infact if you have been using fiverr for various tasks, and not been scammed i would say that is a miracle!. LOL

      But in all honesty, is there really a secret to not getting scammed on Fiverr...well No...not really! but how about putting the odds in your favour.

      There really is some great talent on fiverr, but to put the odds in your favour make sure you see what others are saying, make sure the gigs have had over 50 gigs done.

      - Make sure the last gig was not months ago.

      - Make sure they are good communicators.

      - make sure there is not a large queue or the fiverr user is not currently overloaded with gigs (this is a common problem)

      - Make sure they noted for good communication with other gig buyers.

      - Do small tests, before you order multiple gigs with the same fiverr worker.

      - Featured gigs are not neccesarily the best and quickest gigs.

      - Try to pick gigs that the user is a professional in...i.e. if the gig your after is a press release try to pick a professional journalist or professional writer to do your gig. Read all their descriptions carfully.

      Good luck.
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  • Profile picture of the author dadamson
    Outsourcing can be a nightmare when your expectations are set too high.

    I don't mean to be rude but a lot of people on outsourcing sites cannot think for themselves and show initiative most of the time. Their minds are trained very mechanically.

    They do exactly what you say, and they do it WELL. If you leave out a small detail, it is likely they will too.

    Set your instructions out VERY clearly and monitor closely and you will be fine!
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  • Profile picture of the author Nathy Curiel
    I start out also with a few rotten apples ,but after while I found my VA with whom I still work.

    I use video's to show how to do things. And have send her some training WSO and video about building sites and backlinks. Now she is well trained and highly motived because I don't only pay her ,but I also train her.

    If I hire more people for a job , then I will make here my project manager and she send my a weekly report about the overall progress.

    Just treat you VA well and set up everything like a real business ( project manager for all your projects)

    Works well for me !
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    • Profile picture of the author MChriston
      Originally Posted by Nathy Curiel View Post

      I use video's to show how to do things. And have send her some training WSO and video about building sites and backlinks. Now she is well trained and highly motived because I don't only pay her ,but I also train her.
      EXACTLY! (you beat me to it as I was about to say something very similar!)

      I think too many businesspeople "abdicate" when outsourcing, it's as if they think they don't need to do anything once they've hired someone ...and that's a BIG mistake.

      Treat the outsourcer as part of your team, as if they are a fullblown employee, and you will always get better results.

      The 'pay and train' comment above is a great one ...AND you can still reward in other ways too...

      For example, one of my team...

      (yes, I keep using the word "team" ...because I consider all of my outsourcers to be part of the team)

      ...did a great job on a recent project. Now I happened to know he and his wife were big fans of the Dexter TV series, but had missed some of the shows...

      So I bought him the Dexter boxset series 1 - 4 as an impromptu bonus for the great work he had done on the project.

      For a few dollars I got to reward his hard work ...and in doing so create an even happier team member. A win-win for all involved.

      Enjoy,

      Michael
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  • Profile picture of the author sheffernan
    Good advice!
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  • Profile picture of the author mattmajernik
    Banned
    [DELETED]
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    • Profile picture of the author celente
      Originally Posted by mattmajernik View Post

      Hi everyone,

      One month ago I finally found online money making training which explain step by step how to create money making system from A-Z.It is training from famous and honesty marketer Chris Farrell and his training explain you from A to Z how he create his profitable internet business.His training is voted the NO.1 Internet Marketing Service according famous site IMreportcard.I joined his training one month ago and it is really explained step by step how to create and run profitable money making system including all traffic receive methods.There is many testimonials on site from real satisfied people from Facebook and subscribers and all give the training best marks.Check it yourself and see the proof in below link.
      Cool love the spam.

      Maybe next time you can post in ALL CAPS LIKE THIS!

      *slaps Forehead*

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  • Profile picture of the author shabit87
    Originally Posted by celente View Post


    - Once you have a good team under your wing, dont go hunting around for people you think will do better. If someone can do the job, and do it properly keep them on your team.

    - Alway communicate while the job is underway. This is where I failed in the past. Now I do not have to worry, I just email them every few days and check their work and tell them what they are doing fantastically and what needs improvement. Again I am not rude, I just nudge them softly. You will find that this actually does not affend them, it makes them see the light when you converse with them. This will keep both parties happy.
    You said a mouthful. Once you have a great team of people, be sure to ask them before seeking others. Build a working relationship. It works in your favor. Your workers become loyal assets. I usually get treated like a star for being a repeat customer.

    I get jobs done faster and the quality is almost always great the first time, because my workers believe, truly believe, my satisfaction is important and I love it!

    Also communication before and during the project production is key to getting things done right the first go round.

    Nice share!
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  • Profile picture of the author Nathy Curiel
    My VA gets a bonus if a project succesfull and a small piece of the profit. So my success is also her success ..that helps a lot !
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  • Profile picture of the author Tim Hoogasian
    I've had good and bad experiences with outsourcing. The best experiences I've had have always been with service providers who actually *communicated* in their ads, and then when I contacted them. They weren't "too good to respond" if I wasn't quite ready to buy. The bad ones always over-represented their skills, and acted miffed if I inquired about their progress.

    One painful lesson: if you think you want to get a VA from Philippines, India, etc, Do Not become their friend. You're not their friend, you're their employer. Never forget that, and they must never forget it either.

    That doesn't mean to be rude to them, not at all. But if you're their "friend" they don't respect you and your deadlines. They slack off, give excuses, whatever, 'cause you'll forgive them.

    Bollox that. Even if they were agreeing to do it for no pay, it still costs you precious *life energy* to deal with their aggravation. Your energy worth far more than money -- and you wanted to outsource to get things done, not change your job to unpaid baby-sitter...

    Set clear expectations up front, give clear goals and HARD DEADLINES. If they miss a deadline and have not communicated well in advance that they're going to miss, and give good reasons why, FIRE THEM. It's hard to do, at least for people who want to be nice, but it's a critical piece of making sure you don't get messed over by flakes and frauds.
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