4 Jan, 2008 in
outsourcing by
rexreed
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So, yesterday I posted my outsourcing / VA job requirements on eLance, Guru.com, and GetaFreelancer.com. How did it go?
Results: Zero responses on eLance and 5 ill-suited responses on GetaFreelancer.com. Before I delve into each one of the above, I would like to complain about Guru.com. I was unable to make even one submission. For whatever reason, my submission is in limbo, not having been posted. I will try again, and then give up with Guru.com if I can’t make it work.
Are these poor results the fault of the responders or a black mark on the reputation of the outsourcing web sites? Heck no. The fault lies squarely with me. I simply did not word the job specification clearly enough or post it in the right places to solicit the sort of responses I was looking for.
So, I’m following the good advice of my new friend M @ The Four Hour Trial Blog and using his advice to see if I can solicit much better responses simply by being clearer about what I want.
For example, it’s too vague to say you need “Search Engine Optimization (SEO)” or “Blog Marketing”. Specifically say what you want posted where, in what quantities, and in what time frame, with what particular measurable result, and your results should be much better. That might mean shrinking the task or splitting it into multiple tasks (as it did in my case), but that also means more qualified respondents as well as a greater likelihood of success.
Also, I was given advice to:
- Make sure to select escrow service as a way of implying trust in this anonymous Internet environment…
- Repeat the post in different categories and sections with different titles so as to attract different people who might be keying off the title and section as an indicator of interest. I’m therefore going to post the description in 5-7 different places on eLance and do the same on Getafreelancer.com where it makes sense…
- Create a separate task for doing some of the parts that are unrelated to the other tasks. Rather than have one outsourcer stretch and do two jobs in a mediocre way, the advice is to have two outsourcers do individual jobs very well. This might mean higher cost, but also better results.
I’m giving the above a try today and I’ll let you know shortly of my (hopefully much better) results!
