I am heavily pushing myself to outsource the tasks that I truly don’t want to do.
So I had a new local business client that I just picked up recently and needed a site completely designed and coded in wordpress. If you aren’t sure why wordpress, remind me to write about that topic soon.
My graphic design skills are above average and have made some decent money in the past designing sites and graphics for other clients, but I wanted to start NOT doing it.
So I went to odesk and posted that I needed a designer (and coder in one if possible)
Immediately I started to get bombarded with applications. The prices ranged from $2-30 an hour.
I stayed away from the cheapest and the most expensive. However I found myself hovering around 4-5 dollars an hour. There was one particular applicant that had very little experience on odesk but his work was amazing from the Phillipines.
I looked at his portfolio and was blown away. He was a young guy and inexpensive. I decided to take a chance on him.
This by far has been my worst experience outsourcing to date. Let me explain.
The kid (as I began to reference to him) was obviously talented. But something that was made obvious was that he seemed to lack any type of understanding on how important communication was.
He would go days without any communication nor work on odesk. He would then get on and do some impressive work and not respond to any of the previous emails I had send him.
I got sick of it and fired him. I don’t know about you, but I hate to give bad reviews even when they deserve them. But I did.
He emailed me within 15 minutes and said he was sorry but did not know there was a deadline. GOOD POINT! I had never told him the deadline. I was very flaky in that regard. DAMNIT!
I still needed this project completed and he already had shown me the work. I told him I would create another project and hire him with the understanding that he would keep up-to-date on his progress. He agreed.
Needless to say… I FIRED HIM AGAIN!
He literally went a week without working on the project. He initially gave me some good feedback but then fell back into the same pattern.
LESSON?
Clear deadlines and expectations! From the outset I will make sure to let anyone I hire my policies on communication and progress. One day of failing to follow through on this will lead to immediate termination.
I did this immediately with the next person I hired. The project was completed in 2 days and saw immediate results once I made my new hire.
It is finally complete and I am a happy man. This by far was my worst experience outsourcing, but ultimately just have myself to blame.
