by Stu McLaren
The other day I answered a question about working with outsource partners. The guy who asked the question complained that he had been trying to find reliable outsourcing partners but the level of responsiveness he got was ways below his expectations. He was asking what the reasonable level of responsiveness is. Here is what I answered him:
Whenever you are working with somebody, always give them a deadline that is at minimum a week before your actual date that you need it. Do not let them know that that is the case. Most often, the people you are outsourcing from have multiple clients and the challenge there is that their time is divided between all of those people and they tend to address the projects that are most current or that need the attention at that particular time.
You should always tell your expectations before you start the project. Always ask your potential outsourcing partners if they are able to take new clients and if they have the time to devote to you.
If the answer is yes, then the question you want to ask them is, “What can I expect in terms of turnaround time for this type of project or that type of project?” So now, they are telling you their timeline.
Then you want to follow that one up just to make sure you say, “Okay, so from my understanding, if I give you a project on Monday, it is going to be completed by XYZ date,” whatever their timeline may be. That way, you won their commitment in terms of they are the ones that have shared with you their timeline and they have agreed and committed to that.
From there, what I like to do is give them a project that is not time sensitive in a sense that it needs to be done right away, just to test the water, to see how they respond and how the communication is going back and forth.
The next question we need to clarify is about the time and ways to communicate. There are many ways to communicate - phone, email, instant messagers (such as Yahoo, Skype, MSN, etc.) Clarify how they prefer to communicate and also when. It is important to know at what time of the day you can reach them.
Different people work at different times. For instance, some of the webmasters I know work only at night because then they are most productive. Other webmasters work in the daytime.
Work hours are really important and you need to clarify this in advance. If you have a vital question to ask them and they work mainly at night, you will be trying in vain to reach them during normal business hours.
Another important tip for successful partnership is to give them as much information as possible, thus reducing the guesswork to zero. Maybe not everybody else does it but since this approach delivers the best results for me, I usually stick to this rule.
What I do when getting a website created for example is I go through and I find as many different sites that I like and I want my webmaster to use as a source of reference when creating my own.
I pick up five to ten sites and tell the webmaster what I like in each site - i.e. the colors, the fonts, the layout, etc. I provide many examples to illustrate my point.
You might object that this all takes you a lot of time. That’s right, but this is the way to eliminate the guesswork and to cut the unnecessary communication. When you present sites you like, this helps your outsourcing partner to get an idea of what you want and this makes it easier for him or her to create exactly what you want. This approach saves both tons of money and a lot of time and that’s why it has been working for me without failure.
Like I said, number one is managing expectations upfront and getting the commitment of the outsource partner himself or herself to tell you their timeline and to share with you what you can expect and it comes from them. The other thing is to find out the best way to communicate with them and the best time to reach them.
To repeat once again, it is vital that your first project with your outsourcing partner is not an urgent one. The first project is to taste the waters and you should be prepared that not everything might go as planned. You should also expect that the first project might be the last - i.e. if you don’t feel your cooperation is great, there is no need to rush to a second project.
Very often the process of finding responsive outsourcing partners is based on trial and error. You might have to try many providers till you find The One. Once you find somebody you enjoy working with, rest assured - you can use them for as many projects as you have!
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