Free Outsourcing 101 Course

In this episode James Mackay shares the 4 biggest mistakes new outsourcers make post launch and how they can be easily avoided.  Check out http://outsourcing101course.com to sign up for The Free Outsourcing 101 Course that includes video tutorials and much more! 

Hello my fellow and future outsourcing friends.  I am James Mackay – your host – and I would like to welcome you to another episode of the Outsourcing 101 Course Podcast.  Last time we talked about managing freelance workers.  In this episode I am going to discuss the 4 biggest mistakes outsourcers make.

Generally I like to stay positive when I’m talking about the concept of outsourcing.  I like to mention things that you can do to enhance your experience when looking for freelance workers.  Or I might offer suggestions on how to make things easier, or faster.

But today I want to give your 4 things that you should avoid, or at least be aware of.  If you can follow these red flag items then you should be able to avoid some of the pitfalls that trip us up when we are looking to outsource.

The first thing I want to draw your attention to is knowing the difference between ongoing roles and one off tasks.  It may seem inconsequential but in the long term, it makes a very big difference.  Here’s an example:

If you want something done quickly and of a high standard, you might be prepared to pay a higher price for the privilege.  But that’s like anything, right?  If you want an express service, there’s often a surcharge.  However, if your job is longer term and you’re looking to establish a long term relationship with a freelancer, then you should be able to negotiate a rate different to the one that the freelancer might advertise on their profile.

This might not sound fair on the freelancer, but in the long run it suits both parties better.  Freelance workers often have to do a lot of background work for jobs and often they don’t get paid for that research.  Further, sometimes workers can go long periods between jobs – just as any contractor can – and that’s why their rate per hour might be higher than what you would expect.

If you can show the freelancer that you are in a position to hire them on a longer term basis, they might be able to adjust their rate accordingly.  They don’t have to keep doing unpaid research to become acquainted with the new project, and they have some guaranteed work coming in.

Another mistake that outsourcers make is not defining the ownership of the work that has been produced.  Generally speaking, if you pay someone to perform work for you, then you maintain ownership rights to the work that was produced.  But I have seen grey areas in this pop up all the time.

Sometimes there are disputes and misunderstandings about who owns what, despite general knowledge would dictate.  As an example, you might hire an ebook author to write an ebook for you.  Generally you would own the ebook but unless it’s specifically stated, you would not own the notes, drafts, research and other supporting materials that the author might have compiled in producing the ebook.  In fact, there would no doubt be a dispute over this; some people would say you do, others would say you don’t, because you only had a contract for an ebook.

But the good news is that this can all be easily avoided by drafting a “Transfer of Ownership” agreement so both parties know exactly what is what.  It’s not mandatory but it might just solve a problem down the track.

Another legal issue is the matter of non-disclosure agreements.  Honestly, the number of times I have heard people mention NDAs when doing outsourcing blows my mind.  It’s this easy: if it is absolutely essential that you have a non-disclosure agreement to protect you intellectual property, then only hire someone in your own legal jurisdiction.  That way you can follow up appropriately. 

I roll my eyes when I hear people tell me they got their VA in Bangladesh to sign an NDA.  I mean, seriously – you’re going to chase them through the Bangladeshy court system if they do something wrong?  Get real.

In all the years that I have been doing outsourcing I have only ever had one incidence of breach of trust.  And it was serious.  But I went through the adjudication process on the old Odesk and that freelance worker was made to recompense me for the impact they caused me and he was banned from Odesk.  So they system worked for me. 

Unfortunately, the final mistake I see people make when outsourcing is not firing fast enough.  I know that sounds horrible, but sometimes it just has to be done.

There’s a saying “hire fast, fire fast” and it’s 100% true.  However, to save you from heading into a confrontation which includes firing, you can do things to try to hire the best possible freelancer up front.  A very simple solution would be to give the freelancer a test, to see if they are up to standard.  If they achieve the task admirably, then they might just be the “perfect for you” freelancer.  If not, simply wrap up their contract and don’t give them any more work.

Most outsourcers tell me that every dollar counts.  If that’s the case for you, then you really need to get into the habit of employing good people, training them and shaping them into the type of employee you want them to be.  If they aren’t the right fit, they have to go.

So there you have it.  The top 4 mistakes I see outsourcers make when dealing with freelance workers.  I hope this episode was helpful for you.

Don’t forget to drop by the special webpage we have put together for this episode.  Go to outsource101course.com/17 to get the show notes, including a transcript of the episode.

Thanks so much for joining me and be sure to come back next time when I discuss the top 5 ways to make outsourcing work for you.

In this episode hear about the three questions I am most commonly asked by people who are considering getting into outsourcing. 

So the questions are these:

• Will it save me time and money?
• How do I get someone to do everything?
• Is it worth my time and effort?

Alrighty so this is the question that gets me fired up.  I’ll step you through the conversation:

Person: James, will outsourcing save me time and money:

Me: Is saving money the most important thing when you’re considering outsourcing?

Person: Yes

Me: Well then, yes, you can use outsourcing to save you money.

Person: Oh, so what, you export jobs off to a third world country and steal jobs from worthy Australians (or wherever).

And that’s where I stop the conversation, because the person doesn’t understand outsourcing and they can’t be bothered learning about it.

I’ll make it very clear:

• You can save buckets of time by hiring a freelancer to do work for you. They could be in Siberia, Serbia or SmallTown USA.  They could be on the other side of the world  or the other side of the street from you.  It does not matter where your freelancer or virtual assistant is.  If you pay them money to do work, you are effectively buying time so you can do whatever you want.
• You can save money by hiring a freelancer in a country where your currency stretches further than it does in your country. Not all countries have the same costs of living.  It is far more expensive to live in Switzerland than the Philippines.  That means one US dollar will buy you a lot more in Manila than in Geneva.  Google the Big Mac index if you want more information.

One of my best freelancers is an engineer.  She earns more per hour working as an assistant for me than she does as an engineer in the Philippines.  If I was to employ an engineer in Australia above their standard hourly rate could I afford it? No way!

This is exactly the reason why outsourcing is allowing people to get their projects up and running.  Previously people would have tried to do things themselves or they would have shelved the project totally.  Why?  Because they couldn’t justify paying local prices to have their project completed.

It’s horses for courses.  Different people want different things and that’s how outsourcing work can help.

Right, now that that is out of my system I’ll move onto the second question:

How do I find one freelancer to do everything for me?

Well, to be honest, you don’t.  That is an unreasonable expectation.  However, if I break it down a bit, I get to the root cause of the question: often people don’t want to have to go to the trouble of managing multiple people and THAT is a perfectly reasonable objection. 

My solution would be to find your version of my Joan.  I can make Joan my one point of contact and delegate everything to her.  We stay in touch by skype every day so she knows exactly what is going on.  These days Joan is able to manage my other freelance team members and ensure that everything comes together.  You CAN find freelancers with these skills and let me tell you – it’s amazing.  It allows you to spend more time on other productive pursuits or sip coconut water on the beach.

There are two downsides to this though:

• It’s more expensive because you are employing extra people
• It’s difficult to find and train someone to the point where they operate exactly as you want them to.

Saying that though, the final benefits outweigh the downsides, so you CAN have one freelancer do it all for you.

The final most commonly asked question is: “is it worth my time and effort”?

In my opinion and my experiences, yes.  Of course, if you’re trying to get a freelancer to cure cancer or design a nuclear bomb, then outsourcing might not be for you.  And if you’re designing a nuclear bomb I’m really disappointed.

I have had so many positive experiences with outsourced workers that I just wish I started earlier.  I have made some great friends who started off as my freelancers.  I visited my team in the Philippines and got to know them.  I have helped unemployed and under-employed people all over the world – including plenty in my own city. 

Yes, outsourcing is worth the time and effort.  If you do it properly and take advice when it’s offered, you can have a very effective and efficient workforce of people committed to helping you realize your dreams, as long as it’s not a nuclear bomb.

Outsourcing can allow you to save time and money.  It can allow you to buy time so you can spend extra hours developing a project, with the grand kids or travelling the world.  Having freelance workers can assist you in shaping the lifestyle of your dreams.

Thanks again for listing to the Outsourcing 101 Podcast.  I hope this information has been interesting and revealing.  Next episode we’re talking about how to manage freelance workers so be sure to subscribe for that one.

In this episode James Mackay shares the top 3 things outsourcers need to do to make the process flow. Check out http://outsourcing101course.com to sign up for The Free Outsourcing 101 Course that includes video tutorials and much more!

Last time we talked about how to handle problem freelancers. In this episode I am going to talk about the three most important things an outsourcer needs to do to ensure the process is effective and efficient.

Today we’re going to discuss:

• Security and trust
• Training
• Mindset

I talk with may people who tell me they just don’t feel confident handing their life’s work over to a total stranger to work on. It’s understandable on one level, isn’t it? Sometimes people work on things for so long that they treat the project almost as a child; they become very defensive and protective of whatever it happens to be.

Well, I have some bad news. These people are really going to struggle getting the most out of outsourcing. If you have been with me since episode one, you might remember how we discussed one of the singularly most important benefits of outsourcing some of your work: It allows you to effectively “buy time”.

I’ll recap it very quickly: if you have a task that might take you 5 hours to complete, you could outsource the job to someone else. If it costs you $100 then you have effectively bought 5 hours that you can put towards lying under a coconut tree, or possibly put the time towards working on another aspect of your business or project. See how it works?

But if you are the kind of person who can’t bring your self to let go, then what’s going to happen is this:

• You decide you want to run a webinar and you want 100 powerpoint slides done to show in the webinar. The slides would take you 5 hours so, after much deliberation, you decide to get a virtual assistant (also known as a VA) to do it for you.
• You hire the VA on the strict condition he sign a non-disclosure agreement
• You’ve put hundreds of hours of work into this business already so it pains you to send the necessary files over to the VA. You do it anyway.
• At this point you could either take a deep breath and wait for the results, or you could take the path that leads to massive inefficiency and you decide to keep an eye on the VA to make sure he’s doing the right thing.
• You watch the Upwork work diary like a vulture and you send the VA multiple messages with instructions and observations.
• The job takes 10 hours and you’re not happy about that. The Powerpoint looks good but you can’t get over the fact it took you twice as long as you were expecting.
• You demand the VA deletes all the files you sent him

That’s an example of how not to use a VA to be more efficient. Sure, it’s important to make sure the VA does the work you’re hoping for and it’s important to be keep your information secure. But just remember – you should be setting clear outlines and expectations before the job so you shouldn’t need to be hovering all day.

As for security – you can ask an international freelancer to sign a non disclosure agreement or any other type of contract but unless you’re running a multi national corporation, you won’t have the resources to chase it up through an international court. I won’t say the contract isn’t worth the paper it’s written on, but you get the idea.

And now, a little word about training.

I’d like to use another example here. This is a true story. A friend of mine, who will remain nameless because he promised to listen to this course and I don’t want to embarrass him, was in charge of sending out invoices for his company. It was a company offering a high-end subscription service, so there were about 20 customers paying exactly the same amount each week.

Doing the invoicing should have been automatic but it wasn’t. So he had to go into Excel – yes, that’s what they used for their invoicing – punch in the details of each customer, update the details and create a PDF invoice. It took about 3 minutes for each one, so an hour in total. Let’s say his time is worth $50 an hour.

That means:

• He’s wasting $50 a week
• Wasting $200 a month
• Which adds up to nearly two and a half thousand dollars a year!

What could you do with $2,500 a year?

Now, imagine this alternative scenario:

• He asks around if anyone knows a good VA who could help him
• As his friend, he knows I am familiar with outsourcing, so I recommend him an awesome outsourcer
• He does his invoicing as normal the next week but this time he uses camtasia and records his screen and records his voice as he does everything
• He spends an extra hour doing up an FAQs and some further instructions
• He hires my VA for $10 an hour per week, gives her the video and instructions and holds his breath
• The freelancer sends him all the completed PDF invoices each week and he simply forwards them to the appropriate people.

Now Josh, ooops, I mean this guy, had an advantage because he didn’t need to find a good VA because I gave him one. But you can see how much time and effort he says over the year – at least $2,000!

This brings up the matter of mindset. You need to get over the feeling that you have to do everything yourself. It’s just not true. Once you break through the mindset life will become easier.

I understand the mindset situation can set you back for 2 reasons:

• You don’t want to get share all your confidential information. I can’t really tell you what to do, but I can suggest that as the intellectual property owner, you need to make that decision for yourself. If you are 100% adamant that you need legal protection, then maybe you should consider hiring someone in your own legal jurisdiction. That way you can chase them through the courts – if that’s really what you want to do.
• You can’t see the point in training someone when you could just do the job itself. It’s not worth the time and effort. OK – it’s true that sometimes there’s a requirement to do some training up front. But my experience is that if you do that training well enough and set clear guidelines, you will be rewarded with well trained and efficient freelance workers.

 These are decisions that you, as the future outsourcer, need to make.

And that’s all I have for today’s episode. We spoke about the three important things outsourcers need to address when using freelance workers – security, training and mindset. It’s now up to you to implement them as you see fit.

Don’t forget, as always, to drop by outsourcing101course.com to pick up your freebie. You can get to all our podcast episodes by simply typing in outsourcing101course.com forward slash the episode number where we have transcriptions and a different freebie each week.

The freebie for this week is a worksheet where you can calculate how much training you can give a Virtual Assistant before it no longer becomes worth the money. Very interesting way to see if you are using your time appropriately.

As always, I thank you for taking the time to listen to the podcast. A lot of effort goes into producing the episodes and the follow up website so I really do appreciate you taking the time to drop by and listen. If you are enjoying the podcast please subscribe and maybe leave a review. We are trying to spread the word of outsourcing far an wide and leaving a review or rating helps us spread the word.

Drop by for the upcoming episodes because I cover the most common questions I am asked about outsourcing, and the big one: how to manage your freelance workers.

In this episode James Mackay shares the concept of “hire fast, fire fast” and how weeding out problem employees early can save you time and money. Check out http://outsourcing101course.com to sign up for The Free Outsourcing 101 Course that includes video tutorials and much more!

In this episode we are going to uncover one of the most important aspects of outsourcing: how to handle problem freelancers.

We can break this up into a few parts:

• Managing and improving output
• Knowing when to call it quits

Let’s go through each section now and I’ll explain how and why I do each of these things. 

Most outsourcers are running their own show. Every dollar is important and we don’t have the time or money to waste on outcomes that don’t achieve what they are supposed to.

We can put in place methods to hire the right freelancer. We can institute systems to make sure we give over a great project brief to our employees. We can even draw sketches and designs to make things as clear as possible. 

But sometimes things just don’t work out.

So what can we do? How do we fix this before we slide into a massive pool of oblivion, also known as “I give up”. The good news is, you don’t have to waste money. We can fix this pretty easily.

It’s never fun when someone rips you off and that’s often the feeling you get when your freelancers get paid but don’t deliver what you expect. 

Upfront, you need to have ticked off a few things:

• Have you given them a clear project brief?
• Do they understand the brief?
• Were there any doubtful points they needed clarification on?

It’s not unusual for freelancers to say what you want to hear: they know exactly what you want, that they have the skills to do it and they will have it delivered on time.

Have you ever heard of the concept of “hire fast, fire fast”? So we have already spent a significant amount of time figuring out how to hire the best freelancers we can, so we won’t go through that again. What we will do, however, is adapt our saying a little and change it to “Hire fast, fire faster”.

Now don’t get me wrong, it won’t always mean you need to hire your freelancers, but you have to nip the problems in the bud early, so they don’t end up costing you lots of time and money.

I’ll give you an example…

Once I wanted to get an animated explainer video done. I wrote the script and even sourced the sound effects. I thought I had laid everything out for the animator, as much as I could.

I hired the freelancer and then let him get stuck into the job. Unfortunately, I had a few things on my plate and I wasn’t able to track his work to make sure he was doing the right thing. 

Remember, Upwork has a feature where I can see screenshots of what my freelancers are working on. It’s very cool and very good for this kind of thing. 

If I had bothered to look or I had bothered to ask for a daily report, I could have saved myself a lot of time and money.

The freelancer had gone off and started designing a video in totally the wrong format! I wanted a black felt on whiteboard style thing and he was doing a full colour computer animation style movie.

So here’s the first tip: stay right on top of what the freelancer is doing. I don’t mean micro-manage everything they do, but at least take the time to get a report, or check for yourself.

And there I was: I had an animation for my product that didn’t fit with the other movies so it was totally out of place. But it was my fault because I never actually specified I wanted white on black. I assumed he would do the same. That was my problem: I assumed!!

When a freelancer isn’t delivering what they should be, or they are working slowly or the result isn’t what you expect, you need to communicate that clearly and in a timely manner.

Send them a message. Be firm but respectful and indicate that you are unhappy with the current situation. You should make it clear that the problem requires resolution.

In some countries you need to give employees 3 written warnings before you can fire them. This is not the case with freelancers. If you have just hired someone for a job and you are testing them out, you can tell pretty quickly if they are the right fit.

As an example, I had 4 podcast episodes that I need transcribing. I knew I had more episodes to transcribe so I wanted to find a good transcriptionist. So, I hired 4 transcriptionists and gave them all the same instructions. Double line spaced, Calibri font, 10 point size. Identify each speaker, etc etc. The only thing that was different was the audio file.

They got to work and I could quickly see how different they were. One guy kept asking questions. One girl wanted to know the font. Both of these raised suspicions because it’s a pretty easy job, so the red flag was up early. Now, I figured it would take 2 hours to transcribe 30 minutes of audio. Sure enough, one girl delivered her word doc file just after two hours.

She had formatted it nicely. She had proof read it and followed all my instructions. Perfect. She was the only one to deliver the file to me on the same day.

Unfortunately, I don’t have time or the inclination to keep people on staff when they can’t follow simple instructions or take to long to deliver. So I thanked the other three transcriptionists for their work and ended their contracts. Because this was early in the relationship, there was no problem. I lost nothing by ending their contracts and I had not committed to further work, so there was no problem. Don’t be afraid to shop around for the freelancer that best suits your requirements. You’ll find them.

Then, of course, there’s the kind of trouble that arises after you have been employing a freelancer for a long time and they work they are delivering isn’t right. You have sent sternly worded emails to correct the behavior. You have threatened to end the contract.

But there’s a problem: you might have already spent thousands and thousands of dollars and you haven’t got a product yet. So what do you do now?

This is a super tricky situation, mainly because of a phenomenon called “feature creep”. With a large, long term project the specifications and requirements will change over time. For example, if you are getting a website built, it’s likely that by the end of the project, the website looks and operates differently to what you originally anticipated. And that’s ok, because sometimes before you start a project you won’t know exactly what you’re looking for, so you adapt and change.

But here’s the problem: if you gave the developer the original spec sheet and only made changes by email, you’re in a hard spot. With the contract arrangements on a fixed price contract, the developer only has to deliver what was in the original spec sheet. That’s what you both signed off on, right, and agreed the price to. And if you’ve gone and added the features along the way, you might think what you’re adding would make no material difference but in actual fact it might be fundamentally changing the way the website operates. Therefore, the developer might not make the changes for you and they only have to deliver what was in the original brief.

I suggest you make the changes to the brief and get the developer to sign off as you go. If they are happy to make the extra changes without adding extra zeroes to the balance sheet, then that’s great.

Where it gets even trickier is where you start issuing new feature instructions to the developer and they go ahead and start implementing them. They might not say anything about extra charges or that it affects your program. But don’t take their work as tacit approval that they agree with where it’s going. Unless you get them to agree to a contract change, you have to wear it. They might only be helping because they want a successful contract, nit because they think it’s good.

To be fair, there should be a degree of onus on the freelancer to bring to your attention that your spec changes are outside their remit. But they don’t have to, so don’t go looking to blame them.

If you have changed the brief and not had them officially sign it off, then you’ll have some trouble.

On the other hand, if they simply have not delivered the product even though it was perfectly laid out and spec’d and signed off, then you are in a really good spot. Now you have the right to go back to the freelancer and demand they finish the job immediately or give your money back.

You might need to get Upwork’s adjudication involved but it’s certainly worth the effort if you’re talking about a lot of money.

The take away would be this: if you are struggling with freelancers who are not working to your standard, don’t tolerate it. Address it as early as possible and try to figure something out.

Hire fast, fire faster.

Thanks again for joining me, my fellow and future outsourcers! I hope this information has been somewhat helpful on your journey into outsourcing. Make sure you subscribe to the podcast so you can get all the tips and tricks on how to outsource work so you’ve got more time to do what you love.

Today we are diving in deep about the one issue that seems to vex many outsourcers: hiring the right freelancer.

I break the hiring process into three phases:

• Phase 1: Posting our job ad
• Phase 2: Sorting the candidates
• Phase 3: Testing and measuring 

Let’s go through each phase now and I’ll explain how and why I do each of these things.

Phase 1: Posting our job ad

This isn’t as easy as simply copying and pasting the text from our job ad.  There are a few little refinements I make to get the best result.  It only takes a minute so it’s worth it.

In this instance I’m talking specifically about Upwork but it’s the same process for the others too.

So go ahead and click on the “post a job” link.

This brings up a form that needs to be completed.  Critically, you need to select which category your job falls into.  Take a bit of time and select the right option because if you choose the wrong sub-category you’ll be missing out on many of your best possible candidates because they’ll only be looking for new jobs in their particular niche 

Let’s just say you needed someone to edit your podcast to get rid of the background noise.  There’s no specific podcast category so you need to be a little more lateral – the best I could do would be to select Design and Creative and then a sub category of audio production.  Go ahead and choose the most relevant you can.

Now you cut and paste the headline from your job ad into the job title space.  Don’t make it all caps or use astrices otherwise you’ll look spammy.

In the job description go ahead and paste in the job ad you wrote.  You’ll have to fix the spacing and formatting because the bullet points might have come out funny.

There’s a cool space on this form that allows you to select what skills you need the applicants to possess.  Be realistic and accurate here because Upwork actually scores the applicants on these skills for you.  As you type suggestions will come up and you can choose all that apply.

At this point you have to choose whether you want to go with a fixed price or pay by the hour.  For an ongoing job I pay by the hour but there are certain tasks that fixed prices work for.  You might want five logo drafts done so you could say $15 fixed for 5 drafts.  Be realistic though – you’re not going to get a great result if you want 5 completed logos for $15.

For the rest of the form you have to be both honest and realistic.  You’re filling in how much work you expect to be able to offer the freelancer.  If you’ve only got a small job, say so.  There’s no point saying it’s full time when you’ll only be employing them for a short time.  Remember – freelancers are people and you should treat them with respect.  That goes for the next section, too, when you fill in the section about desired experience level and corresponding pay rate.

If you’re looking for someone who can work independently and can produce great results in a short amount of time, then obviously you will need to pay for that benefit.  If you’re prepared to handle communication issues, lower skill set and a slower turn around, then feel free to set a low price threshold.

But hey, if you’re trying to be the cowboy who’s going to walk into town and post a job ad expecting to hire gun talent for pennies in the dollar, then take a hike.  You’re disrespecting the freelancers and giving the rest of us a bad name. 

On the post a job screen you can also upload files.  This is a good opportunity to show the applicants what you are looking for.  You might post a screenshot of a website you like.  You might have a video describing a task.  Or, and this has saved my bacon on a NUMBER of occasions, try uploading a sketch of what you are looking to get made, built or designed.  If you want a list created, post the template spreadsheet for the applicants to have a look at.  If it’s too complicated they won’t apply, and that is saving you valuable time weeding out the no-hopers.

At the bottom of this page is a cool section where you can put in screening questions.  This serves two purposes:

• 1)         It will check to see if your applicants are switched on enough to write genuine answers or if they’re just writing generic BS
• 2)         It will test their written English, which in some cases is really important. 

Don’t make the questions complicated though – this is just an application.

Finally, in this section you can choose some advanced options to narrow down the type of freelancer you want.  If you’re an American start-up looking for an American to answer Skype calls for your customer support, then you can go ahead and select that you only want Americans. 

There are a few options in there so just fiddle around to select the options you like.

Bear in mind though, this will not stop everyone applying.  It’s not a barrier – it’s a suggestion.  But it will be listed on their applications that they don’t meet your criteria. 

Phase 2:

If you post a job on Upwork you will probably start getting applicants within about 20 minutes.  They won’t all be good or suitable but don’t worry about that for the time being.  I suggest you post the job and come back to it about 24-hours later.  You can go earlier but you’ll be getting applicants throughout that first day so if you get too carried away too early, you might miss a nugget of gold – so to speak.

Sorting the totally unsuitable applicants takes just a few seconds for each.  If they didn’t follow your instructions about a code word, delete them.  If they don’t have your priority skill set, delete them.  It might sound harsh but you set parameters and these people didn’t follow or don’t fit.  You’re here to find a great candidate, not consider every applicant.

Once you’ve gone through the initial sort you’ll probably be left with about 50% of the candidates.  Now you can dive in and check them out.

Here’s what I do: scan the applicants and look for the people who have more than 4 stars and more than 100 hours of work.

If you want to take a punt on a candidate who’s new to Upwork or hasn’t proven themselves, then go right ahead.  But I don’t have time to go through that process and I’m guessing you don’t either.

Read through the list again and right-click-open-in-a-new-tab all the candidates that you think look good.  What we’re doing now is sorting out the good from the very good.

You’ll notice that the applicants are all very different.  They are possibly from all over the world.  They are of different skill level, review scores, hours on site and, most important, their pay rate.

You can automatically discount the applicants who are so far out of your price range you can’t even consider them.  What about skill level?  Are they lots who are new to Upwork?  I delete them.  What about review scores less than 4 stars.  They’re gone. 

Now you can be a little more subjective.  Read through what they say they are good at.  If you’re looking for someone who’s a Photoshop gun you can probably cross  off those people who say they are good at Photoshop, researching, being a personal assistant and an Excel formula expert.  If you’re looking for a Photoshop gun then that’s what you need – not a Jack Of All Trades.

By now you are possibly left with about 3 to ten candidates – and you haven’t even read the applications yet.

This leads us to Phase 3 – testing and measuring.

At this point you can start dropping a message back to the candidates if you think they are suitable.

Read through all the applications and cover letters to see what you like.  And don’t forget the reviews.  These are important but it’s also important to take into account the freelancer’s point of view.  I discount reviews left by unreasonable cowboys looking for a $2 Rolls Royce.

When you’ve found the applicants you think might be good, then I have good news for you:

By and large the candidates you are left with now will be pretty similar and possibly able to achieve the task with an equal degree of success.

But you still have to choose.

So open up your trust Microsoft Word and write up a “first reply” email.  This should be a pretty comprehensive note to all your chosen applicants outlining that you’d like to interview them through Skype and have a chat.

I’ve put a template letter for this purpose up on Outsourcing All Stars for use by members.  Saves you having to write the whole thing from scratch.

Copy and paste the note to your remaining applicants.  Can I suggest you don’t contact more than 6 though?  Otherwise you’ll be bombarded.  And remember – it’s unlikely that one candidate is infinitely better than the others.  You just need to select one that you “click” with.

Generally speaking applicants are very fast to reply about an interview.  Sometimes within a minute.  It’s not unusual for one or two not to reply at all though.  They might have taken another job.  Don’t be offended – it’s simply another one removed from your list.

Once they have got back to you with their Skype credentials, you can add them and have a chat when they’re both online.

Depending what you are hiring them for, it’s a good idea to set a short test or questionnaire for the final 5 or 6.

If you’re wanting an excel sheet completed, then ask them to make 5 entries and have the result back to them within the hour.  Obviously you need to provide the excel template and give specific instructions, such as “Include the details of five pharmacy outlets in the city of Manchester”.   Actually, there’s a handy template on Outsourcing All Stars for compiling lists.

If you’re looking for a web developer it might be a little harder but there are different things you can ask them about.

Once you’ve chatted with a few of the candidates it’s likely you will have found someone you can work with.  Yes, they’re technically working FOR you but you’ll end up spending a lot of time working WITH them so see if you’ve got chemistry – and the all important respect for each other.

Now that you’ve found someone I suggest you tell them that you want to hire them but that you will be forced to terminate the contract if they fail to live up to your expectations.

Again, be realistic.  If you want them to be available 8 hours a day between 9am and 5pm, then that needs to be included in the job ad.  If you all of a sudden tell them after a week that you need them to do that, then there’s going to be friction.

Just remember to go through everything you will expect from a freelancer and make it clear.  Freelancers are awesome but they are not mind readers.  Don’t get upset at something you could have prevented.

That’s it for this episode.  Next time I’ll be sharing my strategies for handling problem freelancers so your business or project can continue to be awesome.

For more information about this episode visit outsourcing101course.com/11 and sign up for the free course at outsourcing101course.com.

In this episode James Mackay shares how to write a job ad: what attracts the right candidates and what information needs to go into the initial advertisement.

Hello, hello, hello and welcome back to the Outsourcing 101 Course Podcast.  Thanks for joining me yet again.  I appreciate that you have a choice of podcasts and I am glad you’re back here.

Today’s topic is pretty important.  It’s less subjective and more Objective.

Just like with anything else, setting down your expectations are critical when you are trying to get someone to do something.

Generally speaking you would see a corporate or even a well-organised small business put together both job ads and position descriptions?  Why?  Because it allows everyone to understand exactly what’s expected of them.  There’s no confusion and disappointment.

Most importantly, in the long run it saves the most important asset that you can never get back: time.

Time and time again I see people post stupid job ads that end up in the whole process being a debacle.  Simply posting a job ad that says “Wordpress developer required to build website” is simply wasting everyone’s time.

Now that outsourcer is going to get flooded with unsuitable applications from totally unsuitable candidates.  And the well-qualified people won’t apply because they have better things to do than waste their time with incomplete job ads.

The outsourcer will get the 50 applications, and start wading through them.  They’ll probably be stoked that people from all over the world are applying, from as little as $1 an hour!  Bargain, right?  Well, my experience shows that if you hire one of those freelancers you are opening yourself up to a world of pain.  Here’s a few reasons why:

• 1)         They have no idea what the job is (because your job ad was so vague)
• 2)         The probably won’t understand your instructions right up front
• 3)         The number of emails back and forth will bury the outsourcer

4)     The quality of the work will be very poor.  I mean, come on – what kind of website are you going to get for $1 an hour?

So what’s the solution?  I’m going to give you a much better chance at hiring an appropriate freelancer by helping set the basics up front.

Step 1: Open up a word doc 

Step 2: Write three headings a few lines apart.  Here are the headings; a) What I need done  b) The successful candidate should be able to and finally, c) It is essential you can:

The next bit should only take about 4 or 5 minutes.  Go ahead and write a few things under each heading.  The first one should be sentences describing your project.  You don’t have to give away vital secrets but you do need to explain what you’re looking for.  Are you trying to get a basic online store made?  Say that and explain a little about why and how it could be achieved.

If you’re not an expert in the field you are hiring for, say that.  Be upfront about your lack of technical expertise and explain that you’re looking for some guidance, if that’s the case.

Move on to the second point.  This can be bullet points so go ahead and write as many things you can think of that will be relevant.  Same example… The successful candidate should be able to:

•            Work independently and not have to ask questions every day
•              Make decisions about which development platform to use and which online store method we should adopt
•            Be proficient with PHP

You get the idea.  Set the parameters and let them know what you expect.

The final section is the same sort of thing but essential jobs, such as:

It is essential you can:

•          Have access to and a knowledge of Wordpress
•          Write me 100 words every day to explain the progress and the status of the project
•          Have reliable internet and electricity supply

Go ahead and include whatever you need to. 

Within 5 minutes you should have put together a pretty nice little job ad. 

There are sample job ads up on Outsourcing All Stars so you don’t have to write them from scratch.

Now here are two things that I do to maximize applications from not just qualified, but switched on candidates:

Number one: I make the last line of my job ads read as this: “On your application put the word “donkey” in the first sentence.  Applications without the codeword will be deleted without being read.” 

Why do I do this?  We’ll call it my own little spam filter.  It saves you having to trawl through job applications from people who didn’t even take the time to read through the ad.  I mean, what’s the point of having a candidate – even if they are qualified – if they can’t follow simple instructions?

I know – it’s strange but hey – it works.

The final step is to create a good headline.  In about 8 words you can separate the cream from the rest.  Don’t mention what you project is all about but rather, identify what you are looking for.  Here’s an example:

“Experienced word press developer required to set up online store in woo commerce”

The go ahead and post it.  If you get the option to, make the post appear public so you can get as many people as possible read it.  They won’t all apply but even if underqualified applicants do have a go, you’ll be able to weed them out using the anti-spam technique.

Some platforms, such as Fiverr, require you to choose the applicant and then provide the job specs.  I don’t love this style but I guess it’s ok for tiny jobs because hey, you’re not losing much at the end of the day.

 And that’s about it.  That’s the best way to get the right applicants based on a job ad.

Next time I’ll share how I go about presenting the job ad properly on Upwork and then how to go through the interview process to make sure you hire the right freelancer.

Pssst: have you signed up for the free (totally, 100% free) Outsourcing 101 Course?  And if you want more info on this episode you can visit the special page we set up just for this episode: outsourcing101course.com/10

Do you go for a fixed price or pay by the hour?  This question is the cornerstone of the whole process of hiring someone.  Obviously, it depends on the task that you need completing.  If you wanted to compile a list of all the beauty therapists in your city you might agree to work on a piece rate, ie you pay a researcher 20 cents for each entry they add to the list.  But if you have an ongoing job – say for a graphic artist, you might pay them by the hour. 

Why?  Well, if you’re continually giving them new jobs to work on it’s just unrealistic to expect someone to work on a fixed rate.  Also, things like graphics are so subjective that you might need 6 changes made… and that isn’t fair to work on a fixed rate per project either.

At all times you need to remember our overriding principle – freelancers are people too.  You should treat them with respect and acknowledge they are adding value to your company or your project.

Some examples of things you might do on a fixed rate would be:

• Designing a logo
• Having a new form built on your website
• Researching addresses of businesses – that would be a fixed rate per address
• Writing a legal letter or contract

When you are paying by the hour you might consider the following as examples:

• Ongoing graphic design
• Content writing for a website
• Search Engine Optimisation
• Customer support email answering

Of course, you’re not the only person in this business relationship.  You have to consider the position of the freelancer as much as yourself.  Just because you want to do a fixed price doesn’t mean you’ll be able to find someone to work on that arrangement. 

You might be forced to put people on an hourly basis.  Of course, you might not want to do this for a number of reasons, the primary being: you don’t want to pay someone in case they don’t do the work!

Fair point!  Who does want to pay in that case?  But sometimes the freelancer won’t want to do a fixed price for exactly the same reason you DO want to do a fixed rate: sometimes it’s just too difficult to quantify exactly how much work is involved!

Of course, human beings can be unpredictable, so you might get a freelancer come along and offer fixed prices for work.  Who knows what their motivations might be?  Maybe they are trying to rack up as many jobs on Upwork as they can and they don’t care about the hours?  Maybe they are desperate for the job and just want to impress you.

Be mindful, of course, that it is absolutely essential that you let the freelancers know exactly what you expect from them.  The last thing you want is some misunderstanding and then a dispute over pricing.  It’s the perfect and possibly most important reason to get a contract brief between employer and freelancer.

Sometimes you might need to negotiate to get to the right outcome.  Same as anything else, right?

The takeaway here is to figure out what you want and how that can be interpreted.  If it’s the kind of job that can be clearly defined, then a fixed price might work.

If neither you nor the freelancer can accurately determine how much work is actually going to be involved, then you might settle for an hourly rate.  It can be hard.

So there you have it.  Thanks again for joining me, my fellow and future outsourcers!  I hope this information has been somewhat helpful on your journey into outsourcing.  Make sure you subscribe to the podcast so you can get all the tips and tricks on how to outsource work so you’ve got more time to do what you love.

If you want more information about this episode go to outsourcing101course.com/9 and sign up for the free Outsourcing 101 Course at outsourcing101course.com . It's free - why wouldn't you?

Summary of the episode:

This is the age old question.  There’s a politically charged motivation here – about shipping jobs out of your country. So yes, if that’s important to you, go ahead and hire locally.

Advantage of local worker:     

• Speak your language 
• Work in your time zone
• Understand local nuances
• More protection with legal documents

 Disadvantages:

• Probably no cost saving compared to going offshore

 But if you’re more concerned about finding the right person who can complete your job as you require, then don’t discount the idea of offshoring the work.

Advantages of going world wide:

• Depending on your economy and theirs, sometimes cheaper
• More potential applicants
• Wider skill set
• Work while you are sleeping

·       Disadvantage:

• Language barriers
• Attitude to work
• Different skills to what you are used to
• Difficult to enforce legal documents

For more information about this episode visit outsourcing101course.com/8 and sign up for the free course at outsourcing101course.com.

Transcript of this episode:

People get so excited about the idea of outsourcing.  They want to get stuck in so they can “buy time” and spend all the extra time doing whatever they love.  Sometimes I go to parties or lunches or whatever and inevitably people ask me what I do.  When I tell them about how involved I am with outsourcing, their ears prick up and they become more interested in the conversation.  “I’ve always thought about getting a virtual assistant to help with my admin” they might say, or “I love the idea of getting a website made so cheaply”.  You know the sort of thing I’m talking about.

So if outsourcing is one of the key components on the path to success, why do so many people not follow through? 

In this episode I am going to address some of the fundamental blockages and talk about why they occur and how to avoid them.

The good news is that all the problems are fixable.

To start with, let’s talk about the key reasons that people give up:

1. They don’t know where to start
2. They write poor job descriptions and get poor freelancers
3. The work they get done isn’t as good quality as they wanted
4. It’s more trouble than it’s worth
5. They micro-manage their workers and waste their own time
6. They are unsure of the legalities.
7. The are worried about security.

Let’s discuss each in a little more detail. 

Number 1: they don’t know where to start.  Well, golly.  I’d like to think that by now that would not be the case.  Those people that I would meet at the cocktail parties really just have to listen to the podcast and they could get an idea of how to start, right?  Just to recap, it would look like this:

• Clearly describe what you are looking to get done – include sketches, notes and anything else that would assist a remote employee to complete the task
•          Write a job ad detailing the requirements
•          Go on an outsourcing platform such as Fiverr, Upwork or 99 Designs
•          Hire a freelancer
•          Get stuff done

It doesn’t have to be hard or complicated.  Sure, it can be intimidating the very first time you try it, but isn’t everything?  Just dip a toe in the water and start with an easy project so you can see what’s what.

Number 2: They write poor job descriptions and get poor freelancers

I want to make it clear that even if you have a great job description there is a chance that you might end up with a poor freelancer.  Sometimes that just happens.  But it’s encumbent on you as the outsourcer to do a few small things to try to get the best outsourced worker that you can.

Start with a good job description.  That includes clear instructions, a concise outline of the project and make sure your goals and expected outcomes are clearly communicated.

The second step is to make sure you spend some time going through the applications.  Sure, you can hire the cheapest available worker – I once hired someone for 80 cents an hour just to see how it would go.  Not surprisingly, it didn’t go well.  You don’t have to employ someone from a specific geographic region, either.  If the talent that you require happens to be in the next street, then great – go for it. 

You have to get the best person for the job, not the cheapest pay rate.  If a good result is what you’re after spend some time choosing the right person.  Otherwise you’ll get a second rate job, then you’ll get disillusioned with outsourcing and you’ll give up.

Number 3: The work they get done isn’t as good quality as they wanted

Nip that in the bud!  This topic is discussed in the episode called “how to handle a problem freelancer” but suffice to say: you have to make sure that work that is below your level of expectation is stopped before it becomes a big problem. 

If you’re paying for the project on an hourly basis you can keep a close eye on what’s going on and give instructions accordingly.  If it’s a one off or set fee, you don’t have quite the same amount of investigative ability.  So what does it all come down to?  A clear and concise job description.  Make everything crystal clear, go over it with the freelancer to ensure they have no problems with what they are supposed to be doing.  

Check out outsourcing101course.com/7 for more information about this podcast episode or head to outsourcing101course.com to join the free course.  Yes, free!  People keep asking me why I give away so much free content.  Well, because I'm a nice guy... :)

Transcription of this episode:

In this episode I’m going to share a story that will either make you roll your eyes, feel sorry for me or laugh at me.  Maybe you’ll do all three.

Back in the late 1990’s I started working at my family company.  It was a software publishing company called Manaccom.  We put software programs into boxes and sold them through retail stores.

By about 2006 we could see the end of this business model was approaching.  Downloads would replace store bought software and we needed to act to prevent our business from collapsing.  So we sat down and had an all day brainstorming session.  At the end of the day we realised we were in a bit of trouble.  There was no way we’d be able to maintain our position as a software publisher because developers would go direct to consumers or at the very least they would go through online malls.  We see that now with the App Store and similar.

Obviously we needed to come up with a plan.  We decided to maintain our focus on software but split it into two areas: corporate software licenses and web applications using the cloud as the backbone of the technology.

It was decided that I would run the web app section of the company and other people would do the licencing.

And then came the hard part: what exactly would we develop?  Our goal was to make solutions to solve problems and our offering had to be able to have global reach.  We dabbled in a few areas to test how they might go but eventually we settled on two solutions:

First we constructed a web app called 2Large2Email which was basically a way to send large files across the internet.  Bear in mind this was nearly ten years ago so this was a pretty big deal.

The second cool little app that we made was called Ecofiling.  Strange name, I know, but basically this cool little web app allowed small businesses to have a file storage system in the cloud so employees could store, check and edit documents in a controlled space.  So I guess it was a little like Box – or box.net as it was known back then.

Now, I know this episode is called My journey and my one million dollar mistake but may it should be my one billion dollar mistake.  Because here’s the funny thing:

One day in about 2007 I pitched a cool little idea to the board of the company.  Twitter had just started to make a name for itself but it was in that period of its life where, every second day, they would be having the “fail whale” because their system had done down again. 

But anyway, I took inspiration from Twitter and pitched to the board that we should develop a Twitter like app but only for photos.  People could share pics, follow other people and make comments on them.  I couldn’t believe it but the board said no – because Twitter was a flash in the pan and no one would want to waste time sharing photos.

Instagram didn’t agree and they went on to sell for a billion dollars.  Ahh well.

So back to the story.  2Large2Email and Ecofiling were the first projects I ever worked on where I used outsourcing to deliver projects. 

We had a couple of amazing employees – shout out to Ben and Nigel – but to complete the task we also employed copywriters, voiceover talent and extra developers.

Employing short term contractors in this capacity showed me just how scalable outsourcing can be: I needed small jobs completed quickly and painlessly.  Outsourcing provided that for me.

The good news is that 2Large2Email and Ecofiling were both successfully launched and operated with customers around the world.  Our own company depended on Ecofiling so we knew it worked and it was robust.

Then things started to fall apart.

I had options and shares in the company, which, if I still had them today would have been worth at their highest, nearly two million Australian.

And guess what? The company that my parents started in my bedroom in 1986 was sold to a company on the Australian Stock Exchange.  Not long after, I was sacked by email while overseas on a business trip.  Classy, huh?

But guess what the worst bit was.  I had all my options stripped away from me, reducing their value to me to a big fat zero.

Obviously I learnt a lot of lessons in my time at Manaccom, including that nothing beats being your own boss.  I also learned that outsourcing can be an efficient and effective way to get stuff done.

Oh, and eighteen months after I was sacked that company went into administration.  Bummer.

When I left Manaccom I started another online company, this time a drop ship ecommerce company.  This went really well and a year and a half after I started it, I sold it for more money than I could have dreamed possible.

Again, it showed me how much value outsourcing can add to your company.  I’m not saying that I sent all the work offshore but I am happy with the results we got.  We outsourced a lot of copywriting, image editing, development and that kind of work.

Since then I’ve dabbled with a few more start ups and they have all had at least some input with outsourcing.  Because, let’s face it – I don’t have the technical ability to do all that stuff myself.

So there you go.  My story and my $1,000,000 mistake.  But you know what?  I look at the positive side – if I had never left Manaccom I wouldn’t have had all the new opportunities open up before me.

Over all this time I guess I have become a bit of an expert on outsourcing.  People ask me ALL THE TIME how they get started… what the secrets for hiring freelancers are…. How to save money…. How to MAKE money…. You name it, people are asking me.  And that, fellow outsourcers, is the reason I have put together all these resources.  So you too can enjoy the benefits that come along with outsourcing some or all of your tasks.

If you’re struggling with it, there’s always a solution.  We can help either through this free podcast, the free video training, Outsourcing All Stars or a mentorship.