Using outsourced contractors successfully – the key to succeeding online

I didn’t have much success with outsourcing initially and wrongly tried to complete every task myself. This is a flawed approach if you really want to succeed online in the long run. Some of the problems I initially had with outsourcing included:

• Having too many unreasonable expectations

• Not giving clear instructions on what I wanted them to do

• Hiring unsuitable candidates

• Not factoring in a learning time frame/learning process to allow the candidate become familiar with the task that I wanted them to complete.

I somehow just expected the outsourced contractors to know what I wanted them to do, how silly was this approach? I also had a couple of bad experiences with rouge contractors. Don’t be put off by this though as there are lots and lots of great contractors out there and with the right preparation you can easily filter them out and assemble a great team.
In Dan’s Profit Plan I use outsourced contractors to complete some of the tasks that are either beyond my skill set or jobs that I find boring or repetitive. You can easily give up on making money online if you get disinterested easily by boring or repetitive tasks.

It’s probably not a good idea not to completely outsource your first project. You will be outsourcing some tasks but not all of them. You can of course outsource every aspect of your project but I think it is a worthwhile exercise to complete as much of your first website/digital product by yourself. That way you will have a better understanding of the process and what parts you like/are good at, what parts you don’t like or are not good at.

Outsourcing does work, the key to outsourcing I have found from my experience is:

• Be clear on what it is you want done – if you don’t know what you want done how will the person completing the task know. Take your time to write a very clear and descriptive job role for the applicants.

• Be patient, there is going to be a training/learning period, where the person completing the job will make mistakes or be unsure on certain elements of their job. Initially you will need to spend time working through the process with them until they become proficient at doing what it is you want them to do.

• Be realistic, hiring somebody to complete an admin task is not going to be able to program code on your site for example.

How to hire great candidates on Up Work

I use Up Work for all of my outsourcing requirements, jobs that I have outsourced to Up Work include:

• Graphic design

• Website programming

• Image editing

• Admin assistance

Generally speaking I look for contractors with some work completed under their belts (I filter contractors for between 20 to 100 hours clocked up). To many hours means they could be sub contracting the work out, too few means they are an unknown quantity.

I always go for contractors with 5 star feedback, why accept less when there are so many good contractors to choose from?

I have a quick glance through their feedback to ensure the commentary is positive from previous employers. A simple mistake to make is to overlook past feedback or skip this stage which I don’t advise.

I usually filter down to one or two candidates and then offer them both a two week trial. You will then get a feel for which contractor completes the tasks you set them to the higher standard, which communicates better and ultimately which one produces better work.