Outsourcing

There is no shortage of complaints about hired workers. Whether from elance, craigslist, offshore, or domestic, the the margins on good to bad labor seem to be around 1:50.

I recently hired 4 artists for a project. One delivered great work. Two got about 15% of the assignment finished. One has not sent me anything over a month later.

Focus on the worker who gets the jobs done on time instead of chasing down the non-performers.

Before you even hire someone, test them. Give them a job to perform. See how promptly the project is finished. Be reasonable. Just like yourself, the worker will have areas they are great at and others that they blow at. The good workers will let you know when project requirements are over their heads.

The less time you waste with outsourced labor the more time you have to do more profitable (or enjoyable) things. A dime saved today could cost you $10,000 tommorow.

Web developers seem have mixed results with outsourced knowledge workers. Time and culture differences can make things a little messy.

1. Rather than general outsourcing job sites such as eLance or RentaProgrammer, look at specific online communities. If you are looking for a vbulletin mod, go to vbulletin.org. If you need a programmer for a single job, you might as well find someone who already has expert experience in the area you need work done.

2. Talk directly. E-mail and forum PMs are horrible methods of communicating in a timely fashion. 15 minutes of questions and answers can be stretched out to weeks. AIM, ICQ, MSN, Skype, and the good old telephone are your best friend.

3. If you can pay for a full time programmer, do it — and make sure its through a managed company. Per-job programmers are spending a lot of time and energy on looking for more work. If all that energy is focused on your projects, you’ll be better off.

4. You want a programmer with solid development experience, not someone who has been inserting php scripts into tiny websites for the past 5 years. Development experience means they’ll handle the minor stuff just fine — and excel at the difficult stuff.

5. Don’t cut corners to save a few dollars. If $1000 cheaper means 3 months of delays, its not saving you any money. Add up the delays and you will soon find yourself years behind where you should be.

6. Start simple. The more features you have, the harder its going to be for your programmer to finish the project. The harder it is, the longer it will take. If you are having a web-based tool programmed, have the core features running as soon as possible. Have users test it, then update the specs based on the feedback. The fancy features you believe are a must have right now may be completely unneeded.

7. Treat your programmer like a real person. Just because they may be 5,000 miles away doesn’t mean they don’t have a family or like having fun — just like you.

Here is a list of outsouricng resources for you to look at if you need cheap labor. I have heard positive reviews of all of the places listed here, and use some myself. If you have a resource I haven’t listed feel free to add it in the comments.

Managed Outsourcing Companies - This means you deal with a central company which hires and manages outsourced work for you. Each company does things differently so explore each web site to learn the specifics.
WebmasterLabor - Writers, data entry, promotion (signatures, etc.), and other manual tasks.
iWebMasters - Writing, graphic designers, web designers, programmers, data entry, quality control, call center outsourcing
Agents of Value - Full time linkbuilders, webmasters, writers, programmers, and designers at competative rates.

Online Job Recruitement Web sites - The downside is both price and quality can range wildly. However, you have a very large pool of workers to draw from all around the globe.
oDesk - Hire workers by the hour and check on them yourself via video.
eLance - Full range of services from web design, SEO, writing, programming, consulting, accounting, video, administration.
GetAFreelancer - Simliar to Elance, not as big.
Guru.com - Again, an extremely wide selection of available jobs from programming to ice sculpture.
RentAProgrammer - Strictly programming.
ScriptLance.com - Programming only.

Your third option is to look on forums. When you are looking for a highly-specialized task, such as a vBulletin mod, this is your best, and perhaps only, option.

If you have additional companies you think should be listed, please add them in the comments.

Is design a good business to be in? It seems everyone with a computer and a copy of Photoshop is a designer. That includes people anywhere in the world, be it downtown Manhatten or Bangkok Thailand.

Something thats been popular in webmaster message boards for a while now is logo contests. The way it works is someone says, logo contest, winner gets $X (usually between $100 to $300 max, sometimes lower.) They give a general description of what they are looking for and wait. If the payout is over $200 designers frantically submit their designs, usually filling up a couple of pages. The contest ends, and a winner is chosen by the person who started it.

The downside is, if you didn’t win you get no money (although you might get a job request from someone who liked your work.) Other than that slight upside, its a pretty crappy deal. Its kind of like construction companies bidding for a project, but they all have to do it and only one gets paid. Ok, there isn’t nearly that level of risk, but the point is the same. You are working for a chance to be paid. I could draw some comparisons to other “careers” like professional sports such as golf. However, in this case the stakes are a lot lower.

To me this process shows desperation on the part of designers. No legitimate search engine optimizer would ever agree to do the same, nor would many other service businesses.

If you want to make good money online its critical that you do something that is in high demand — and has a high barrier to entry. In this case the demand for logos is high, but the barrier to entry is low. A computer and a little understanding of art is all you need.

As a business owner you want to be in a position to benefit from cheap services, not be hurt by them. Today its logo design, tommorow it will be something else. There are major forces at work right now that are spreading wealth globally. To some people these changes are painting a dark future, to many more, its looking very bright. Over the next few weeks I will be blogging about how to welcome and benefit from these changes rather than fear them.