Yes, I’ve had a few outsourcing nightmares too. One tip I’d like to share is to make the contract price conditional on timely delivery. For example, if project delivered by X date, then price paid is $Y. If project delivered after X date then price is $Z. If agreed at start, then incentive all round to get the job done quickly. I have found, especially with coders, that deadlines often slip an if you’re not careful, days can turn into weeks into months…

One other quick tip. I have also tried outsourcing some clerical and SEO (social bookmarking etc.) work. I have found that you need to set a time budget for each task. Otherwise, you may find that your job get pushed down the list and most probably, you end up paying for someone else’s work.

Hope this helps.

All the best, Allen

I’m not a big fan of downlines or anything connected to MLM, so I’m not the best person to advise you on that.

If you’re looking to promote products as an affiliate though, then the two most effective ways I can think of to generate free traffic is either by using traffic exchanges, or creating some original content and using SEO techniques to rank it in the search engines.

There’s a good starter guide to traffic exchanges in the Traffic Soliders members area. It’s free to join:

http://www.trafficsoldiers.com/?rid=212

And, of course, you can study SEO at my Lucid SEO site (not free though I’m afraid):

http://www.lucid-seo.com

Hope that helps.

A lot of the work I wanted they couldn’t do because it wasn’t in their skill-set (installing a phpbb forum update, for example). Installing a new script I wanted to test was also not permitted (even though it came with a user manual).

The few bits of research they did were hit and miss. One or two were quite good, but others were a bit patchy. For example, I asked for research on companies that could install and customise scripts – the results were all companies from India. Not that I have anything against programmers from India, you understand, but it did suggest that perhaps the research had not been as broad as I’d asked for.

In another instance, I managed to find better information than they’d supplied with about ten minutes googling…

I think it’s important to try and find the right kind of work that fits the VA you’re working with – but in the end it was easier to increase my “in-house” admin’s hours and give the work to her.

All fun stuff eh?

Sounds very like my own experiences with trying to hire programmers. I went through a lot of duds before I found the right one!

Thanks for sharing.

Garland

http://www.squidoo.com/artart

A big difference between outsourcing and Joint Ventures is that outsourcing is cheaper! I’m paying the rentacoder guy once but my JV partners get an ongoing share in the profits!

The other side of that is that my JV partner will work for no pay until the product is launched – an outsourcer wants prompt payment!

All The Best

Alex

Interesting – and I’d never thought of working with someone else as ‘outsourcing’.

I teamed up with someone because his technical skills are a lot greater than mine – so now I can claim to have outsourced some stuff (but, I have to admit, without realising that I’d actually done it!!)

Cheers,

Martin

Very interesting I have recently read the 4 hour work week – and was inspired to start outsourcing more, and have now hired a full-time VA. It’s fantastic, but still really new – so I am keen to see what worked for you, and what didn’t!

Cindy