Only a few weeks back I posted an article, in a state of overwhelm, which talked about a problem we all share; too much to do and not enough time to do it. New website projects or just maintaining your website or blog always takes longer than you think it will. But there is a solution. One I’ve resisted for a long time by telling myself it’ll be too expensive. That is until John Reese opened my eyes.
John has been running a coaching program called outsource force (sold out BTW), which teaches harried webmasters, website owners and marketers how to outsource just about any type of work. This could be coding, design, webmaster work, ongoing marketing, content generation, research, or even your own virtual personal assistant. And it will cost you much less than you might imagine, because it can be done anywhere on the planet. You just need an internet connection. Countries like the Philippines and India have plenty of smart, clever people willing to work for much lower pay than in the US or Europe, leaving you with a bigger margin for profit.
So, where can you get outsource projects done or find outsource workers? For design work, try 99Designs. It’s a novel approach. They hold contests. You post your design brief to their community of 77,000 designers. You will get many designs, which you then review and choose the winner. Most contests take a week, but you can fast-track them. Although you choose the prize amount, there are guidelines. But it isn’t cheap. Either a web page or a wordpress theme starts from $500.
PeoplePerHour is an excellent site. They have 61,000 independent contractors, from 151 countries, used by over 20,000 small businesses, to get projects done or recruit for ongoing work. Their system is simple. You post a job on their marketplace and freelancers bid on your project. You review the bids and make your choice. You can study each contractors previous work experience and portfolios. There is also a feedback and rating system. You pay for the work when it’s done and leave some feedback for others. There are a range of different hourly rates, which is usually related to experience. So, there is always a price to suit your pocket.
If you want to find workers for ongoing work from virtual assistants to web developers, ODesk is the best site. This is the service John Reese recommends. It’s great for finding low cost, but highly skilled people from Asia, or anywhere on the planet. Odesk are more focussed on finding people to work for you as their process involves resumes, interviews and work roles rather than projects. To post a job they ask you the duration and the rate you want to pay, which you may not know for project work.
But ODesk have a very clever back-end managment system, where the worker logs in and records what he is doing and how long it’s taking. And you can see all of this. So, you can follow the progress of your project or work, know how it’s progressing and how many hours you will be billed. I think this a great idea, and to my best knowledge, it’s the only service that does this.
Don’t do everything yourself. Outsourcing is easy to do and affordable.
