Make Money Online- the baby steps part 34

It´s great to have you back. We have reached “Make Money Online- the baby steps part 34″, where we will examine ways to outsource all or part of your work. As you might imagine there are some pros and cons of using the various freelance websites that are available. We feel that there are many instances when freelancers will probably be your best (and cheapest) bet, so we decided to write a part of this guide solely on this topic. In general, you deceide what work needs to be done, get proposals and evaluate them, do some iterative improvements, and pay. In most cases the website will make around 10 % for the “trade facilitation process”. The upside is there but so are the downsides. The biggest pro of playing the outsourcing game is the low costs. The internet offers a truly borderless marketplace for service providers and e-workers. A programmer in China, a web designer in Ukraine, a researcher in India. They can all be aquired at a fraction of the cost of their western counterparts. And the best part is that many of the e-wokers are just as skilled, and can also add some much-needed diversity to the website. The downsides are there as well. First of all there is a language and cultural barrier. Second, most of the e-workers are not axactly eager to take initiative. They work best if you have been able to provide them with a very specific list of tasks to perform. Our experience is that if you manage to provide clear, concise and unambiguous instructions they will probably do their part better than you might expect.

The process of hiring is really straightforward. Usually it consists of 5 typical steps to go through but the structure of the process may depend on what type of work it is that you need done, and also which service you use. In general the 5 steps that the process consists of are the following:

1. Specify the work. The first you need to do is specify what needs to be done. You will soon find that it will be very helpful if you know your way around the area you are hiring for. The more specific you can be about what needs to be done, the easier it is for e-workers to give you a quote, provide you with a time estimate and show you where they want to go with the project. You may also find that you can avoid a lot of uneccessary work by simply knowing your stuff. The best freelance work is done when the individual who is hiring is more or less an expert in the area, but for some reason just doesn´t want to do the work. So even when hiring others to do the work, knowledge pays. It is important to be as specific as possible about the works that needs to be done. It is not unusual that the freelancers misunderstand parts of your instructions. Don´t be afraid to be very specific, almost being obsessive about the details of the project.

2. Receive proposals and offers. Based on your specifications you will receive a number of different proposals to your project. In some cases, there is a minimum number of proposals that you are guranteed to receive on any one project. Sometimes, you can also choose to offer more money on a particular project if you want to spark more interest among e-workers to apply themselves. Again, this is dependant on what kind of project, but also what website you have chosen to go with. You will probably get a few favourites pretty early on in the process and in most cases you will ultimately go with one of your initial favourites.

3. Evaluate. The evaluation process is about taking a closer look at factors such as samples of previous work, reviews, ratings, quoted price, suggested time table and credentials in general. Be objective and narrow down your playing field. Keep eliminating and excluding until you only have a few favourites left. Then, it might be a good idea to ask for additional information if you feel that is nccessary and go with what your gut is telling you.

4. Iterative process. Depending on what type of project you are doing there might be an element of (iterative) process involved. If you are doing a web logo for instance, you will get plenty of opportunity to ask for further alterations and request additional changes from the initial drafts. In many cases, this process will include several e-workers competing for your final decision. Be specific and honest.

5. Payment. Payments may very quite a bit from site to site. They may be based on milestones completed or on completed work. The websites also have additional charges for various “extra services”. Examples of these services can be the ability to hide your project from search engines, make your project a featured one, or get a guaranteed number of apllications to your project.

We have worked with a number of different providers with varying quality and results. Here is a short list of websites that will cater to most of your needs:

For programming and projects:

elance

odesk

freelancer

vworker (previously named rentacoder)

brickwork

For web logo design or design of template:

99designs

logodesignguru

thelogocompany

For content:

text broker

For your convenience we have provided links to all websites. We have provided these links for your benefit. Richopedia.com does not receive any payment from these sites, nor are we affiliated with them in any way. These sites are provided solely for your benefit. We truly hope they will be helpful for you. While we cannot guarantee the quality of work you will find on either site, we have used all of these sites and we have been quite happy with the results in the vast majority of cases. Just be a professional and be very specific about the work that needs to get done and you should be ok. It helps if you know your way around the area you need to outsource and if you check for potential language barriers before you decide on a specific e-worker.

That was that. Should you need to outsource any parts of your work you have more than enough options to choose from. Some of them are more specialised than others and as you browse their websites you will find that they employ different business models. Don´t let that scare you away. It´s a lot easier than it might initially look and at times you will find e-workers that are real gems. We have had the pleasure of working with highly talented and skilled e-workers who only charged a fraction of the cost we would have usually payed for those services. The internet is truly bringing the world together, and we are all winners because of it. Now, its time to jump to the next part of our guide, “Make Money Online- the baby steps part 35″, for even more material that we need to cover. Come along!