Wondering where and who you should outsource for your company tasks. Find out from my experience your best options.
In many cases, speed has just as much to do with building a business as building it well. Even though many people hate to admit it, most internet operations with any decent strength can't be run by just one person. It takes one or more people you'll need to outsource specific tasks to so you can get the job done and keep your business moving forward at a competitive speed. Outsourcing really isn't as difficult as a lot of people make it out to be. And when you master this skill, you can virtually build a business online as large as you want to because you will have all the help you need. Please remember there's lots of great talent out there to help you build your enterprise, you just need the initiative to go after them and get them working for you.
A common question is should you outsource someone from the Philippines or India. Or how about other countries like Eastern Europe or Russia. There's a lot of buzz about Philippine Outsourcing lately but I don't believe there's one clear answer here. You should outsource people based on what they can do for your company and fair pricing. You ultimately want a worker who will be loyal to your company and be there when you need them for specific tasks. Most outsourcing work involves mundane tasks you won't want to take on yourself. I personally don't think Geography has anything to do with it.
One of the people we outsource a lot of our work to is from Bangledesh. He never complains about any job we give him, gets the job done very fast almost every time and is very reasonable on what he charges. And he's always available via IM which sufficient for most outsourcing on the internet. The key to winning at the outsourcing game is to find one person at a time. Then work with them until they are fully trained. Then find a second one and do the same thing. I don't think you can find a whole crew of workers overnight that will do exactly what you need done.
If you think about it it's no different in a traditional offline business. People get hired and fired all the time. Some will quit and some you'll have to let go because for whatever reason they just can't stand the rigors of the jobs you give them or some just lack the aptitude or desire to do it properly. But the key here is to keep finding them until you get your team in place that will work for you for the long haul. This is great for them because they have steady employment, and it's great for you because you'll get everything you want done finished without having to fish for more people.
One example was we needed a small team of 3 writers to write descriptions for a large data base driven website we were building. We must have had 10 people submit sample work to us. We paid them all, but long story short only 3 ended up making the cut and we keep around whenever we need extra content created for us. Two were American and one is from the Philippines and they all charged reasonable prices for what we got. So Geography isn't as important as the skill level and integrity of the people you hire. Remember one good worker can perform many of your tasks so outsourcing really isn't too hard, but you may have to weed through 4-5 people before you find someone that meets your companies needs.
