This is definately a step in the right direction. Getting other people to sell for me. Funny story: Two cell phone stores I sell to, fired 2 employees. A few days later, I get a phone call from both of them asking to sell my products on the street. Perfect! I have another who is reselling into Jamaica, and another reselling into Haiti. My products are in Suriname too. And of course, I get calls regularly from people who were given my business card or found me on Craigslist.
I have a few thousand that I put into buying regular inventory that sells out weekly (need more money) of the hottest inventory items. I have found that while I am making more sales, giving discounts to salesmen is cutting heavily into profits. The next pricing update is due to be released by me in the next week or two. At that time, my prices will need to go up, in order to compensate for unforeseen losses.
Sunday, June 14, 2009
Outsourcing
So.... outsourcing huh?.... Hmmm....
The local Advocate newspaper's front cover a few weeks ago said (Big bold letters) "Sorry, this issue has been outsourced to India". Funny.
So, yeah, let's see. The first company I went with was the only one who took it upon themselves to go to my website and put together a sample for me. I was impressed by the initiative, and hired them. How did it go? Well, 2 weeks later, the deadline had passed, and they had JUST figured out what the hell I was talking about. Was it my inability to speak clearly? Nah. Like I usually explain about China, they understand the words, not the concepts. So, I pulled allthe other possible work from them, and let them finish the task that took me so long to communicate to them. It's now 3 weeks past due, and they did about 110 out of 500 entries.
Second company I hired, I had them do some design work. The title was "2 Posters and a Bag". The agreed price was $2.50/hr. They did 10 hours and really nice, eye catching designs. I paid them the $25.00 and asked for the master files. They said to send them another $25.00 and they would send me the masters. Needless to say, I do not respond well to extortion. I will have another company just redesign it for a fraction of that cost. Besides, it's the principal.
At this point I was frustrated, as I put in about 20 hours of MY time explaining all these projects. The worst was that India was 9.5 hours off from me, so their 9am was my 11:30pm so this created many late nights for me. Point was defeated on making my life easier.
I reposted all my jobs again, this time I broke them apart into different tasks and categories. Then I found my guy. He is Canadian, speaks English as a first language, moved to China, and opened his own Virtual Assistant company. The results were drastically different.
China is 12 hours different from me, so he logs into chat at 8-9pm, perfect for me. He understands my comments (and my jokes). He can follow even the most complex things I throw at him (still testing, but he has been fine so far). While not perfect for all my tasks, he meets most of my needs. His price is $3.00/hr.
There are some tasks I will find others for, like PHP Web coding, but then I will get specialists.
Overall, I found it hit or miss. Even with Feedback, I found I had troubles. The people I liked most were over $9/hr and at that point, I can hire locally. But, my bigger goal is not one-off tasks. I plan on training, then they can do the repetative work daily (like posting on Craigslist) and I can just oversee.
The local Advocate newspaper's front cover a few weeks ago said (Big bold letters) "Sorry, this issue has been outsourced to India". Funny.
So, yeah, let's see. The first company I went with was the only one who took it upon themselves to go to my website and put together a sample for me. I was impressed by the initiative, and hired them. How did it go? Well, 2 weeks later, the deadline had passed, and they had JUST figured out what the hell I was talking about. Was it my inability to speak clearly? Nah. Like I usually explain about China, they understand the words, not the concepts. So, I pulled allthe other possible work from them, and let them finish the task that took me so long to communicate to them. It's now 3 weeks past due, and they did about 110 out of 500 entries.
Second company I hired, I had them do some design work. The title was "2 Posters and a Bag". The agreed price was $2.50/hr. They did 10 hours and really nice, eye catching designs. I paid them the $25.00 and asked for the master files. They said to send them another $25.00 and they would send me the masters. Needless to say, I do not respond well to extortion. I will have another company just redesign it for a fraction of that cost. Besides, it's the principal.
At this point I was frustrated, as I put in about 20 hours of MY time explaining all these projects. The worst was that India was 9.5 hours off from me, so their 9am was my 11:30pm so this created many late nights for me. Point was defeated on making my life easier.
I reposted all my jobs again, this time I broke them apart into different tasks and categories. Then I found my guy. He is Canadian, speaks English as a first language, moved to China, and opened his own Virtual Assistant company. The results were drastically different.
China is 12 hours different from me, so he logs into chat at 8-9pm, perfect for me. He understands my comments (and my jokes). He can follow even the most complex things I throw at him (still testing, but he has been fine so far). While not perfect for all my tasks, he meets most of my needs. His price is $3.00/hr.
There are some tasks I will find others for, like PHP Web coding, but then I will get specialists.
Overall, I found it hit or miss. Even with Feedback, I found I had troubles. The people I liked most were over $9/hr and at that point, I can hire locally. But, my bigger goal is not one-off tasks. I plan on training, then they can do the repetative work daily (like posting on Craigslist) and I can just oversee.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Online Marketing