Outsourcing Lessons from Failure

My biggest failure was spreading myself too thin. I tried keeping up-to-date with around 22 websites. My funding for each then became 1/22 of its potential. Should've stuck with one - so now I'm "liquidating" some and condensing to focus myself.

My biggest mistake generally has been not carefully balancing revenue with outsourcing costs. The too can fluctuate considerably for me. I need more staff when busy, and less when not. Certainly lost a few thousand this way but also built a great team in the process.

Yes,I'd also like to know the best places to go for outsourcing

Philippines are the best outsources

Your main objective in outsourcing should be to get quality work at reasonable prices.

Of course, the definition of "quality" is somewhat subjective, but consider these two factors:

1, Google is CONSTANTLY improving its search algorithms to filter out spammy web content as much as possible--increasingly, the amount of time readers spend INTERACTING with the content on a site is becoming a factor in search engine rankings.

and

2, The FTC is CONSTANTLY upgrading regulations and going after companies that rely on deceptive marketing tactics like phony income claims and misleading testimonials.

How are these two factors related, and what do they have to do with outsourcing?

Well, look at it this way. If tons of spammy content isn't interesting enough to actually engage readers, that puts an upward pressure on quality: you need to have interesting content that readers want to spend time reading.

If you aren't allowed to use bogus income claims and testimonials, that also puts an upward pressure on quality: you have to sell on the look, feel and quality of your website content moreso than on clever ruses.

The bottom line is that since preying on dumb people is increasingly against the rules, providing real value to smart people is increasingly necessary. So your freelancers should be good enough to create something that smart people can see real value in.

To be fair I am in the process of setting up something in India, for personal web site seo etc. The biggest thing when out sourcing is understanding the culture difference and having the ability to manage them.

my biggest mistake, when I was 22 giving up on my small oil company when times got hard i.e when the £ went 1:1.2 against the $.

this is right. after working for a while we start to think that we can relax now. that's the big mistake.
its a very competitive profession. if you are managing some teams then you have to make your employees so much effective that they can work properly.
I just started my business and till now i don't have any bad experience.

I've just recently been testing out some outsourcing. Up to this point, I've done everything myself from web design, blog setup, keyword research, SEO, content, backlinking...yadda yadda yadda.

But at some point you realize there's too much to do to do it all yourself. So far my outsourcing efforts have been positive, but I'll admit I have a hard time with it because it seems like I still spend too much time tweaking stuff I get from outsourcers because it is good, but usually not as good as what I would create myself if I had time.

So then I'm spending money on outsourcers, but still spending my own time to tweak things which kind of deflates the whole purpose. I guess it's just a matter of finding the right outsourcer who can meet or exceed your expectations in terms of quality of work.

Hi Jay,

Sorry to hear your bad story regarding outsourcing. But still, i'm glad that you consider Philippines to one of the best outsourcing place.
I think you had bad experience with freelancers who are working from home. As I always say, I recommend going to firms with a proven track record of dependability and proficiency in offering business leased office staffing & management services.

I agree, Philippines is one of the best outsourcing countries, I've had several people from India, Philippines and Bangladesh working for me and the PH people have been the best workers (at least for me)

My vote goes for oDesk.com, and to hire Va's from the Phillipines. Ive been using oDesk for about a year for my real estate business, and Filipinos are honest, provide good quality work, and they speak good English.

Ive tried hiring a few middle easterns and ive got burned plenty of times by them, so I would avoid hiring contractors from India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, etc. Im not saying all of them are like this, im sure there are some honest ones, but it seems like the dishonest ones are flooding odesk with fake Portfolios and etc.

I have failed before. However, if I gave up after I did, then I would be worse off than I am now.

the best place i use is odesk. but be very careful. alot of scams. when you post a job, always give all details. when you want it done, how much etc.

It's always best to screen and evaluate your VAs first. Also, do not be tempted with cheap VAs, remember that you get what you pay for. Always choose quality.

great thread! thanks for sharing.

Biggest mistake was assuming that all VAs were created equal. I had one that was in charge of a major account. The first VA did an amazing job. When I hired another one, he became more interested in socializing on skype as compared to being productive. Ultimately, I lost the account. More importantly I learned a tough lesson. Screen VAs harder.

This is such a great thread.. beside odesk and the like.. there's 1 more outsourcing market: Hire the best Filipino employees and virtual assistants the Philippines has to offer!

Yes, my biggest mistakes is NOT knowing the market price for each specific job (at least the rough gauge)..

The first time I did it: I spend TOO much for TOO little results..
The second time I did it: The opposite way - which makes me feel very guilty..

In business, I always believe in win-win situation (although sometimes **** do happens).. I want both party to win, if not, I might not want to go into that deal..

WIN-WIN,
Jeremiah

I bought 5 articles from iwriter, but they are really hard to comprehend.

If they're hard to comprehend, reject the articles (you don't pay anything if you don't like them). Rate the writer poorly. This will move them out of iWriter.

Brad

Odesk and the content authority. I can monitor their work, and learn from them at the same time. I watch what they do, and learn so I can do it on my own soon.

You definitely have to do a test/trial run with most of them. A majority of them are legit and true to what they claim but beware.

Indians and others from the Middle East are very entrepreneurial. Filipino's are hard workers, ethical, loyal and just want the steady paycheck to help their families.

This thread has been a big help to me. I've had a few poor experiences with middle eastern outsourcing the last few weeks and, as a newbie, it got me pretty depressed... having to spend ages tweaking their content. I'm going to give the Phillipines a try

I have been burnt by a so called company in the Philippines, and hear mixed results.

I have made a ton of money by hiriing off elance, and giving people smaller test before ramping it up. I even use videos to show them what to do and how to do it. That seems to give us more run for our money. I recommend you do the same.

Outsourcing can literally explode your business. You become a GENERAL in the ARMY, and not just a SOLDIER IN THE TRENCHES if you know what I mean.

I've been hiring writers for over a year now. I did a lot of mistakes in the start, one of which is trusting my writer's work to be as they promised it would be. I cringe to think that I did that once. I know better now. Outsourcing or making people work for you is never going to be easy. You need to constantly be on the watch. Lax your hold on them, and they'll give you crap work and get away with it.

Its just like anything in this industry, it takes a bit of time to figure out how to do it cheaply and have it organized and actually producing results.

Once I got past some hurdles with the hireing process and figureing out how to screen employees proeprly it has worked quite well for me.

I"m so sorry that you had bad experience with outsourcing. I am doing work for my US and UK clients more over 4 years. So you have to choose right person who can care about your work when you are in relax mood. Outsourcing can give a huge market. Just share my experience with You.)

Outsourcing can be self destructive if you are not vigilant all the time. I know so many people who have lost out on a lot because they did not really keep track of what the people they were outsourcing to were doing.

The main thing is that you learn from your mistakes and realize that just because you're assigning your work to other people odes not mean they are near as competent as you in doing it. If you're going to pay them a much lesser price, it is indeed your duty to monitor what they do.

I have worked with good workers from all over the world, but no matter how experienced and skilled they are, I always check out their work completely, and communicate with them regularly. I never employ workers who have failed to communicate regularly on previous projects.

I have used a lot of outsourcing from odesk, and I can tell you from experience that the results I got were horrible. I got lied to and ripped off on numerous occasions. I had people faking screen shots to make it look like they were working building backlinks by an interestingly complicated algorithm to make it look like they were working and rotate screen backgrounds in a pattern.

I found that communication was extremely difficult with non native English speakers. Not because they didn't understand the language, but because a lot of the time key concepts would get lost and they would perform their tasks improperly.

I also found that you get what you pay for. Someone from the Philippines at 3 dollars an hour isn't going to do as good as someone from Wyoming at 15 dollars/hour.

Unfortunately, the amount of money you pay for decent people almost outweighs the benefit of outsourcing. You get graphic artists in the US for example wanting 30 dollars an hour on odesk, and at those rates, I might as well hire my own employees.

The one thing I want to mention, however, where I can guarantee you want to focus resources and time is organization. If you are going to have someone doing outsourcing work for you, make sure you have laid out step by step every single detail of work that they must do and how they are to do it. If you don't do this, I can almost guarantee you won't get the job done right.

Outsourcing has really become an inevitable process to grow our business to next level. And finding good talent is becoming hard (or atleast will take time) with lots of outsourcing/freelancing sites littered all through the internet. If you are into outsourcing your content, I would recommend you checking fweez.com, morningarticles.com and iWriter.com. They get us some quality content at an incredible price. For outsourcing other needs, check oDesk, eLance, WF for Hire section over here etc..,

Oh my - talk about failures with Outsourcing! Luckily I didn't lose any business myself but the stress!

I've never managed people in this way before so the whole experience was new. I used Jon Jonas replace myself as a starting point but the actual site wasn't helpful to me. I did however use his OnlineJob.ph to find VA's.

In the beginning where I had a lack of knowledge or experience in this area I made quite a lot of mistakes - mistakes that are of course converted into GREAT WISDOM!

I have since had some success with VA's but sadly they were hit by the big storm, coincidence that they were both in the same town and knew each other. One decided to focus on her local situation, the other who was contracted per task, could not get a pc up and running because of her situation.

My biggest tip for anyone is the following:

Firstly wherever possible know the task inside out before you outsource. Know what it is, how its done and how long it should take.

Secondly, choose either a management system online or a pay per task rate - don't ever ever ever think you can keep your eye on someone who is not in the same room as you and even if you think you can set up skype and other systems for staying in touch, you could end up micro managing and that is hideous and a waste of time

There's sooooo much more that I've got halfway through a WSO on this subject but have sidetracked to finish a couple of other projects first.

I started that to help others avoid those horrid stressors and mistakes I made (some were advocated by a senior marketer eg to provide your VA with extra cash for pc memory or internet upgrades!! No! Never ever do that unless you have had a brilliant working relationship with your VA for a long time eg over 6 - 12 months)

Having a VA can be great and in many ways is absolutely essential to build a business. I'm currently outsourcing on a contract basis and wont get around to hiring a full timer again for a while - I will do this but only when everything is in place, eg training videos, management system for watching activities and a strict policy of 3 months trial where any significant fails or not up to the job are let go quickly)

Glad I'm not the only one, sad you've had such a disaster

Best for the future
Leah aka Larkrise

If you guys want to make sure the person you have hired for a pay-for-time job is actually working, you can also consider vWorker.com: How work gets done. Guaranteed!

They have this software called AccuTimeCard that workers cannot really get past. It takes a screenshot every few minutes and uploads it onto the site. It is slightly flawed in that it takes a photo approximately every fifth minute, so workers can pick it on, but it is better than trusting them completely.

Once the time card is submitted, you can view all the screenshots and if there are any discrepancies, you don't need to pay them for that amount of time.

I've had fairly good experiences on Vworker, but it is only good for meticulous employees who really want to make sure they are getting their moneys worth.

The biggest lessons i have learnt is that focus is one of the most important things to do when you are an IM.

Once you start a project STAY FOCUSED on that. Don't try something new before you ended what you were planning to do. This will just gets you nowhere.

Have a plan, take action and focus on what you have planned to do only. Easy but works great and the results are amazing!

My 2cents

FaBiz

Great thread.

I am in the process of hiring some VAs, and this post has given me some good info to make my decision.

Thanks all

I will never go back to employ a Philippine outsource worker, they are just wasting your money and time.

now i build robot to do all the work for me, less hassle, no cost for me.

Jay, Thanks for your insights. Just downloaded your pdf report on outsourcing.

I actually signed up for 123employee.com a couple days ago before I read this thread (I was at an event) and will be talking to them soon. They offer a 40-hour (I guess it is 10 per week for 4 weeks) trial to begin with and I can cancel the whole thing and get refund within 30 days.

Being new to hiring VAs, what would be a good test for the first 40 hours for my VA trial?

I am thinking about sending my VA some internet marketing materials and ask him to research and create 2-3 affiliate marketing sites based on the material. I want to see if he can learn fast enough and his ability to follow instructions (attention to detail).

Do you think this can be a good idea?