FreelanceSOS.com

Welcome to the FreelanceSOS Tips and Tricks blog!

noreply@blogger.com (littlejoey) — Tue, 15 Jan 2019 07:39:00 +0000

Here at FreelanceSOS we like to help: Help our Business/Project Owners who post their projects with us and help our 1000s of freelancers who visit our main site at www.FreelanceSOS.com and bid on our projects. This blogspot has been created to help our FreelanceSOS family with any questions they may have, by providing articles, tips and tricks, insights, and general observations.

If you're not sure what part of your business you can outsource, then go to the Project Owners section for articles that may help. If you are a Freelancer, then hop on over to the Freelancer section to see what we have there for you.

If there isn't anything that can help you yet - then stick around as we are constantly adding new information. If you need to know something in a hurry though, either go to the FAQ section of FreelanceSOS.com or drop us an email at info@freelancesos.com.

Hopefully you can find something here to help you on your Outsourcing/Freelancing Quest.

Welcome to the FreelanceSOS family!

Regards
The FreelanceSOS team

When Small Businesses become Big Businesses - How to save Time and Money

noreply@blogger.com (littlejoey) — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 06:28:00 +0000

You have found yourself with what was a small business and now you have trouble keeping up with the flow of new business. It is time to consider outsourcing. You can use choose to allow others to do certain functions for you and save yourself time and money. These days that can save your business. You can outsource inside or outside of your country depending on what you need. If your outsourcing function involves products that need to be made you should stay in your country to save on shipping costs. If your job involves anything that can be done online you can outsource to anyone anywhere. Phone work depends on whether the person or company you outsource to has unlimited long distance. The best way to get your outsource job seen is to list it on a site dedicated to people like you that need outside help with their business.

If you do not get the word out you will be unable to hire the help you need to get the work you need done. When your business grows you need to make sure you can still provide the product or service for your clients in a timely manner and that means hiring employees, adding onto your business office or outsourcing. All of those options are fine but of the three the best choice is to outsource. When you outsource you have no large overhead to deal with and you can contract with an outsource company or person and save on employer taxes, time, building expenses and overhead. When you contract it is the responsibility of the outsource company or contractor to pay the taxes so that takes the burden off of you.

You can outsource call center operations, human resources functions, billing, maintenance, software development, writing, editing, data entry, security, IT functions, technology and virtually anything that can be done online. Your business needs the help of outsourcing to get things done in a timely manner so your clients and customers will stay satisfied with your product or service. Good business requires keeping the customer happy and that means having the tools and people to get that done for you. When your business was just beginning you could handle it yourself but now your business is growing and your time is becoming slim due to trying to keep up with the growth. When you list your outsource job where it can be seen you can get the great help you need to save yourself time, money and your business.

Project Owner Stuff

noreply@blogger.com (littlejoey) — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 08:09:00 +0000

Latest Articles:

* When Small Businesses become Big Businesses
* Outsourcing aspects of your business online for the first time – Tips to avoid the pitfalls
* Give Your Business Time to Think - Outsourcing in a Modern World

Freelancer Stuff

noreply@blogger.com (littlejoey) — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 08:00:00 +0000

Don't worry - we will be updating this section with some great Freelancer tips and tricks soon!

Outsourcing aspects of your business online for the first time – Tips to avoid the pitfalls

noreply@blogger.com (littlejoey) — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 19:32:00 +0000

So – you’re a business owner who wants to outsource some aspect of your business day and don’t know exactly what’s required to post your project online? You may have heard stories of business people who have been burnt by outsourcing and have ended up with something very different than what they were expecting. Well fear no more as this article will outline the steps you need to take to help you on the road to ensuring that what you get IS what you were expecting.
What you don’t hear about those stories is that in most of those cases, the business owner didn’t provide enough detail to the freelancer about what they were expecting. It is imperative when dealing with freelancers who may live across town, across state or across the world, that you strictly define what the outsourced work (henceforth called a ‘project’) you require doing is all about. This can not only give a freelancer a better chance of correctly quoting a price for your project (thus insuring misunderstandings can be kept to a minimum), but it can also iron out any kinks in your project idea that you may not have previous thought about. Also, you have to remember that freelancers aren’t mind-readers – you may have it all perfectly worked out in your head, but if its not written down concisely then misunderstandings between you and your freelancer can occur.

When you have decided on what aspect of your business you want to outsource and you are ready to place your project onto a freelance site (such as www.freelancesos.com), it is always a good idea if you create a project document that you can include along (with the brief synopsis of the overall project) so that prospective freelancers can know exactly what they are quoting for.

The detail included in your project document is not limited but should include the following things:
• The Scope of your project
• Payment terms (payment up front, installment payments or payment at the end of the project)
• Ownership of the final product
• Communication preferences
• Contract termination

Project scope:
Include a detailed description of the services you want performed. For example if you want a web site designing, you need to go into some detail about the type of features you want included, the number of pages etc. Simply stating ‘Need a website about horses creating’ doesn’t give a prospective freelancer a lot to go on, and could mean that you don’t end up getting what you wanted for the price you were willing to pay. The details should convey the objective of the job and the information that may be required to receive an accurate and appropriate bid from a freelancer. The more thought out this description is, the better quality of bid you are likely to receive. This is will also help alleviate any misunderstandings between you and your prospective freelancer, right from the beginning. Using the horse website design idea as an example, you would state how many pages you want your website to have (home page, general info about horses, tips for looking after your horse, contact us page to name but a few), whether it requires a shopping cart to sell horse related items, a newsletter opt in section for interested horse owners, etc etc. Already you can see that from the original idea of ‘wanting a website creating about horses’ you are already progressing to provide a better idea of what you want as you add more and more information. With this example you can drill down further if you wish and note any special features you may want to add to the site such as pop-ups or flash animation. This process also helps you visualize your project and make note of anything you hadn’t thought of before.

Within the project scope you may wish to include the deliverables expected at all stages of the project, with milestone dates set out quite clearly. It may be that your project is relatively small and only one deliverable date and milestone is required for the finished product. However, it is more than likely however that you would want to set several deliverable dates for the various milestones associated to your project.

Payment Terms:
It is important that your project document states your schedule of payment – whether you want to pay in installments upon receipt of deliverables along the length of the project, or whether to pay the full amount upon completion and sign off of the project. Also whether you simply want to pay an hourly rate, if your project is ongoing work such as data entry or internet research work.

Although at this stage you are still in the initial stages of posting your project online, you still need to decide how you are going to pay your freelancer once your project is completed – best to figure this out now and save any unnecessary hassles later on. The safest way is to use an escrow service such as www.escrow.com. Your money is kept ‘in escrow’ by www.escrow.com until you have received all of your deliverables. Once approved, the money is released to the freelancer. This process also ensures that the freelancer knows that they will be paid for the project as they receive confirmation that the payment is being held awaiting release upon completion of the project. As some freelancers have delivered work for projects in the past and not received payment for it, the escrow process alleviates the worry involved in for all parties concerned.

Ownership of the final project deliverable:
Issues of ownership of the work completed can be a major concern for business owners. You need to make it clear in your project document that the project is a work that is ‘made-for-hire’, or include a clause in the contract transferring all rights relative to the project from the creator (freelancer) to the requestor (you).

Communication preferences:
You might want to include which form of communication you will prefer to use throughout the project process with the successful freelancer. You may prefer to communicate via e-mail, telephone, skype, instant messaging, and its good to let people know from the beginning the best way to contact you if they win the project bid.

A few more things to consider…

Contracts:
Once you have chosen your freelancer from the bids you have received, it is important that you have a contract drawn up (or use an independent contractor contract template available online) that outlines what is expected from both you and your freelancer.

Confidentiality or NDA agreements:
If your project or business process that you are outsourcing is particular sensitive or confidential (or you simply don’t want anyone knowing about your revolutionary idea) then you should have your freelancers sign a confidentiality or non-disclosure agreement (NDA). You can either have your lawyer draft one, or find a general template for one on the internet. If you require a confidentiality or NDA agreement for your project, then you will obviously need to keep certain information out of your project document so that no one else runs away with your idea. It may be that you have to walk a fine line between detailing your project document with enough information and keeping the juicy bits back until you get your winning freelancer to sign an agreement. As long as you are aware that prospective freelancers still need to know the extent of the work involved, so it may be that you outline it enough for them to be able to adequately bid for the project, but not give away exact details.

Alternatively you could look at splitting your project into different sections and outsourcing them separately. That way no one person has the full view of what the project entails. However, this avenue for the outsourcing beginner is fraught with issues as depending on the complexity of the project this may be a nigh on impossible alternative without using the services of a Project Manager to tie the project together. (You can even find your Project Manager via the freelance website as well, if you don’t have one within your company to handle this process for you).

Contract Termination:
Your project document should include contract termination details which briefly outlining what may constitute as termination of the project. This can include such issues as:
• Late delivery of project deliverables
• Poor workmanship
• Lack of communication

Although the full details of contract termination would be discussed further with the freelancer who successfully bids on your project, it is important to briefly make the freelancers bidding on your project aware of your stance from the outset. This may also help to weed out the serious freelancers from the ‘tire-kickers’ if they know that from the beginning.

Conclusion:
All in all, to successfully navigate the world of outsourcing, information is the key. As long as everyone involved in the process is well informed then the way forward for your project is going to be a lot clearer than that of the un-informed business owner who has a vague description and no clear defined agenda of the project they have to outsource.
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Give Your Business Time to Think - Outsourcing in a Modern World

noreply@blogger.com (littlejoey) — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 08:44:00 +0000

A common phrase uttered by the older generation is ‘You young people have it lucky, things were a lot harder in my day!’ and to an extent this is somewhat true. We no longer walk 27 miles to school and back in the wind, hail and rain wearing nothing but a pair of shoes with cardboard soles held together with a piece of string, we’re much luckier – we have all sorts of gadgets and gizmos at our disposal to make our lives so much easier. However it seems that the very technology that was invented to make things easier for the Generation Xs and Ys is almost causing us to have less and less time to spend with our family, and indeed ourselves. Sure we have microwave ovens that can cook a meal in two minutes instead of twenty, but in todays society it still seems that we get home from work later, we do chores around the house later, and end up finally going to sleep around midnight, only to wake up in 6 hours time tired and weary and ready to do it all over again.

Take for example the wonder that is the cellphone (or the PDA). ‘You can communicate with anyone, anytime!’ the brochures stated ‘Wonder at the amazing mobile technology!’ Yes times have changed since the 60’s – not only does Dad wear a t-shirt and jeans to the office, but he also carries a PDA that beeps work at him 18 hours a day.

What a weary race advancements in technology seem to have made us. But it doesn’t have to be that way if we begin to embrace technology and utilize it in a way that WE define, not that is defined for us.

You see ‘in the old days’ it was easier for people to switch off between work and home life. Growing up in the 70’s it seemed that everyone was home for dinner, the customers never rang outside of work hours and evenings were spent either watching tv or doing a hobby of some sort.
Now the customers ring or email all hours and it seems that all you do is work – whether it be in the office, on the road, or catching up with the chores at home.

Similarly, any business will know that it is harder to get everything done these days. Wage and general running costs mean that companies don’t have the overabundance of staff they may have had twenty years ago, which means that the day is spent fighting fires, and not spent guiding and promoting business growth. How many times have you heard ‘I’ve got quite a few big plans for the company, if only I could find the time to implement them!’
So where to start? One way to do this is look at what we fill in our days with, and see what can be outsourced to someone else. Outsourcing simply put is employing someone to add value to your business or life without having them as a permanent employee. In fact many small businesses have outsourced for years – getting accountants to do their tax returns, and print bureaus to design their brochures (to name but two examples out of the many). So, if it’s been done ‘manually’ for years, why not embrace technology and try the internet way of doing it?
The internet-based outsourcing business is one that has grown considerably over the past few years and has slowly been embraced by business owners as a way to cost effectively dole out some of their day to day business activities thus leaving them time to focus on the core aspects of their business that they want to grow.

Some businesses approach internet-based outsourcing warily. They believe that outsourcing work to overseas markets for a quarter of the price it takes a local to do the task is anti-local, anti-national, and that it is taking jobs away from ones own countrymen and women. What a lot of people fail to understand is that with outsourcing you don’t HAVE to take the cheapest offer on the outsourcing table. You don’t have to take an offer from a freelancer in a country different to your own if you don’t want to. Ultimately you take the offer that offers the best value, expertise and skill for what you are prepared to pay.

To successfully make the most out of outsourcing, a business owner needs to decide 2 things – 1. What processes they have that can be easily outsourced (and easily managed); and 2. How much they are prepared to pay for it. Most business processes outsourced via the internet tend to be along the lines of logo or website designs, bespoke software development, admin and data entry tasks, marketing, call messaging, with Virtual Assistants being touted as the next revolutionary outsourced occupation. With Virtual Assistants for example you can have your minutes typed, meetings scheduled, out of business hours calls answered, and all by someone who may live in another state or another country.

How much a business is prepared to pay for outsourcing services differs from business to business, but this decision must be approached sensibly. A business owner with a limited budget may find that choosing someone who charges only $10 per hour may not necessarily deliver the quality of work required, ending in added costs involved in getting rework down by someone else who charges $40 per hour for example. In saying this though, hourly rates quoted by freelancers do not necessarily define the quality of work that may be delivered (in some cases the quality of work carried out by a $10 per hour freelancer can be vastly superior to that of one who charges considerably more). At the end of the day to ensure the outsourced work is completed to the expected standards and requirements, business owners need to get a feel for a freelancers work skills, quality and ethics before deciding on the right person to fulfill their allotted task.

The most common form of internet based outsourcing is bid based. Project details are posted on freelance marketplaces by business owners and prospective freelancers with the required skill sets bid on the project - listing the services they offer, examples of their work etc. The business or ‘project owner’ then looks at the offers on the table and chooses a winning bid that matches their requirements and budget. By outsourcing work in this way businesses get the change to have enquiries of interest come to them instead of having to spend countless hours tracking down companies to get quotes.

By embracing the modern technology of the internet, businesses can free up time during their working day to spend on future planning and business growth – the flow on effects of which can be increased productivity, increased workforce, and increased profits.

Embrace the internet by outsourcing and ultimately you will give your business time to think.
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