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There are so many places where you can hire freelancers, that it may be confusing. Where you go will depend on what it is you need done. Forums are one great place to find freelancers. Websites like WarriorForum.com are teeming with freelancers who need work and are willing to work at great prices for the members.
Hiring people through forums has the added benefit of being a place where you can look around to see a person's reputation before you hire them. You can search the forum for their name to see if anything negative has been said about them, and to see if any positive remarks have been made.
You can also make a post on a forum and ask for recommendations. You can post something like, "I'm looking for a good graphics designer who works quickly and charges a fair price. Who do you recommend?" You'll probably get a number of recommendations, as well as a few private messages from freelancers who want to work for you.
Elance is a very popular freelance website. You can look through a number of different freelancers' portfolios, and you can also see their feedback. People with high feedback and very few negatives are less likely to do a bad job than others might be.
You can also post a bid request and have freelancers bid for your job. You can get a variety of prices and freelancers to choose from, but don't automatically choose the lowest price. Lower priced freelancers are sometimes cheap because they're less experienced.
That's not always the case, though! Sometimes they're cheap because they're new to the site and they need to build a reputation. Rent-a-coder is another popular freelancing site. They're popular for being a place to find programmers, but they don't only have programmers available.
You can also find writers and graphics designers there, and sometimes people who will do things like site submissions and other menial tasks. Perhaps the best way to find a good freelancer is to ask for referrals from friends and acquaintances you've met while networking in this industry.
If you're really worried about outsourcing, you could go through a site like Escrow.com. They let you make a deposit for the job, and they tell the freelancer that you've paid. Then the freelancer can being work, knowing the money has already been funded.
Once you're happy with the work, you can tell Escrow.com and they'll release the funds to the freelancer. Just be aware that some freelancers won't do this. They worry you'll claim you don't like the work (and use it anyway).
By using one of the more reputable outsourcing companies and checking references and feedback, you stand the best chance at finding a good freelancer that works at a reasonable price and will do a great job.
Filed under Outsourcing by 
So many new marketers are reluctant to outsource, because they don't like spending the extra money. They think it would be a waste of cash to pay someone else to perform tasks they can do themselves. But that thinking is very flawed.
The top marketers you know today have teams to help them go from the conception of an idea to a product launch. But before they could afford a staff, they used freelancer to outsource the more insignificant tasks while they worked on building a bona fide business.
Name just about any millionaire or billionaire in the world and chances are, that person has employees or outsourcers who take care of the vast majority of their work. It's nearly impossible for one person to grow a business to the seven figure range or greater by themselves. It can be done, but it would require a level of dedication that very few individuals possess.
Try to think about outsourcing in terms of the money you deserve to be paid. What do you think your time is worth? Are you willing to go out and work at a job making minimum wage or a bit more?
If not, then you're better off delegating your tasks to people who are willing to work for that. If your time is worth more than what it would cost you to hire someone else to do it, then it just makes sense to outsource the task!
Trying to do everything yourself can also hamper your chance to be extremely successful. The more you try to do by yourself, the less you'll actually get done. Think about this. If you spent every single waking moment writing eBooks, you might be able to pull off one a month.
If you're a very fast writer, you might be able to create a few more. But if you hired outsourcers, you could create an unlimited number of them – and take the time to launch each one and get a hefty return on your investment, too!
The number of eBooks you could have would only be limited by the amount of money you had to pay the outsourcers! You may have heard the horror stories about finding reliable outsourcers. Yes, it can be hard to find someone who is reliable. But you don't have to be ripped off!
You can give each outsourcer a small order first to test the quality of their work and the speed of delivery. The first few jobs might be smaller jobs. Once they've proven themselves a few times, you can start giving them larger jobs. Go from a pack of 5 one-page articles to a 50-page eBook.
Some outsourcers will ask for payment up front, because they get scammed, too. That doesn't necessarily mean you should discount them. Some very excellent outsourcers require payment up front to make sure they don't have their hard work stolen.
Just make sure you always ask for references or take the time to examine their reputation and profiles first. If they have a lot of good testimonials from people you recognize, or they have a very good word-of-mouth reputation, then you're probably safe working with them.
Even people with stellar reputations flake out sometimes, but it's less likely than it might be if you went with a total stranger with no standing in the freelance community. Remember, outsourcing does cost money, but as long as the work they do makes you a profit and saves you time, it's worth it in the end.
Filed under Outsourcing by
