Hey jason,
Carrying on with our discussion about using the
skills of other people to grow your business.
Firstly here's an important part of this process
that I forgot to mention last time.
As an individual, you have certain skills and
abilities. You also have certain things that you
suck at, you will always suck at them and even if
you try it will take you a long time to learn them,
and there's nothing wrong with that!
Part of running a good online business as any business
is finding the things that you are most skilled at
and focusing on those things, then designating the
tasks that you aren't as good at, to people who
are better at them! The result is a much higher
quality output.
Ok moving on...
First here's the basic outline of the flow of events
in case anyone isn't familiar with it:
- You create an account at one of the main freelance
services (rentacoder.com is a good place to start)
and you post a request for bids on your project.
- As bids start to come in you select from them
a freelancer who best suits the needs of your
project.
- You communicate through the freelance site
back and forth with the freelancer until the
project is completed to your satisfaction after
which time the remainder of a payment balance
is forwarded to the freelancer signifying the
completion of their work.
Here's some tips on going about finding the best
kind of people for a great price, whatever kind
of work you're looking for.
1. Consider the location - don't get me wrong,
freelancers from developed countries are great
but depending on the kind of work you need done,
you're often likely to get great offers from
people in developed countries too.
I've had high quality work done by writers from
the Philippines and Romania, coders from Russia,
Egypt and India and so forth.
Like I mentioned earlier, you can get people
from these countries who can do great work and
are willing to do it for ALOT less than people
from America, Australia or the UK.
Of course you can always use the sites feedback
system to see whether the freelancer in question
is of good quality and you can also test them
with smaller but similar projects prior to hiring
them for your main desired job. Doing this does as
close as possible guarantee that you'll get a high
quality result.
Next tip, and this is a bit sly but it's the
truth:
Is that you want to assess the freelancers circumstances
as well as their skill in the desired task.
You'll come across young freelancers who accept
projects in their university holidays and so forth -
big no no! They're always in between tasks, always
have interruptions, you'll rarely get your project
done on time. My point being that you should have
a look at the coders circumstances if you can, check
out their profile, even don't be afraid to ask them
questions about their work on Rentacoder etc
Here's the bit that sounds a bit harsh: Ideally
you want to get people who's circumstances make
them desperate to complete their work and get
their money. It sounds harsh but for getting work
completed on time, people with mortgages, kids to
feed, debts to pay etc are the ones most likely to
get their work completed on time.
Next tip:
You can literally get ANYTHING done by freelancers...
A lot of people get stuck online because they get
to a point where they don't know how to complete
a certain task - the thing is you don't have to
waste time deliberating over how to do it - you can
have someone do it for you!
Once you get good at describing projects and negotiating
for good prices you will be able to get any task
done quickly and easily.
Ok my last and best tip for using freelance sites
is this - and it's a bit controversial too...
The best thing you can do particularly when you find
people who are good to work with is try to get some
information by which you can contact them outside of
rentacoder.
Rentacoder in particular don't like you getting
the freelancers contact information because obviously
they'd prefer you to keep buying projects from
them from within Rentacoder so you pay their fees
and commissions. They'll even sometimes close
projects when you ask for instant messaging
addresses within the conversation of the project.
What you can do is try to email them personally
to ask for their MSN, Yahoo, or Skype email
address so you can talk to them.
The reason this is so good is because once you
can contact them privately you have the potential
to be able to negotiate ongoing work (instead
of one off projects every now and then).
I have found a couple of our now full time
employees this way. They started out doing one
off projects, I got chatting with them in
instant messengers and organized for them to
do ongoing weekly work for a nominal fee -
powerful stuff!
Well that should do it for today. I hope these
two emails have opened your eyes to the power
of outsourcing and how you can find quality
help in the pursuit to build a successful online
business.
As always, thanks for reading and I wish you
all the best.
Regards,
Andrew Hansen
NicheMarketingInsights.com
Carrying on with our discussion about using the
skills of other people to grow your business.
Firstly here's an important part of this process
that I forgot to mention last time.
As an individual, you have certain skills and
abilities. You also have certain things that you
suck at, you will always suck at them and even if
you try it will take you a long time to learn them,
and there's nothing wrong with that!
Part of running a good online business as any business
is finding the things that you are most skilled at
and focusing on those things, then designating the
tasks that you aren't as good at, to people who
are better at them! The result is a much higher
quality output.
Ok moving on...
First here's the basic outline of the flow of events
in case anyone isn't familiar with it:
- You create an account at one of the main freelance
services (rentacoder.com is a good place to start)
and you post a request for bids on your project.
- As bids start to come in you select from them
a freelancer who best suits the needs of your
project.
- You communicate through the freelance site
back and forth with the freelancer until the
project is completed to your satisfaction after
which time the remainder of a payment balance
is forwarded to the freelancer signifying the
completion of their work.
Here's some tips on going about finding the best
kind of people for a great price, whatever kind
of work you're looking for.
1. Consider the location - don't get me wrong,
freelancers from developed countries are great
but depending on the kind of work you need done,
you're often likely to get great offers from
people in developed countries too.
I've had high quality work done by writers from
the Philippines and Romania, coders from Russia,
Egypt and India and so forth.
Like I mentioned earlier, you can get people
from these countries who can do great work and
are willing to do it for ALOT less than people
from America, Australia or the UK.
Of course you can always use the sites feedback
system to see whether the freelancer in question
is of good quality and you can also test them
with smaller but similar projects prior to hiring
them for your main desired job. Doing this does as
close as possible guarantee that you'll get a high
quality result.
Next tip, and this is a bit sly but it's the
truth:
Is that you want to assess the freelancers circumstances
as well as their skill in the desired task.
You'll come across young freelancers who accept
projects in their university holidays and so forth -
big no no! They're always in between tasks, always
have interruptions, you'll rarely get your project
done on time. My point being that you should have
a look at the coders circumstances if you can, check
out their profile, even don't be afraid to ask them
questions about their work on Rentacoder etc
Here's the bit that sounds a bit harsh: Ideally
you want to get people who's circumstances make
them desperate to complete their work and get
their money. It sounds harsh but for getting work
completed on time, people with mortgages, kids to
feed, debts to pay etc are the ones most likely to
get their work completed on time.
Next tip:
You can literally get ANYTHING done by freelancers...
A lot of people get stuck online because they get
to a point where they don't know how to complete
a certain task - the thing is you don't have to
waste time deliberating over how to do it - you can
have someone do it for you!
Once you get good at describing projects and negotiating
for good prices you will be able to get any task
done quickly and easily.
Ok my last and best tip for using freelance sites
is this - and it's a bit controversial too...
The best thing you can do particularly when you find
people who are good to work with is try to get some
information by which you can contact them outside of
rentacoder.
Rentacoder in particular don't like you getting
the freelancers contact information because obviously
they'd prefer you to keep buying projects from
them from within Rentacoder so you pay their fees
and commissions. They'll even sometimes close
projects when you ask for instant messaging
addresses within the conversation of the project.
What you can do is try to email them personally
to ask for their MSN, Yahoo, or Skype email
address so you can talk to them.
The reason this is so good is because once you
can contact them privately you have the potential
to be able to negotiate ongoing work (instead
of one off projects every now and then).
I have found a couple of our now full time
employees this way. They started out doing one
off projects, I got chatting with them in
instant messengers and organized for them to
do ongoing weekly work for a nominal fee -
powerful stuff!
Well that should do it for today. I hope these
two emails have opened your eyes to the power
of outsourcing and how you can find quality
help in the pursuit to build a successful online
business.
As always, thanks for reading and I wish you
all the best.
Regards,
Andrew Hansen
NicheMarketingInsights.com
6 Lacie Court Mudgeeraba, Gold Coast, Queensland 4213, AUSTRALIA
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