outsourcing - o/s workers

I just can't find the time in the day anymore to do all the stuff I want to do, so I have been thinking of outsourcing to one of those offshore worker companies. But its a bit of a worry, since I have read some pretty nasty things about these companies in the past, like how you have to re-do everything since their english skills are lacking.

Has anyone here used an o/s worker outsourcing company before? If so, which one and how was it. Also can you post exactly what you had them do - I am not expecting them to do brilliant SEO work for me, but it would be nice to have someone doing regular TGP gallery builds and submits or other similar work.

And for all you outsourcing companies, please feel free to add your comments (not just your price tags!) I would be interested to hear what the average workload is for your workers.

cheers,
Luke

My problem with the concept of outsourcing is... if someone is so good at building and submitting galleries, why aren't they doing it for themselves and making money that way?

mostly we know philippino workers, and they've been really super nice. keep in mind that your best bet is to go over each gallery after it is built, check for small errors in english, and then give them the description.

if you're going with a company, try xxxoutsourcing - i've heard they're pretty cool. i would be careful of prooutsourcing - they used to be adultoutsourcing, and there are some ownership struggles going on.

if you'd rather deal direct with a worker, you can get someone for less. the outsourcing companies charge around $1000 a month, but you can get the workers direct for $600. on the other hand, if you like the idea of them actually reporting to an office and having a supervisor, go with the company. with a free lancer, you can usually get someone for just a week or a month.

if you are interested, i can give you the url of a board that is probably almost all philippine designers, or the icq of a great woman who helps coordinate jobs for the free lancers.

When you reach the stage where you need to hire other people, I think that is the time where things can either take off and go really well for you or start falling apart.

Hire the right people and you will do really well. But beware of trusting people to interface with your members/affiliates until you REALLY know them. I had some bad experiences while I was ill and I had to trust someone else to run things. Nobody will ever care about your business as much as you do!

words to live by.

people who are just starting out make mistakes you might not make, so let them start out easy and keep an eye out. this applies to ANY person who isn't you ;)

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Originally Posted by CashAddict

When you reach the stage where you need to hire other people, I think that is the time where things can either take off and go really well for you or start falling apart.

Hire the right people and you will do really well. But beware of trusting people to interface with your members/affiliates until you REALLY know them. I had some bad experiences while I was ill and I had to trust someone else to run things. Nobody will ever care about your business as much as you do!

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Originally Posted by lil_baby

hi, there
maybe i can help you!
see sig
thanks!

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WOW that's one hell of a reply :(

I am interested in trying one of the sites mentioned above xxxoutsourcing and proadultoutsourcing and have checked both sites...they look nearly identical in what they claim they can provide and the pricing is also similar.

So my question is has anyone had real life experiences with either company? Any feedback would be most welcome!

Oh and for the record...

If any other outsourcing company purely spams their service without taking time to respond to Lukes comments your post will also be removed.

There is a demand for quality outsrouced workers but, if you cant be bothered to answer the questions you are being asked, dont expect us to send you any clients.

I think thats only fair.

Regards,

Lee

Patti, I would love that info, do you want to post it here or pop thru an icq please?

cheers,
Luke

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Originally Posted by Chilihost

Patti, I would love that info, do you want to post it here or pop thru an icq please?

cheers,
Luke

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Id shoot Patti a PM dude :)

Otherwise if it gets posted here they will all be snagged up by outsourcing companies LOL

I have to admit though, the one designer i did hire thanks to Basschicks reccomendation i couldnt be happier with right now :thumbsup:

Regards,

Lee

proadultoutsourcing was adultoutsourcing previously. there was an internal power struggle, which is still going on - and their employees were getting paid only $200 a month out of the $1000 we were paying, plus they were just being treated terribly - really badly. verbal abuse was the rule of the day.

if anyone wants the url of that board, shoot me a pm.

That's too bad...has anyone else had dealings with either company? Or have other suggestions...I would hate to support "slave labor" of course.

There's very little information on the site. If I was offering a service like that, I'd give many more details about how it works, how they can offer such a good deal, etc.

Also check out www.iwebmasters.com. Its a relatively new company but it has some reputable folks behind it. Rick Latona, owner of Consumption Junction, is one of the owners.

Expect to have to train the person for a while and be prepared for some frustration along the way. The language barrier can be difficult because even though most speak English, they generally aren't capable of writing good copy.

We've had our ups and downs with it, but on the whole its been pretty good. I have an excellent guy that's been with us for over a year now and I wouldn't trade him for anyone, so it can be a fruitful endeavor.

i don't generally let designers write my copy, anyway. i send them the text along with the pics.

i have had good luck with designers from the philippines. a lot of the guys at the outsourcing companies have no previous experience with adult, though - so i agree that training time will have to be factored in. it takes me about two weeks to get a designer to a point where he knows what i want.

on the other hand, there are some designers in the philippines with lots of experience. i work with a guy who did four of these for me tonight, and as gallery headers go, i think these are pretty nice.

http://www.manofmuscle.com/napoleon/...leries_06.html

http://www.manofmuscle.com/napoleon/...leries_04.html

yes, thats nice work!

cheers,
Luke

personaly i would never let those guys do any part of my business... but thats just my thought...

I'm all for offshore outsourcing. Afterall, we do business in a medium without borders. Why limit our labor force to within them?

Even if I wanna hire some college student parttime here in the US for 9 bucks an hour, the chances of them being a long-term employee at such a payrate and staying around for awhile to do gruntwork such as that before running off to pursue something that's better to them and leaving me having to hire and train someone else only to have to go through that all over again a few months later is so high - and the nature of the "grunt" work they're doing just can't justify a higher wage - that an offshore option is that much more appealing.

That a competitive, healthy and quite good salary for someone in a developing nation is a 5th of what it'd be for someone here enables me to be both cost-efficient and ethical.

Even at Bionic Pixels - outsourced specialists - we outsource to offshore companies for a lot of our own stuff. Or refer inquiries and clients to a select group of offshore specialists for certain work. Things such as TGP template design, banner design aren't cost effective for us to do for clients when we focus on major design, creation and programming services. We're here building robust e-commerce structures from the ground up and designing, programming and implementing massive websites for people. We can't justifiably put time in to a 5 banner gig.

One thing that we do offer clients, though, is managed offshore outsourcing for those that want it. Say a client we have an existing relationship with wants 50 banners made. Or even 10-15. And a few TGPs. At a fraction of our design rate, we can use our trusted offshore contacts to do the actual work, with a slight markup that we charge to provide quality control (initiate and handle all communications with offshore designer, provide artwork and specs and instructions, check the English, check the quality, assure the copy is to the clients satisfaction, that everything looks good and meets client approval as well as our own). The client gets a finished product that is to their liking and still didn't have to lift a finger, all the while still having spent way less than if they'd tried to either do it themselves, paid us to do the actual design, or hire someone stateside.

That's something you might want to consider too, Luke. If you have someone that you've perhaps used for regular work there in Oz and that you know and trust and is in your country. And they, themselves, outsource offshore. Contract them for your work with the understanding they'll send it overseas. Set an amount that is cheap for you, but that leaves them enough room to both negotiate with the offshore folk and take a lil off the top to be the go-between and assure you're happy with the finished product. That way you're still saving money while at the same time only dealing with someone you know and trust, having the product filtered through that person you know and trust to ensure it's to your liking, and it's they who deal with to folks offshore. It can be profitable for your in-country go-between as well. They're not getting paid as much as if you were paying them for the actual design itself, but they're also not spending nearly as much time on being the go-between as they would on the design itself. So it could very well translate in to both way more money per hour in earnings for them and way less money per hour in costs to you. Not as cheap as going direct to the offshore source yourself, but way more hands off and comfort-inducing. Which has real value in and of itself.

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Originally Posted by BDBionic

That's something you might want to consider too, Luke. If you have someone that you've perhaps used for regular work there in Oz and that you know and trust and is in your country. And they, themselves, outsource offshore. Contract them for your work with the understanding they'll send it overseas. Set an amount that is cheap for you, but that leaves them enough room to both negotiate with the offshore folk and take a lil off the top to be the go-between and assure you're happy with the finished product. That way you're still saving money while at the same time only dealing with someone you know and trust, having the product filtered through that person you know and trust to ensure it's to your liking, and it's they who deal with to folks offshore. It can be profitable for your in-country go-between as well. They're not getting paid as much as if you were paying them for the actual design itself, but they're also not spending nearly as much time on being the go-between as they would on the design itself. So it could very well translate in to both way more money per hour in earnings for them and way less money per hour in costs to you. Not as cheap as going direct to the offshore source yourself, but way more hands off and comfort-inducing. Which has real value in and of itself.

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Goddamn... I hope that makes sense to anyone who reads it because it's 3am now that I wrote it, and reading it over is making my headspin.
Tell me I made sense there. lol. Y'all get what I'm saying?

makes sense, but unfortunately I don't know anyone here that has done this before....but I have gotten some great advice and links from Patti so I might just persue it on my own, by giving it a go for a month and see how it pans out.

cheers,
Luke

I came across the proadultoutsourcing 2 weeks ago and had lengthy chats with the sales person, I needed a programmer familiar with access databases so after talking to them I decided to give then a shot. Well it has taken them 2 weeks so far to find a programmer to work with me, then they tell me that I don’t have direct communication with the programmer but rather have to go though a “project manager” this in itself make me nervous as you are meant to have this person working just for you for your monthly fee but without direct communication it will be hard to tell.

Anyway I am going to give them a tester project, a very simple write a friend to a database from a web site, and then have another page retrieve it, any basic programmer should be able to get that one in an hour or less.

I will let you all know when sort of quality and delays , if any I get.

well i was just told that it may take a couple of weeks for that to be done !!! so I am really wondering how much time you actually get dedicated. so I dont think i will be using this company, and if wouldf definatly advise against handing any time critical projects to an outsourcing co.

I had a simalar experiance with e-trade, the time zone differnces and dealing with middle men seemed to make anything but a really simple project almost impossible to do in any sort of fast time frame. i guess its a case of you get what you pay for.

i won't work with proadultoutsourcing. they used to treat their employees disgracefully!

but the reasons that things take so long at proadultoutsourcing and other outsourcing companies is that they often have to hire and train someone for you - their current guys all have jobs. when they have a guy for you, you get his icq and if you want, you can talk to him for his entire shift, telling him what to do.

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but the reasons that things take so long at proadultoutsourcing and other outsourcing companies is that they often have to hire and train someone for you

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wee, how do you train someone like a programmer in a couple of weeks ??

perhaps you train someone with some related experience or education in the specifics.

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Originally Posted by collegeboyslive

wee, how do you train someone like a programmer in a couple of weeks ??

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