Some geographies just won’t do
Dean Soto, a father of six (yes … six), is an entrepreneur who recently moved from a busy metropolitan area to the quietness of the countryside so he may enjoy a better quality of life while accompanying his children growth and evolution.
Four to five years ago he co-founded an on-line training academy, initially to train people about Amazon trading business, and currently has widened its offering.
Why is Outsourcing important for the business?
Outsourcing entered Dean’s life back in 2009 upon having returned from an overseas military assignment and having his wife pregnant on the way to their second child, she wanted to stay at home, so he started to work 16 to 18 hours a day while having no time to dedicate to his family.
The need to regain quality time with his family without losing revenue, led him to get some Outsourcing training and … off he went to the “Outsourcing World”
He started by hiring an Offshore Web developer and invested his time in sales activities to gain clients and new orders.
Some clients after, all hell broke loose when miscommunication has created a tight spot which almost ended Dean’s short entrepreneurial career.
Lessons learn
When Outsourcing one needs to take in account the cultural context which, as the example given in the case of India means an attitude focused strictly following provided requirements.
So if those requirements do not clearly mirror the client requirements or if any language barrier exists, things tend to go wrong.
Having moved from a freelancer in India to one in the Philippines (who was able to speak English as an American) and having him in direct contact with the client for requirements specifications, meaning that projects started to meet client’s expectations and therefore becoming very successful.
Dean further adds that from his perspective: India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Russia are “No Go” geographies for Outsourcing, not because of the people but due to the work attitude which mandates straight assertive requirements being passed on while those people do not have good English skills and therefore are not able to directly gather the requirements from the client. That inevitable generate a high risk of the “middle man” driven message distortion to take place.
The edge of the Philippines lays in a work ethic which is similar to the U.S.
Dean activities include several businesses and processes like: eBay drop shipping, new team members onboarding, personal management and hiring, cash machine project creation affiliate market, real estate, consulting and social media marketing.
To have processes in place is most relevant for Outsourcing activities, having people being able to properly accomplish what is expected of them.
So, basically you record your video with the “how to” then go about the marketplaces asking for someone who “creates/ writes down” processes, test them, get the best and move on.
Freelancers will work on several projects/ clients simultaneously, so go for hour based outsourcing contracts.
Outsourcing mistakes
To begin with, Dean points out that Outsourcing (like so many other things) is a learning process with a learning curve. Then you need to be crystal clear in your requirements and use a step by step approach to it, focusing on continuously improving the process until it is “bullet proof”.
Strategy is not subject to Outsourcing
On the subject of Outsourcing sales activities, Dean points out that while he loves to perform the sale he dreads networking and lead generation, nevertheless he used to work with someone that besides the technical work loved to network and getting prospects, so that is an example of a working sales outsourcing “joint venture”.
Once you decide to Outsource just go ahead and do it, test it and fine tune it