Outsourcing: The Reality (Part Two)
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Continued from Outsourcing: The Reality (Part One)
Payroll-HR-Jobs.com
This website was built using the very flexible MemberSpeed script. Although the script is very easy to install and customise, owing to time constraints, I decided to outsource the work to someone else.
Elance.com and Guru.com are the traditional places to go for outsourcing work, but on this occasion, I didn’t go near them. The reason being, I decided to act on a tip I heard at a seminar from John Reese (I hear he’s pretty good at this IM stuff).
When you’re looking to outsource some work and you want to find the REAL experts, Reese recommended, rather than going to an auction site, to find a forum in the corresponding niche.
If you want to find someone to create a fancy PDF, look for a forum about Adobe Acrobat.
If you want to find someone to manage your dedicated server, look for a forum about web hosting.
And so on…
In this instance, I wanted someone to install and customise the MemberSpeed script, so I looked for a forum about MemberSpeed.
Fortunately, the forum had a category dedicated to people offering their web design services and it was very easy to find someone who had experience with MemberSpeed AND who had the portfolio to prove it.
The price for the work was good, communication and attention to details were excellent, and the finished product was most satisfactory.
If you’re curious – check out www.ezy-hosts.com
Take Aways:
Obviously you need to be careful not to breach any forum rules, so make sure you make any posts in the right category. Alternatively, look around some of the threads to get the sense of who seems to know what they’re talking about. There’s a good chance the forum regulars who are available for hire will have a suitable link in their signature. Visit their website to see their portfolio, or send a private message and you’re on your way.
ThePayrollBlog.com
Ostensibly this is a simple WordPress blog, but the project was complicated by the need for several modifications; namely a specific graphical template, multiple authors, and customised posting templates.
What I really wanted was a Wordpress expert who had the skills and experience to install and customise the entire blog from start to finish.
This proved to be a challenge.
The first company I approached (based on their portfolio) required new customers to complete a form on their website with an overview of the project requirements. After receiving no response, I re-submitted my requirements. I’ve still yet to receive a response.
The next company I went to looked impressive but, worryingly, there was no suggestion on the website as to what they might charge. I completed another form and, this time, received a response quite quickly. The email asked me to contact them by telephone to discuss the project in detail.
The company was approximately eight hours behind my time zone and, after a quick session of time zone maths, I figured the earliest I could call would be about 5pm, my time.
The first time I called, it went straight to answering machine. I didn’t leave a message.
I called again the next day – again, straight to answering machine.
I opted to reply to the original email, explained the problem concerning the time difference, and suggested that he email me with a suitable time to call when he was confident he would be available.
Still not had a reply to that email.
Moving on to company #3…
No portfolio and a bland website, but I figured there was no harm in enquiring. I got an email response very quickly which based on my recent experiences, automatically put this company into first place.
Even better, the email was personally written and the author clearly had a good understanding of marketing, as well as blog design. The price was fairly high, but I’d wasted a lot of time already and I just wanted to get started. I emailed back to indicate my willingness to proceed and forwarded my design brief.
The next email I received expressed concern about one of my design requirements (unique posting templates for each author) and suggested that this might not be feasible. More worryingly, he referred to one of the blogs I had used as an example of what I required, and suggested that this was based on a forum script, rather than a blog script.
The website in question was using Moveable Type. I’m not a blog expert, but I know enough to know that Moveable Type is an open source blog script.
I replied to the email with this information and included links to some Wordpress documentation that, at least to me, suggested that I was asking would be tricky, but certainly not impossible.
Shortly afterwards I received a phone call from the colleague of my original contact and he explained that the gentleman who I had been corresponding with had a family member in hospital and so he had been asked to take over the project.
This didn’t trouble me particularly. My new contact was in the same time zone and, based on our telephone conversation, seemed friendly and competent. We talked about my design requirements and I reiterated the points from my previous email.
My new contact promised to do some research and then come back to me with some suggestions.
A couple of days later I received an email advising me that, after extensive research, they had reached the conclusion that this design feature, wasn’t going to be achievable through Wordpress.
I was disappointed but now more behind schedule than ever. I suggested that they leave this feature out and just complete the rest of the work (I figured I could probably found a work-around, once they have finished).
The next email floored me…
I was advised that they had just taken on a big job from a company in the US and, unfortunately, they were going to be too busy with this to work on my project.
After seething for a while and seriously contemplating ‘naming and shaming’ the company in a blog post, I decided that I had better things to - like finding someone who knew how to work with WordPress.
Surely there must be someone out there.