Outsourcing 101

One thing you must keep in mind when working on the internet is any facet of labor is actually cheap! This is a good thing if you have the knowledge on how to make this cheap labor work for you.

Here are some great places to find low cost high quality labor for most any service you need.

• Elance: This is a nice site that will allow you to post any kind of task you want to have accomplished. Then the members of the site will contact you and bid on the projects.
  • I use a couple of techniques here to assure I can get a good deal. I suggest using these techniques when you first start and can not afford to pay expensive rates. The outsourcing we are looking for here is from India, Russia and other countries where the normal wage is just a couple of dollars an hour. Once you get you feet on the ground and are making good money be sure to put your money back into your own economy. Meaning spend more money and find labor from your own country.
  • Here is how I found cheap labor on Elance or any similar site. First create an account. Once your account is created go and post a job. The key is how you word your job posting. Create your job as normal be detailed give all the pertinent information. Let them know you are on a limited budget up front. This way the people who do not want to work for lower rates will go away. Tell the bidders that you will pay via PayPal and they should contact you via Skype for more details as it is easier to communicate. Leave your Skype name in your job posting.
  • When they contact you via Skype match them up with their account in Elance. Check out their rating and decide accordingly if you want to work with them. If they look good negotiate price first either by the job or per hour. I like to do things by the job. Do not take the first bidder or the first offer you can negotiate with them, they want the work as bad as you need it done. Take your time and find the right guy for you.
  • These small things make all the difference. People from India and such love PayPal. They also know they have a good shot if you are working on limited funds. So they will be contacting you.
  • Next when you agree on cost and terms of the job, ask them if they would like to work outside of Elance offer to send them 50% up front via PayPal or Google checkout. This will allow you to save the Elance fees, however it also makes it easy for them to get over on you and just take your money. So be very careful here. I have never been taken by doing this and I have met some very good people that do great work at cheap rates. If you have an expensive project and can not afford to lose, I do not suggest going outside of Elance for payment. Elance does you give you limited protection against loss.

Here are some similar sites. As always Google search for more there are hundreds of sites out there like this.

• www.rentacoder.com
• www.rent-acoder.com
• www.getafreelancer.com
• www.affordableprogrammers.com
• www.hireacoder.net

Message Boards / Forums

These are great places to find outsourcing.

In a message board be sure to read an entire thread if you are planning on using a service. There could be people in there that have good information that may sway your decision to deal with someone one way or the other.

When in message boards be sure to consider that people are people they will post what every they want. You have to take all the information at hand and then make you decision on what you are going to do. Some people are just idiots others are looking for a fight or to bad mouth someone. Some are very genuine and will provide useful and truthful information.

You can search for post by a specific user. Do a little research on the people you are considering working with. See how other transactions they were involved with went. If some one post a negative comment about his person research this person as well. See if all the are contributing is negative input, this will quickly tell you if you should be valuing their opinion.

Basically use common sense.

• Digital Point: This is my favorite board. There are so many resources here you could honestly get lost in here of days. The area to go for outsourcing is the Buy Sell and Trade Area. In here you can find most anything you want. They also have a rating system that allows people to rate how good the services were that a member provided or how well the transaction went. This allows you to get feedback on a person before dealing with them.
• Warrior Forum: This is the largest collection of Internet Marketers I have ever seen. This site has been around since 1997 and any information you need can most likely be found here.

Tip: Do a keyword search at these message boards for the type of job you are looking have done. Or at Warrior Forum do a search on outsourcing a wealth of information will come up.