Let me now take the other side of the table and write this on the point of view of the outsourced service provider. If you are somebody who provides outsourced services to your clients, then this post is for you. I’m gonna talk about tips on dealing with outsourcers, language differences, timezone differences.

Firstly, before somebody outsource something to you or somebody hires you as their part-time/fulltime virtual employee, you have to know what they need. People looking to outsource certain jobs or functions have a need. The goal is to find out if their need matches your skills and expertise.

Don’t tell them you have this or that skill if you don’t have it. If you don’t have that skill, politely say I don’t have that skill for the moment but I’m willing to be trained.

As much as possible ask probing questions. Some outsourcers are not as technical as you. For example, somebody says they need a website made then asks you if you know how to make a website? Most probably if you know basic HTML, you’ll say yes but what you don’t know is that the “website” the outsourcer needs is an ecommerce website. So it is best to figure out what exactly is the need of the outsourcer by asking them questions. Get to know what their objective are.

Language Differences

Aside from having different native languages, probably one thing that adds confusion is the accent. Like British, American, and Australian are all using the English language but the accent may be confusing at times. Fortunately, there is no accent when it comes to chat.

One of the most powerful communication tools is a chat service. You can use yahoo messenger, gtalk, skype or whatever suits you but being able to type and read eliminates some of the language barriers. Plus with chat, you can go back and refer to things your outsourcer said which you can’t if you’re using voice chat.

Time Differences

If your outsourcer/employer is on the other side of the world, one of the drawbacks is having different timezones. It could be 9am in your time but then it’s already 9pm on your outsourcer’s time. It’s best to agree on a time shift that would work for both.

Sometimes, the time difference is actually beneficial. Like in the case of medical transcription outsourcing. Physicians and healthcare professionals in the US can record patient’s reports or findings using a digital voice recorder. Then during night time, medical transcriptionists from the other side of the world can download the audio files, transcribe it and then upload the resulting document while the doctor is still in bed sleeping. By morning, everything is ready.

Understand their business

Being able to know and understand your client’s business would really help. I don’t think it is good to just work on a specific task assigned to you. You must be able to “see” the big picture and if you understand their business model, you will most likely appreciate your role in their organization.

Managing Expectations

Some clients may not have a clue on how easy or how hard a task is. For example, a client does not have an idea on how SEO works and ask you that he wants you to make his website rank #1 for this and that keyword in 2 weeks.

Understand that the reason why they are outsourcing these stuff to you is precisely because they either don’t have the time to do it, or they don’t have a clue on how to do it. Part of your job is to make your client understand how it works, communicate what is feasible and what’s not.

The Good , The Bad, and the Ugly (Clients)

Well, probably not ugly but here’s what I mean. If you’re doing freelance work like a one time thing for a client, there is a risk that you might not get paid. The bad clients.

Why would they not pay you in the first place? Well, perhaps they are working on a bigger project and they’re subcontracting a portion of it to you, and then for some reason, they themselves weren’t paid and thus they don’t have the funds to pay you.

Probably they found another provider which offers the same services as you and they just didn’t notify you that they no longer require your services.

Or probaby they are just bad.

It is also best to define clear responsibilities, and clear deliverables. The more detailed the deliverables are the less confusion and miscommunication you’ll have.

Here’s some few ideas on how to minimize your exposure to such ugly experiences.

Advance Payment

They pay you in advance. Either 100% or at least 50% before you even start working on the project. This is the ideal. If you have such a deal, good for you.

Staggered payments

Propose a staggered payment. Break your deliverables into different parts and send an invoice after every deliverable. With this method, you can minimize your exposure only to the amount of effort you put in to that specific unpaid deliverable.

Sometimes your client has a cash flow problem and by billing lots of smaller invoices, it makes it easier for their business.

Use an Escrow Service

There are escrow services that serves as a middleman between you and your client. It works something like this. You client sends funds to the escrow service who then holds the payment while you work at the project for your client. You as the provider is then protected because you know there is already a fund for the project. It acts as proof that they will pay. You as the service provider/freelancer then sends your deliverables to your client and you get the payment from the escrow service.

More info about escrow for freelance work here.

Good Clients

Good clients of course are the ones who pays you the agreed amount, and send the payments on time. The best clients are those that treats you as a partner in progress not just an employee or a service provider. When their business grows, you grow with it.

Well, apart from monetary stuff, a good client gives you room to grow, train you to be better (whch in turn benefits their business), and is open minded to changes and suggestions, never too demanding, and knows how to communicate well.

Conclusion

The internet is a place full of different kinds of people. The same kind of people you deal with offline. Your experience in working with all sorts of people, dealing with day to day issues will is also applicable online.

The same management principles work, the same kind of people skills work, the same kind of business and employee/employer relationship work, the same kind of client/service provider issues are present. The only difference is, the distance and less face to face interaction.

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Thanks Noel… so hopefully that answered all your questions & more on outsourcing, if not, email me at marenkate@gmail.com for any additional questions.

Action Step:

Make a list of things you could outsource

Now on the juicy stuff~ Developing your first product!