Over the weekend, the comment spam bots visited to inform me of the good news. 200+ spam comments later, I’ve finally gotten around to installing the recatchpa-comment plugin :). Sorry for the inconvenience, but all new comments will require you to complete the little catchpa thing. Just type the letters as they appear into the field provided.

Goodbye spam!

Related posts

• No related posts.

This is the second article in a 2 part series. You can find Part 1. The ‘3 Flavours of Freelancers’ here. It discusses the features and risks associated with the different types of freelancer.

Part 2. The 4 Flavours of Outsource Service Providers

So much choice... Does it really matter?

This article discusses outsource companies, as opposed to individual freelancers. Hiring a company to do your work can offer some significant advantages over a freelancer, but it does come at a cost.

Outsource Service Providers- General Information

Before we dive into their respective models, here are some of the general pros and cons of using a service provider/company instead of a freelancer.

Pros

• May apply more rigorous development and project management systems to the work, lowering the risk of failure
• May be able to offer a range of professionals. Diversity of skills allows for multiple tasks to be carried out simultaneously
• Scalability, can often add more people or remove people at short notice
• May appoint project managers or project leads to manage the team for you. This gives you a single point of contact and a single point of accountability if something goes wrong
• Can ‘crank out’ large quantities of work in very short period of time. The easiest way to get bigger projects done FAST!
• In-house infrastructure such as hosting/development environments can reduce your costs in the short term

Cons

• Less visibility of work (you’re likely to have groups of people doing your work, without knowing who they are or their skill sets)
• A greater tendency to ‘black box’ work. That is, hide the work from you until it is ‘finished’ in their opinion, and then ambush you to signoff on the project on the due date
• Can have trouble with communicating requirements because of ‘Chinese whispers’. Often there is a single representative appointed to act as a go between, screening you from direct interaction with the people doing the work
• Some companies are skilled at extracting more money for less work. Particularly if they control development environments, you could find yourself held to ransom by an unscrupulous provider
• May get lower skilled labour assigned to your project, resulting in lower quality output (the classic bait and switch)
• Larger companies may be less committed to your success if they have a high volume of work. One bad review can be buried very quickly, and may be less expensive than fixing the project. Sucks if it’s your project they decide to cut their losses on
• Jack of all trades mentality. ‘We’re experts at everything’ attitude can result in generally poorer quality product, and many companies are reluctant to admit which areas they are stronger or weaker in

Where do they come from?

Online, Outsource Service Providers come from just about everywhere. Like freelancers, they tend to be predominately from developing nations; however unlike freelancers, a large proportion of providers have created ‘local’ presences particularly in the US and UK. There are also a lot of locally based companies that do the opposite to compete in this space. In addition to their local business operations, they create a business unit offshore and send work there to be completed at lower cost, whilst charging you a premium rate.

Below, we’ll discuss the 4 distinct models that I’ve come across are:

• Type 1: Standard Full Service Providers
• Type 2: Specialised Service Providers
• Type 3: White Label ‘Full Service’ Middlemen
• Type 4: White Label ‘Hands Off’ Middlemen

Type 1: Standard Full Service Providers

These are just your standard one-stop-shops. These are the most common outsource providers online, and typically brand themselves as ‘website builders’, ‘online marketing’, or ‘virtual personal assistants’ etc. They hire multi-disciplinary teams, break your project into bits and allocate the tasks. You’ll usually have a team lead that you deal with exclusively, and will have very limited access to the people doing your work. If it’s a larger project ($20K+) you’ll often get to deal directly with the company owner, in addition to the team leader.

The structure I’ve seen applied regularly is:

• Sales and bidding is done by the most proficient English speaker/writer, usually with a background in the subject matter
• Once the work is won, a project/team lead is appointed to work with you. They are usually are highly qualified. You discuss requirements with them, they pass this onto your ‘team’. They are responsible for managing your ‘team’.
• You have limited interaction with your ‘team’, they are often fairly junior people such as freshly minted graduates. I’ve noticed that particularly in software firms, people in these teams often have weak English and technical skills compared to the ‘front men’ in the business
• You pay a compound hourly rate or predetermined fixed cost based on your project. You do not hire individuals and you don’t get to choose them
• They are pretty much the same as local service providers, except that they’re based somewhere not local and they’re a a lot cheaper

Pros

• Scalability. These organisations can be big- it is not unusual to see companies (claiming) to have 50+ staff. They can add and remove people from your project as required to meet your deadline.
• Ease of use. If you’re new to outsourcing, or new to the field you’re outsourcing (like web development) these firms offer an easy way to launch and manage a project. You just have to know what you want…
• Most of the project management can be taken care of for you, leaving you to focus on your business
• Single point of contact can be convenient
• You don’t have to worry about finding multiple professionals to do the various bits you need done. You can just dump it all with the same company
• Redundancy of skills. If someone is off, away sick etc. then they can often be quickly replaced. If the company uses adequate documentation and work management systems, they can pick up where the last person left off so you project is not interrupted.

Cons

• More expensive than freelancers. With additional infrastructure costs, and the need to pay wages as well as maintain a profit margin, these guys are nearly always more expensive than an equivalent freelancer
• Lack of visibility of your team and of the work being done. You could be paying a compound rate of $20/hr, for skills that you could buy for $10/hr. Also, because you can’t see who’s doing what, it may be very late in the project before discovering that quality has become are really big issue. The only thing worse than 10 hours of wasted effort is 50
• Lack of accountability. The more people involved, the richer the ground for blame shifting. Can be very frustrating especially when coupled with delayed communications because of time zones.
• You have limited control. When quality issues arise, all you can do is request that the problem be fixed. However, if there is a systematic weakness (such as one or more of your team being too unskilled) you are somewhat powerless to properly identify and resolve it. Instead you have to deal with a constant barrage of corrections which can ultimately cause the project to fail.

What are they good for?

Full service outsource providers are far better for larger projects than freelancers, and can offer you a scalable workforce; just remember that they still need to be closely managed to succeed at complex work.

They’re also a great way to get started if you haven’t outsourced before. If you’re sure where to start and need support and advice with managing a (simple) project, they offer a very good solution.

To a lesser extent, they’re also useful for business people who have a clear understanding of what they want, but don’t have time to micromanage the project. If the work they’re doing is integral to the business however (like a website for an ecommerce business) you should NOT adopt a ‘hands off’ approach!

General recommendation for Full Service Outsource Providers:

Great if you have a big job, clear requirements, and a solid project plan. In some ways, they’re the ‘lazy mans’ solution to outsourcing. You pay for the convenience, but depending on your situation, they can provide a great outcome.

Type 2: Specialised Service Providers

These companies build up a team of skilled professionals in a particular field, and actually say ‘no’ to work outside of their expertise. Examples might include graphic designers, database design and administration, or specialists in a particular software language like C++. They are in the minority, as most providers tend to diversify.

Pros

• Tend to be very good at their particular field, and have extensive experience
• Often get better ‘bang for your buck’. Output quality is usually higher, and work gets done more quickly than with ‘full service’ providers
• Makes it easier to understand what you are buying. Eg you’re getting X quantifiable skill
• Can offer significant ‘value add’ in their field of expertise

Cons

• Can be a nuisance to hire and coordinate multiple teams from multiple companies. For example, on a simple website project you might have hired an ASP.NET specialist, and graphic design firm. That’s 2 sets of proposals, double the bid management, and now you’ve got 2 distinct projects to coordinate. This can quite easily become 3 or 4 if you consider testing, HTML generation, etc.
• Limited scope of experience outside their particular expertise. This may result in them being less able to add value or contribute to other areas of your project
• May quote higher prices than generalist providers, and it can be difficult to tell upfront if there really is a value advantage
• You may be tempted to encourage them to ‘stretch’ and do work that they are not familiar with, resulting in poor quality output
• If you aren’t sure of your requirements, they can be difficult to work with and coordinate in a cost effective way

What are they good for?

Specialist providers are great for when you know what you want. If you can define the skill sets you need, and you require more then 20hrs of them in a given week, there is no better option. You will get a better result, generally at a lower cost, then if you were to use a full service provider.

However, it can be difficult to differentiate specialists because that’s what everyone claims to be. Also once you do find a company that is really great at something, you will be tempted to have them do more of your work. ‘They’re great at X, so they’ll be great at Y’ has ended in tears for me a couple of times. Keep the work isolated to what they’re proven to be good at; as with freelancers, only hire for a single discipline.

General recommendation for Specialist Service Providers:

Great if you have a big single discipline job, clear requirements, and a solid project plan. For smaller jobs, I would usually look for freelancer’s that offer the same thing. They usually cost less and are easier to work with (no Chinese whispers).

Type 3: White Label ‘Full Service’ Middlemen

Not sure what white label means? Click here for my article or here for wikipedia

These companies will bid on your project as a local service provider. If they win, they’ll sub-contract the work to freelancers, less their cut. They usually operate under a company brand, and are often locally based. They’ll emphasis that they’re a trustworthy ‘US’ company for example, and promote their local credentials. They’ll often have a core team that manage the outsourced work, but don’t do to much of it themselves.

This is an increasingly common model being used by local service providers in the US, UK, Australia, and Canada. Outsourcing work offers them the same dramatic cost savings and scalability available to you. But, you get the assurance of using a local business… it just so happens that the work is done somewhere else. Does it matter that they don’t do it themselves?

The ethics of charging you a local price is a separate debate

Next time you get a logo produced at your local graphics studio, it’s reasonable to wonder if that logo was drawn here… Or was it drawn 10 000 miles away… and whether you just paid $350 for something that cost $65…

There’s also an opportunity here for those with the entrepreneurial spirit. Have ever wanted to be a graphic designer? Maybe a web developer? Well now you can … and you don’t need training or experience. Brilliant model or Internet madness? You decide!

Pros

• Local assurance. The work will be covered by whatever consumer protection is in place in your country
• You have an office you can go into and stamp your feet if something goes wrong (for all that’s worth :))
• Local professionals can ‘value add’ by providing relevant advice help you achieve your business objectives, not just complete the project. This is something foreign providers cannot offer.
• May apply a high degree of rigour to the project management process
• They manage the freelancers, releasing you to focus on your business
• Usually very high quality because the projects are well run, hard to discern from local work

Cons

• You’re paying a high premium to a local to manage work you could manage yourself
• You could believe that you are paying a premium to have a local do the work when this is not the case
• If the freelancer fails, the company may ‘blame the hired help’, make excuses and generally waste your time as they try and work out a solution. Doesn’t help you when you just need it done!
• They are often experimenting in the online outsourcing space, as most of their business comes from the ‘real world’. This means they may not be as committed to a successful outcome as a business whose primary objective is to maximise their profits online.
• You can achieve very similar results at a much lower cost by just using a full service outsource provider from a developing nation

What are they good for?

These guys are hard to avoid if you want to pay ‘local’ rates online. There is very little difference in terms of outward appearance. That’s what makes it an attractive option for local providers.

For me personally, I don’t want to pay local rates online. I buy online, with all it’s risks and quirks, to save money. If I have work that I want a local to do, I’ll walk into a shopfront.

General recommendation for White Label ‘Full Service’ Middlemen:

Avoid if detected. Don’t pay local rates online.

Type 4: White Label ‘Hands Off’ Middlemen

These guys are the final type of outsourcer I’ve identified, and a disclaimer I have not used this model of provider yet.

Here’s how they work. In essence, they’re a weird hybrid, a cross between a recruitment agency and a consulting company. They supply the infrastructure (building, PC internet etc.) which you lease from them. They also provide you with potential employees. You interview these as you would any new recruit, and hire the most suitable. They then go to work for you in the space you’ve just leased from the outsourcer. They manage the staff member’s attendance and pay, based on your requirements. But, they take no role in performance. It’s up to you to set targets, and ensure that your work gets done! Odd eh?

Here’s my pros and cons… just speculation at this point though!

Pros

• You can interview candidates and control quality of your skills pool
• You can sack and swap out staff quickly if someone isn’t performing
• Control of infrastructure ensures that you have a common, consistent environment (physical and technology wise) for your employees
• Ensures standardised work attendance, hours, tools and inputs
• May simplify payments and budgeting
• You get many of the benefits of having employees, without the local legislative protections

Cons

• More expensive than other forms of web based outsourcing because you have to directly pay for infrastructure and hiring costs. These are normally absorbed and aggregated
• You don’t get quality assurance or additional project management support. They’re your staff, your problem!
• Less of a buffer between you and your people for cultural communication issues. Appointed team leaders are often more experienced in managing the cultural nuances than you are
• The labour is less ‘outcome driven’. The outsource provider doesn’t care whether your work is finished on time. That is outside their responsibility
• All of the pitfalls of having employees

What are they good for?

I’m not sure. I suspect they would be beneficial for Business Process Outsourcing, as distinct from the outsourcing of projects. If you have a small business, and you want to establish a permanent labour force overseas, this could be a cost effective way to build that team.

General recommendation for White Label ‘Full Service’ Middlemen:

I dunno. If you have experience with this kind of provider, please let me know and I’ll update this article with your comments.

That wraps up our extended discussion about the types of outsourcer that currently exist online. As you can see, there is a wide variety of models and they each have strengths and weaknesses. I hope this article contributes to your success! If you have any comments, criticisms or feedback please feel welcome to contact me.

If you’re looking for part one of this article, you can find it here. Part 1. The ‘3 Flavours of Freelancers’ here.

Related posts

• 7 Outsourcing Flavours You Need to Know About! (1)
• How to use Customer Feedback/Ratings Part 1 (1)
• How to Find a Great Freelancer - Websites and Resources (2)
• You don’t need to be a Techie to Outsource… (0)
• Rule #1 NEVER OUTSOURCE A PROBLEM (0)

This is part 1 of a 2 part series. You can find ‘Part 2. The 4 Flavours of Outsource Service Providers’ here.

Note: to my North American friends.. I apologis(z)e for the repeated spelling of flavoUr… I just can’t give that up to U

Part 1, The 3 Flavours of a Freelancer.

More flavours than you care to know about

If you jump onto one of the many outsourcing/freelance websites you could be forgiven for thinking that all outsourcer’s are the same. Sure, there’s an obvious difference between a solo ‘freelancer’ and a company; some have a logo and a website, some don’t. But there are differences that run deeper than that.

Why should you care?

As we’ll discuss, if you want a successful outcome on your project you need to understand who you’re hiring and how they work. This will affect the:

• quality of their work and what they can offer,
• work they can do well, and what they will likely do poorly,
• how they interact with you,
• price they are likely to demand,
• ‘value for money’ that they can offer.

As always, I’ll start with a list, and then describe each in detail. In my descriptions below, I’m talking from my personal experience, and I’m not dealing in absolutes. So you may find someone who has all of these qualities or they may have none. I’ve broken the article into 2 parts, as it was a little on the long side. So here’s the list:

Article Part 1. 3 Flavours of Freelance Providers:

• Type 1: Casual Freelancers
• Type 2: Sleepless Professionals
• Type 3: Fulltime Professionals

Article Part 2. 4 Flavours of Outsource Service Providers:

• Type 1: Specialised Service Providers
• Type 2: Standard Full Service Providers
• Type 3: White Label ‘Full Service’ Middlemen
• Type 4: White Label ‘Hands Off’ Middlemen

Freelancers- General Information

These are independent (usually) skilled professionals. They are self-employed and often have a degree in the area that they are offering. They generally work from home, and practically live online so they are very available. Freelancer’s offer best value in terms of their low price and high degree of skill, and often bid 40-80% lower than full service outsource companies. The work starts and ends with them, so there is no opportunity to buck pass, or delay decisions (‘I just need to talk to X, but he’s not in so I’ll get back to you tomorrow’). The downside is that there are scaling issues for bigger projects, and it can be hard to find the right person for your team.

Below are some general pros and cons for all freelancers:

Pros:

• Low cost
• Potential to build a strong, long lasting relationship
• Can find some outstandingly skilled professionals who will create  a lot of value in your business

Cons:

• Difficult to scale. Not as easy as saying “give me 3 more people on this team, we need this done now!”. You can have the best freelancer in the world, but they only have so many hours in a day.
• Redundancy risk. By relying on a single operator you are at risk if they disappear or are unable to work. Consider the ‘hit by a bus scenario’.
• Skills and commitment are wildly variable
• Communication skills are wildly variable
• Variability in the quality of equipment and internet connection can impact the project
• Freelancers have a general tendency to be more casual in terms of project management. This is lower cost, but higher risk.
• Jack of all trades mentality. Some people claim to be skilled in many more things than they are. Hire freelancers for very specific tasks which they can provide a track record for, to avoid being burnt.

Where do most freelancers come from?

For graphics and technical work they are most commonly hail from developing nations including India, Pakistan, Russia, and Croatia. China seems to be an emerging force, I have noticed a marked increase in providers from there. You also get them from developed nations, predominately from the US.

For technical writing in English, such as sales letters, ebooks, and articles, developed nations are strongly represented with a lot of freelancers from the US, and UK. I have also heard that the Philippines is a popular source for high quality, low cost English writing (although I have yet to hire someone from the Philippines!).

The 3 flavours of freelancer that I have worked with, these are:

It can be difficult to identify the 3 flavours, checking the freelancer’s volume and frequency of work (in the website history), or just asking them upfront can help you identify what class they fit into:

• Type 1: Casual Freelancers
• Type 2: Sleepless Professionals
• Type 3: Fulltime Professionals

Type 1: Casual Freelancer

These guys are often students (studying or just graduated), and sometimes parents working from home. They can also be people just experimenting, trying it out to see if they like freelancing.

Pros:

• Tend to offer very low prices
• Can bring a lot of enthusiasm to the work
• Can have more experience with newer web technologies

Cons:

• Has more important priorities then your work. This is bad as we want someone with a vested interest in our success
• More likely to under quote and then lose interest in the work if it gets out of control
• More likely to apply very lax project management to the work, increasing the risk of failure
• More likely to disappear, and get out of freelancing. This can leave you hanging if they’re the only person that understands your system and something goes wrong
• May lack the depth of experience required to meet your expectations
• May lack the required depth of skill to provide a high quality product and may struggle with technically difficult work
• More likely to waste your time with bids that lack any kind of supporting evidence or track record eg. “I can do this for you, I am best. Just give me a chance.”
• More likely to be undisciplined in work practices, leaving you with messes to clean up
• Communication relay can be slow, as they’re only available at certain hours

What are they good for?

I would only use them for simple, well defined work such as logos, minor page or CSS edits, and maybe simple software installs or server configs. For anything that takes more than 3-5 hours of work I would not use them.

General recommendation for Casual Freelancers:

Avoid if possible. Whilst there are some advantages to using causal freelancers, the risk is high and there are better solutions.

Type 2: The Sleepless Professional

These guys are fully employed professionals. They have a day job, but at night they drop the suit and moonlight as a freelancer. They often have several years experience in a particular field and are looking to make a few lucrative bucks on the side. They are more likely to be from developing nations. I call them sleepless, because some of the guys I work with survive on so little sleep it amazes me.

Pros

• Tend to bring more rigorous work practices to the project resulting in a higher chance of success
• More experience with different systems and situations, means they can often make valuable contributions by suggesting improved methods or solutions
• Often have more experience with the client-provider relationship, which improves communications and expectations management
• Higher quality bids on projects, but still tend to price toward the lower end of the spectrum
• Experience-experience-experience

Cons

• Your project is a hobby, as such it is a long way from being their top priority in life
• Limited work hours available in any given week can slow down bigger or more complex parcels of work. Also presents a major issue if you need to rush something through
• Communication relay can be slow, as they’re only available at certain hours
• If something big goes down at work, they drop off the radar for a few days

What are they good for?

I have employed a few of these and had mixed experiences. The most common problem is slow communication because of their limited availability and differences in time zones. This really slows things down. I have found some success with employing project managers in these roles, where they manage the work of others and report progress to me. I would not use them for intensive development work, or anything that takes more than 5-10 hours of work in a given week.

General recommendation for Sleepless Professional Freelancers:

Great in certain situations. Only use for smaller parcels of work. If you’re experienced with managing freelancers, they can be a very cheap way to access specific skills.

Type 3: Fulltime Professional Freelancer

As the name suggests, these are people who make their living freelancing. They tend to offer a high degree of commitment to the project- they want a positive review at the end of it. They’ve worked on dozens if not hundreds of projects in their field, and can bring a lot of experience to the table.

Pros

• They take the work seriously, and tend to be very committed to achieving a successful outcome
• They have a lot of experience with projects like yours and can provide meaningful contributions to planning and solution development
• Bids tend to be fairly accurate, but at the high end of the price spectrum
• They tend to be very ‘available’ in terms of communication. You can reasonably expect very fast response times to queries or requests

Cons

• No matter how great 1 guy is, sometimes having 5 is better. Difficulty with scale is the biggest issue with freelancers if you have a larger project and you need it fast ($5k+)
• Lack of redundancy. Health issues, holidays, family events can all impact on your schedule; and there’s no easy way around it if you’re halfway through a piece of work!
• Have a tendency to be too relaxed about project planning, and often view it as unnecessary overhead (it eats into their time). This can introduce additional risks to more complex or difficult tasks.
• If they take on too much work, and your project is less lucrative, you may get bumped down their list of priorities. They won’t tell you this… just things will take longer than usual and you’ll get shallow excuses.

What are they good for?

Fulltime professional freelancers are my preferred hire when outsourcing. I have had the best results when working with these guys, despite the limitations described above. I have some long standing relationships with people who repeatedly provide me with outstanding work.

However, I would not use them for intensive development work, anything that takes more than 20 hours of work in a given week. It’s been my experience that above this workload, you start to see declining performance (later work, lower quality etc). I’m not sure why.

I am also careful to hire only for a single discipline. For example if I hire a guy for ASP.NET (web development), I’d hire someone else to do HTML. I’ve found that limiting work to specific disciplines improves the quality of output.

General recommendation for Fulltime Professional Freelancers:

The best way to hire the skills you need at the lowest possible price. Just be careful if you require a lot of work done in a limited timeframe ($5k+ projects with tight schedules). You may be better off with a company that can provide you with multiple bodies.

That wraps up the discussion on the different types of freelancer, in the next article we’ll explore companies that provide online outsource services. Here it is, The 4 Flavours of Outsource Service Providers.

Related posts

• 7 Outsourcing Flavours You Need to Know About Part 2. (1)
• How to use Customer Feedback/Ratings Part 1 (1)
• How to Find a Great Freelancer - Websites and Resources (2)
• You don’t need to be a Techie to Outsource… (0)
• Rule #1 NEVER OUTSOURCE A PROBLEM (0)

The Hockeystick. My favourite work of fiction.

There’s no such thing as a perfect business plan, but that’s ok. You’re not going to win or lose on the back of it. All you really need is to describe your situation and what you plan to do. The intention is to organise your thoughts, and make sure you’re clear about what you want. Many academics and business analysts will have you believe that your plan should be 100+ pages long, define multiple scenarios, provide detailed resource allocations, and include hundreds of statistics or fancy charts from authoritative sources. This is a colossal waste of time for most if not all small startups. If you don’t have teams to coordinate and millions to spend, you’ll be better served by a lean simple plan.

It’s a business fantasy

By its’ very nature a startup business plan is attempting to predict the future; and we all know the future is unpredictable. So whilst it feels reassuring to write an enormous plan, the first two things you should consider are:

• No matter how hard you work on it or how much time you spend, your plan is fictitious. It’s just the story you’ll tell yourself and others.
• It can never include all possible outcomes or details.
• It is neither right nor wrong. Don’t get fixated by striving to make your plan ‘right’. Likewise, don’t worry about things not going as predicted. Remember it’s just a story, it’s too early to know if it will work as planned.

Don’t confuse yourself with big business

Your reason for writing a plan is very different from someone employed in a larger company (or government), so they’re not going to look the same.

• They need to justify the proposed expenditure;
• You just need to organise your thoughts and finances.

You don’t have stakeholders you need to dazzle with the sheer quantity of inane detail in your plan. It’s just you and your computer (and maybe a friend or partner, but they’ll be just as crazy as you).

You’re going to write the plan, largely to satisfy your own point of view. It’s not going to be open to a lot of criticism (like a corporate or government plan). It’s very difficult to argue about the future- my view is just as valid as yours, even if we’re opposing. Sure, some outcomes are more probable, but it isn’t a guarantee. So if a friend tells you that your business plan, your prediction, is wrong… how likely are you to listen?

It’s also unlikely you’ll finish writing it and say “Hrmm… not a good idea!” and toss it out. You’re not writing to test a theory, you’re doing it to organise your thoughts. Before you started writing, you’ve already decided that this business is something you want to do. Let’s be honest, if something in the plan doesn’t add up, you’re more likely to tweak the numbers than decide the idea is not viable.

Working on your plan is not working on your business… even if it makes you feel good

On my first ‘real’ startup business plan, I bought several books and scoured the web for advice. I believed that if I did the hard work, and got the plan right, that my business would be a success. I spent months on that plan. I was certain that it was the key to success. I developed several business models, mapped multiple scenarios. I even wrote a 26 page SWOT analysis that included all of my major competitors. It ended up being 50K words, on 130 pages. I was a one man writing machine. I felt empowered, and in control. I’d nailed all of those uncertainties that we face when starting a new business! (I was suitably disconnected from reality :D)

Then, I launched my business. I put the plan in a draw and didn’t look at it for 12 months. Why? Because like any good fantasy novel, once I’d read it I knew the ending. With all the mystery and excitement gone, I was waaaay too busy to indulge in it again. Besides, the plan was out of date by the time we launched! And yours will be too. Just wait until you speak with your first real customer, or face your first big challenge. Your business plan will look pretty flimsy to you then

I’m not bashing startup business plans…

I think business plans are essential. However my point is to bring your attention to the cold reality of most plans. They’re exciting fiction for a select audience. Your energy is better spent on your business, working towards that first $1 profit. Don’t get sucked into the myth that your plan needs to be big enough to crush a Leprechaun.

So what should be in a good plan?

You business plan is a snapshot of 4 things. These are:

• Your proposed business
• Your proposed customers
• Your financial position
• Your competition (OPTIONAL)

If your plan describes each of those 4 things in detail, you should have a clear understanding of what you need to do, who you need to do it for, and how much you have to risk to get it going. If you’re happy with the way it all looks, if it all seems reasonably logical to you, then you give yourself the thumbs up. You’re ready to go! … And start work on your project plan

Note: I’ve listed competition analysis as optional because in my experience most entrepreneurs don’t take the competition very seriously (myself included :)). So SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats) analysis or similar is often a waste of time. Analysis tends to be too fluffy, and an open invite to wonder off into fantasy land, with unfounded statements such as we will do x better… because we just will. Fun to write, but not really useful.

MORE PLANS…?

Yep. Your business plan isn’t the start and finish of your planning activity. It’s just the big picture. Now that it’s done, you can get to work on the actionable things you need to do to bring home that first $1 of profit.

In a nutshell, you project plan should help you organise the tasks or activities you need to undertake to create your business. You’re going to list everything you need to do, and determine the correct sequence of events. This will help keep you focused, and make sure that you spend your money and time on the right things. This is something I will cover in future.

Coming soon, I will have a ‘how to’ that will get your business plan done in less than an hour, and also some project planning basics to help get things organised!

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There is a common misconception that if you don’t know how to muck around with code, you don’t know enough to outsource the building of a website. Let’s just burst that bubble right now- it’s easy. Anyone can do it. Yep anyone, even if you’re still not sure what a blog is, and you think .NET is just a web address

A Website is like a Burger

mmm weburgerlicious...

Ok, here comes my food analogy… it’s late and I haven’t eaten dinner. Bear with me it should eventually make sense. The premise is that you don’t need to know how your favourite hamburger is made to order it or enjoy it. Likewise, you don’t need to know what’s in the guts of a website to have a freelancer build it. In fact, just like with food sometimes it’s nicer not to know. Blissful ignorance can be a powerful thing

However, just like buying a hamburger, it’s up to you to decide what fillings, buns, and sauce you want. Those decisions are your responsibility. There’s nothing worse then waiting for someone to order when they haven’t worked out what they want. They fumble around, change their mind, and keep everyone waiting. Often they’ll ask their friend or the person serving them ‘what should I get?’ Desperately seeking to dodge that tremendous commitment and get someone else to make the decision… then in the heat of the moment, they order something they didn’t really want. Don’t let this be you when it comes time to build your site.

Browse the menu before you line up to order…

This is a failure of planning, and the same thing can happen to you when you buy a website. In fact, it’s behind most IT project failures. If you don’t have experience with web development, it’s like having to order without seeing a menu. In some restaurants like McDonalds you’ll get by just fine (with a greasy but predictable burger), in others you’re going to struggle and you may not get a burger at all.

Ok I’m letting go of the burger analogy…

So the goal then is to familiarize yourself with the products on offer, and determine what you want before you step in line to order. This isn’t hard, but it may be time consuming depending on how complicated you want your website to be.

Step 1. Shop around and get your basic requirements

The first thing you need to do is get a feel for what you want. Look at competitor’s websites. Think about the functions you’re going to want with yours. What will it do?

Create a Like List (basic design and interface requirements)

List the sites that you want it to be like, and describe in detail how you want it to be like them. For example, I like the way the articles are divided on site X, or I like the way the menu moves on site Y, or I like the logo in the top left. You’ll come back to this list later.

Create a Do List (basic functional requirements)

List the all of the things that you want your site to do. Every single thing it will do. Don’t be shy with details, more is better. For example, on this site one of the things I wanted it to do was to have a mailing list function.

One thing to note when doing this: unless you have relevant experience, don’t try to describe how it will do something. Bringing back the hamburger analogy, we don’t care what’s in the bun, only that it’s toasted white bread with sesame seeds.

When you think you’re done with the initial list, it’s time to start exploring the web for examples. Go to various websites and find examples of all of the do functions that you currently use in other websites. List them next to each item on your do list. For example: one item might be ‘mailing list function – see www.entrepreneurs-journey.com’. Description of what it is, and where an example can be found.

Tip for new players, don’t forget to consider administrative functions. Even if you plan to have a ‘static website’ (one that doesn’t change very often), you should consider ‘In future, what would I need to change to keep it up to date?’. Add these to your do list, as it’s usually faster to be able to update your own site, than it is to wait for your ‘web guy’ to do it (for a fee too).

Step 2. We want the Buffet. Find Shortcuts.

Despite what you may have heard, there is nothing new on the web… just different flavours of the same thing. For most business websites, everything you could possibly want to do right now has been done somewhere already. Hopefully you’ve already identified examples of each of your do requirements (above).

What we want to do now is go digging around on the web to find premade applications (often referred to as ‘platforms’), plug-ins, or services that will meet our needs. The last thing we want to do is build this thing from the ground up! It’s more expensive, there’s more risk that something will go wrong, and you get less for your money!

I recommend that you look for ‘open source’ or other community based free applications. The advantage is that they’ll do just about everything you need, they’re free, they’re (usually) stable, and people are constantly working to improve them. For example, this blog operates on a platform developed and given away by www.wordpress.org. Another blogging platform is www.movabletype.org. For general websites or ecommerce sites you might consider www.dotnetnuke.com.

These are just a few of the more common platforms. There are hundreds of open source projects on the web (although it is better to stick with the bigger ones, like those mentioned above). The main thing is that if you can find a platform that satisfies most of you do list, you’re halfway to getting your site done and you haven’t spent a dime!

The emphasis here is on getting a premade open source ‘something’ that will do most of your do list. There maybe a few things that aren’t easily found or that your chosen platform can’t do ‘out of the box’. That’s ok. We’ll leave those details up to our freelancer.

Output 1: Combine your platform selection with your do list and you have a basic requirements document!

Step 3. Get the look right. Start Copying!

Print screen is your best friend (on your keyboard CTRL+PRTSCN). From your like list, find the page that most closely matches what you want. Print-screen it. Then open MS Paint, and paste (CTRL-V) in the screenshot. Do this for all the other items in your like list. You’ll end up with a pile of screen shot images.

We can now release the tormented artist trapped within each of us. What you’re going to do is cut and paste all the bits you’ve taken screen shots of until your main page(s) look the way you want it. This is not a beauty contest! Scribble all over it, use arrows or text. The main thing is to communicate ‘what’ goes ‘where’. We’re trying to develop a first cut, to communicate to our expectations to the designer. Here’s an early example from my blog.

Its pretty rough, but it describes the important screen elements.

It’s not your job to make it pretty… just to know what you want!

Output 2: We now have a page mock-up.

Step 4. Build your model (optional but desirable)

Wait… didn’t I say this wasn’t technical? Well if you can work MS Excel, you can build a model. The reason we do this is to quickly and simply get a feel for the site, and how all the pages mesh together. It shouldn’t take you more then 15mins – 1hr depending on how complex your site is (and how speedy you are with Excel).

Using the outline/border function, draw each page of your website. We start with the homepage and work our way back, deeper into the site. Put in outlined boxes for the menus, and other functions, type in their titles. The ratio is 1 webpage page to 1 worksheet. Create a new worksheet for every page. You may also take graphics from your screenshot activities and paste those in too, or fill different blocks of cells in different colours to represent graphics or zones. It’s up to you.

There’s no need to be perfect, we just want a rough model to see how the site fits together. Look for any weird dead end pages that weren’t thought through properly. Keep an eye out for anything you may have forgotten to add to your do list.

Once you’ve drawn the first few pages go back over it, and right click on any of the menu titles that you created and select ‘Hyperlink’. This will show you a menu, and you select the page that it should go to. You can now click on the hyperlink and navigate between worksheets just as though it was a real website.

Do this for all of the links in your model. When you are done, you have created a basic model of your site. Sure it’s ugly, but now you know how it looks, how many pages it has, and how it all fits together. Plus you can step through it just like your customers would, and all without a single line of code!

Output 3: We’ve created a simple functional model.

Step 5. Get it built

You can now take these 3 documents and get it built. Take output 1 and 3 to a graphic designer, and get your pages drawn and ‘chopped’. Then, take the newly developed graphics, along with Output 2 and 3 to a web developer or specialist in your open source platform and have your site created. Easy! (Ok… these steps could be expanded some more, but we’ll get to that in future articles!)

Why go to all this trouble?

We go to all of this effort to define exactly how our hamburger is going to look, and what it’s going to be filled with We’re trying to eliminate as many ‘unknowns’ before the project gets underway. It’s a cost effective way for you to work out the details. It will save you money and give you better results. You don’t need specialised skills or software, and it takes just a few hours in front of your PC.

This approach is how you can save 90% or more of your development costs, and still end up with a fantastic looking and working website.

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Hrmmm...next time cut the blue wire

My blog has blown a fuse.

Sorry for the ugliness.. I’m working on it now. I’ve called an expert… lets see how quickly they can respond! Should be an article in there somewhere… outsourcing during and emergency..

My apologies, it will be fixed as soon as possible!

—–

Update, all fixed and under control. If you notice any further trouble please let me know. That way I can panic with the knowledge that somoneone other then me noticed

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So you’re thinking of starting a business. Chances are that you’ve got your business plan (even if that only means a few scribbled notes) and you want tp open your doors and start making money. Right now.

Visual representation of purchasing power

If you’re like me and 99% of entrepreneurs out there, the first thing on your mind is ‘how am I going to get this all done’… followed by a glance at your bank balance, and the thought that another $100k would be nice

But you don’t have it, and you don’t want to keep your day job and save for the next 10 years! So now it’s time to ‘bootstrap’ and cut some corners (Jules Edit: alternatively send your partner out to get a permanent job so she can support you and your business!) and see how far you can stretch your coin.  Cash is king as they say, and you need to preserve it.

You need to get online…

As a bare minimum, you’re going to need a logo, a website and a domain. Even if you are going to operate a strictly ‘bricks and mortar’ business these are fundamental to your success.

Why go to the expense you might be thinking? I don’t want to sell anything online!

The internet is by far the cheapest method for reaching and communicating with potential customers. What you spend on your website, you’ll make back in savings many times over. Your customer’s want to find you online.

You might need stationary too…

Depending on your business, business cards, pamphlets and other physical branding products could be important to enhance your credibility. Real businesses have business cards and flashy brochures… don’t they ?

Jokes aside, if these are a real need in your business then you’re going to have to shell out for them, and they’re not cheap for a start up. You can’t sell them, you can’t eat them, you can’t trade them, and they won’t pay your rent. So they’re an expense we want to minimise as much as possible.

The good news is that all of the effort you put into your website and logo can now be recycled and used to develop your physical materials.

This stuff adds up…

To get this done locally you’re roughly looking at:

• $300 - $800 for a decent logo design
• $1200 - $3000 for a clean but basic website (add another $500 for useable shopping cart)
• $200 - $600 for the graphic design of your cards and brochure(s)
• $20 - $40 month for website hosting with a local ISP

Startup Expense: $1720 to $5000+

And you haven’t spent a dime on anything that will directly result in revenue.

Purchasing Power to the Rescue – Crush those expenses by 90%

Start-up costs are one area in which offshore outsourcing can really shine. The purchasing power of your local currency, can help you to reduce the price you pay for these services. For example, if you live in the US, $1USD can buy far more in India, then 1 Rupee can buy in the US. This disparity is caused by a difference in the relative value of the currency. (See a discussion on purchasing power here).

What this means for you…

This means you can use the strength of your local currency to get discounts by buying services in another country. All of these one off expenses can be minimised, leaving you with enough cash to survive. By outsourcing your start up activities, you could expect them to spend around:

• $50 - $100 for a decent logo design
• $120 - $300 for clean but basic website (add another $50 for useable shopping cart)
• $20 - $60 for the graphic design of your cards and brochure(s)
• $2 - $4 month for website hosting with an international host

Startup Expense: $220 to $450+

I’m not exaggerating…
As you can see, there are some dramatic savings available. These are not exaggerations, but real prices that can be achieved right now. There are additional risks in outsourcing, but these are only marginally higher then if you were to use a local provider. Start with a small project to get your toes wet.

This approach helps you maximise the power of your limited cash, and it frees more of your money to work on other things. For example, you may opt to build a bigger, flashier website. Or you could spend what you save on a web marketing campaign to get those customers banging on your door sooner. It’s really up to you to decide what’s important in your situation. The benefit of outsourcing is that it unlocks these choices and gives you flexibility that you otherwise would not have had.

So, reduce your expenses, preserve your cash on hand, and increase your chances for success!

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Rating: 4 out of 5

Subject in a Nutshell: Personal development / psychology. This book provides a scientific approach to increased optimism and a healthier state of mind.

Recommendation: Buy it if you have trouble staying optimistic, are ‘peaky’,or if you feel you struggle with depression at times. Provides an excellent, ‘not fluffy’ approach to improving the way you think about things.

Author’s Background: A leading US psychologist in the field of depression management and cognitive thought.

The Good:

I am not exaggerating when I say that this book has greatly improved my personal mental health.

Whether you can tell by my writing or not, I’m a fairly clinical person. I like numbers, facts, and verifiable tangible evidence. I don’t like fluffy-wuffy, give yourself a hug, chant positively at the ceiling 50 times type stuff. And neither does this author :).

He makes a very interesting argument at the start of the book, suggesting the ‘new age’ positivity fad is actually damaging to our mental health. It is suggested that this approach creates false expectations and fails to alter people’s behaviour, and erodes personal responsibility. He had me onside straight away. When he took a swing at positive self affirmation (chanting to yourself). Every personal development book I’ve picked up in the last 8 years has had some type of chanting in it :). I sat riveted.

What he espouses is that you can improve your state of mind, your baseline happiness, by being more disciplined in how you think about yourself and the events that affect you. It creates a framework for understanding how we internally interpret the world, and then provides a set of tools to help us manage our own personal behaviours. It is a fascinating read.

If you think you’re an optimist I challenge you to take the optimism survey in this book… you may be startled to find you’re not nearly as optimistic as you thought (I was). For example, I’ve come to understand a couple of my own tendencies which are:

I apply too much permanence to negative events. That is, (internally) I exaggerate how long it will impact me.

And conversely, I apply too little permanence to positive events. That is, I minimise or brush off their significance too quickly.

The net affect of these behaviours is that I don’t stay happy about good things long enough, but I stay grumpy about negative things too long. This impacts my ability to ‘rebound’

This is just one item, there are many aspects to optimistic thinking that are explored in this book. Just knowing about them has made me a much happier person, and it’s affect has been lasting unlike a lot of buzz books… 3 months and counting

The Bad:

This book is really all about the tools. It is written in a very analytical fashion, which is very dry at times.

The author gets very wrapped up in his clinical studies, and at times waffles too much about research success and other things that are at best, marginally interesting. He establishes his expertise early on, and to rehash it again later in the book feels excessive (a little egotistical).

It feels like he wanted to make this much more then just another personal development book by some Tony Robbins wanna-be, and so included a lot of stuff the average reader is likely to be bored by. This is not your average feel good book.

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On any given project, you’re likely to receive somewhere between 10 and 50 bids if you post it to one of the larger recommended sites. As a general rule, the larger the project the more interest you’ll get. Bigger projects are far more lucrative, and occur less often in the marketplace, so freelancers tend to queue far and wide to try and win it.

Don’t bother talking to everyone…

If you don’t have a system for managing this deluge, it’s easy to get overwhelmed by the sheer volume of bids you receive. Reading them is hard enough… responding to them all… no way!

Trying to respond to everyone is a nightmare, and it’s not worth your time. Everyone is keen to win your work… but this is just courtship. You’ll get eager responses to any messages you send them (blood in the water ) and everyone will be trying hard to engage you in dialogue. For small projects, there is nothing to be gained from trying to maintain so many conversations. My advice - don’t bother. Filter first, and only talk to people you’ve decided you want to work with.

The process we want is to:

• Filter out unqualified bids
• Create a shortlist of the top 3 – 4 bids
• Contact the top 2
• Select No.1

Filter out the unqualified bids

We only need 1 winner (most of the time), so we want to systematically filter out the trash. It helps if you’ve put some rules in the proposal that you’ve posted, this way you can systematically disqualify all non-compliant bids. It will also DRAMATICALLY reduce the number of rubbish bids you get. If you set even basic qualification requirements, many providers won’t bid… this is great as we don’t want to work with them anyway.

In addition to our defined project requirements, a couple of simple qualifiers I normally use for sub $1k projects are:

• Minimum of 10 previous reviews at a minimum average of 9.0 on the website (more for larger projects)
• Minimum of 5 examples of similar work completed (more for larger projects)
• Agreement to a fixed delivery timeframe eg. Please advise that you can deliver within X 5 days of being selected.
• Quoted upfront price (or hourly rate in special circumstances)

First up, knock out the guys with too few reviews or low averages. This could be as many as 75%. Got 9 reviews? We don’t care. Got 30 reviews with rating of 8? We don’t care. All of these bids get hidden or deleted. We don’t respond or acknowledge as they don’t comply with our requirements.

Death to Empty Form Letters… at least arbitrary exclusion

Now we execute the empty form letter bidders. If someone can’t go to the trouble of reading our proposal, and providing a personal and accurate response, can we really trust them to pay attention to our work? My experience suggests that you can’t

Here’s a classic form letter. It did not address my requirements, and presumed to know much more about the project then was possible. This was a bid on a graphic design and logo project- nothing to do with the web. It got binned as it deserved.

Gah.. read the proposal.. Time Wasters!

The next thing to look for is empty promises. These are red flags. The above example includes a big red flag in that the above was “attached is a plan for implementation, cost, and time estimates”. If you were thinking “wow, how nice of that guy to go to all that work for us!” think again!

Like the flimsy form letter, these form letter project plans aren’t worth the paper you might be tempted to print it on. Aside from the fact that they don’t know enough about what we want at this early stage, they’d go broke if they wrote free project plans for every bid. It is another type of form letter trash and not worth opening.

The other thing to look for and treat with extreme prejudice is any bids that promise more then what you’ve asked for, or promise things that are unrelated to your proposal. Nothing is free, be weary of anyone promising too much.

No Price, No Dice

In our qualifiers we asked them to quote a price. Anyone who hasn’t provided a price as requested is also cut. This is a gambit to get you to talk to them. At this stage for a small piece of work you don’t want to waste time haggling via email. Not worth the effort. These bids are cut.

Affirmation of delivery timeframe

We want positive agreement that they can do it in the timeframe we’ve asked. This is a qualifier too. Understand that this may ultimately change, but right now we’re concerned with identifying the bidders who actually read our proposal. No ‘we can do this in 5 days’ = cut too.

Ok, so what’s left?

Now you should be left with 2 types of bids that meet your stipulated requirements:

• Type 1: ‘I can do this for you’.
• Type 2: ‘I can do this for you, and here’s how’ bids.

We want type 2. Engage with these guys. Give them greater detail about what you want to achieve. Query them further on how they plan to do your work. You should receive helpful, concise responses. They should almost always have further questions/clarifications for you. This is a good sign, they should be taking a lot of interest in the detail at this point.

It should only take 1 or 2 posts or emails from this point to select your winner and get started. This is a huge time saving, if you compare it to attempting to talk with everyone. It’s all thanks to good work processes.

NB: if more emails or conversation are required to firm up the project, take this as a likely indication that your requirements are not detailed or clear enough.

A winning example:

Here is a winning bid. Underlined in blue were the various requirements and qualifiers that I set in the proposal. The bidder has shown me that they read and understood what I was requesting. It makes an interesting comparison to the other example.

This bid proves the outsourcer read the proposal

This bid was also $225 cheaper (75% cheaper) for me than the other bid, showing how price is a poor indicator of quality. Also, as suggested by the quality of their bid, this company was attentive, skilled, delivered on time, and did an all around great job.

But isn’t it mean to ignore all of those bidders?

Just in case there are any bleeding hearts out there thinking “It’s not fair, we should be polite and talk to everyone who took the time to bid…’ Let me try and dissuade you. Freelancer’s and many outsource companies post A LOT of bids every day. In a survey I saw recently, more then ½ spend 3-6 hours A DAY just bid writing. If they’re unsuccessful on your project, most won’t give a stuff (unless it was a biiig project!). They don’t want to hear from you unless you’re offering work. They’re already focussed on getting their next meal ticket. So, by responding you’re wasting your time and theirs…

Your feedback and comments are always welcome.

This article is part of the series “How to Find a Great Freelancer Online”, which includes everything you need to know to find the best guys (or gals) for your project.

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Many entrepreneur’s first and only freelance experience ends with them feeling deeply disappointed by either the speed or the quality of the work. They hear about guys you can hire for $4/hr, and rush off and splash some cash on the next big thing. Like many of the internet pot-o-gold stories, it turns out to be less successful then the flier suggested so they return to lurk in forums with their stories of woe.

Sometimes projects are so slow!

I am all for hiring freelancers in developing nations… but…

It can be very, very, time consuming. What you save in $$$ you need to invest in time. There is no way around it… at least not that I’ve found. Be prepared to invest a lot of time on the first few projects. You can’t leave them on autopilot, they will crash. With practice you’ll get faster, better results, but it will never be the same as buying services from your shop down the street.

Do you enjoy repeating yourself? I hope so…

Often, it’s like doing the work two or three times. You need to provide a detailed specification to your freelancer. This takes time because you need to be much more explicit then you would with your local provider. Then you need to explain it and get them to regurgitate it back. Then you’ll have to explain it again. After you receive the work, you’ll correct the mistakes and then explain it again. If you’re lucky, you’ll only repeat this loop once or twice.

Surviving this requires a great deal of patience. Communication is difficult; most tasks that you are likely to outsource are ‘abstract’. You’re asking someone to create something based on a combination of your requirements (which may only consist of a series of a few dot points) and your mental image (tough to share :)).

For example if I told you to draw me a bowl of fruit, with apples and bananas. What would it look like? Would you make the apples red or green, bananas on top or below? As soon as I’ve told you what I want, you start forming your own mental image based on your experience.

It’s the Vibe Man…

If we have similar cultural backgrounds, similar life experiences, our mental images (expectations) will start out pretty close. However, when you work with someone from a very different cultural background, you tend to have much less in common. Chit-chat is fine, you can talk about the weather, the cricket, whatever. You’ll find casual conversation no big deal. But, when it comes time to define the details of your work, establish mutual expectations, and other intangibles like ‘quality’; you’ll start to notice just how different you are.

You know that they say about assuming

Particularly when you’re new to outsourcing, expect to make a lot of poor assumptions. You’ll naturally assume things should be done in particular way, but without direct instruction you’ll find that there are many possible interpretations available :).

Some projects will feel like a game of whack-a-mole, as your freelancer challenges your mental powers (and blood pressure) by coming up with a seemingly endless stream of deviations from the obvious. As my partner can certify, it can be very frustrating to manage. On more then one evening she’s had to pick up tufts of my hair and listen to me vent “WTF? WHY WOULD THEY DO THAT?”. Seemingly obvious tasks misunderstood, because I wasn’t explicit enough. Obvious to you is not necessarily obvious to everyone else, especially if ‘everyone else’ includes people from different cultural backgrounds. These mistakes happen even with a perfectly competent provider. It’s part of the adventure, and a skill you’ll learn… but it’s so very time consuming!

It’s the tools too…

The way you’ll typically communicate with your guy(s) is a combination of email, forum/message board, chat, or to a much lesser extent voice/telephone. Because of time zone differences and convenience, most of the communication will occur via email or forums. This adds another delay. For example:

• Me: “Can you move that border to the right”
• 6-10 hours later…
• Freelancer: “Urm… no because of XYZ”
• 6-10 hours later…
• Me: “Oh… ok. Well adjust XYZ to the right.”
• 6-10 hours later…
• Freelancer: “OK done”.
• 6-10 hours later…
• Me: “Now that border is broken, please adjust…”

There are methods of limiting this lag (discussed in future), but as you can see even a simple request can easily drag out for days, and develop maddening loops. The best way to limit this is to accept that it will happen, and plan to prevent it. Always be specific, never assume even the smallest detail.

For all the trouble you still save a lot of money…

Despite this somewhat problematic process, it’s still very cheap compared to local providers (70-90% cheaper). The main reason I outsource internationally is because I want to save money. For me to achieve my business goals, right now I need to be able to buy more with less.

If like me, your cash is at a premium then outsourcing offers some tremendous opportunities. Just be prepared to invest a lot of time in each of your projects.

As always, I’d appreciate your comments or feedback!

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