Over the last few years, I’ve done a bit of outsourcing overseas for various parts of my business. Most of the graphics you see on my sites have been designed by overseas graphic designers, some of the background website coding/programming and a lot of the content on my Adsense & affiliate sites has also been done by overseas workers.
Now I’m not just talking about going to a website that specifically offers that service – graphic design, coding, article writing etc. – and asking them to do the work for me, but actually employing individuals on various outsourcing sites across the net (like oDesk, eLance & VWorker) to do specific jobs for me.
It’s pretty much like hiring my own, temporary employees – I request a certain job to be done, people put in a bid for how much they’ll do the job for & I hire the person who I think can do the best job for the best price.
Up until now, I’ve only hired people to do work for my sites…but this week I’m going to launch a slightly different business model.
I’m going to offer a content writing/SEO service, but I’ll be outsourcing 90% of the work to my overseas employees. This means that I’ll be able to take on a LOT more work than I would be able to on my own.
On my own, I might only be able to take on 5 to 10 sites a month for SEO work, or write about 10, good quality articles a day. By outsourcing a lot of the work to several, skilled overseas workers, I’ll be able to produce up to 50 or so articles a day for customers or take on 30 to 40 sites for SEO!
…& yes, people will actually pay you to write articles for their websites! A lot of website owners don’t have the time or skills to write good content for their sites, so they’d much rather outsource the work to someone else.
With the right employees, I should only have to put an hour or so a day into this business model at the most. There’ll be a few small aspects of the service that I’ll handle myself & the rest of the time will be spent just monitoring the work that’s being done.
The next few weeks are just going to be a test phase to see how things go & iron out any bugs before I launch it properly.
The beauty of this business model, is almost anyone can get started with it, & you’re not just limited to content writing & SEO services. You could:
- Start a graphics design business.
- Offer complete website design.
- Start a software business.
…& all of this without having any knowledge or skills in that particular area yourself. As long as you make sure you hire good, freelance worker/s for the jobs, you don’t need to be able to do the work yourself.
How exactly does it work?
People in many overseas countries are often quite happy to work for a lot less than people in many western countries. And no, it’s not slave labour…you’re not taking advantage of them…99% of the time, you’re actually helping them.
Living costs & average salaries in many countries like Asia, India, Africa, & the Philippines are very different from what you or I are used to. For example, in 2004, the average monthly net income for a school teacher in the Philippines was US$237! Yes, that’s per month – that works out to around US$60 a week or US$1.50 an hour!
A freelance content/article writer from the Philippines with a good understanding of English, can earn anywhere from $2.50 to $6 or so an hour working online, earning quite a lot more than others in their country. Web designers can earn up to $10 or so an hour.
Outsourcing is great for us, as we can get work done for a fraction of what you’d have to pay a local person to do it and great for your overseas outsourcer as they have the opportunity to work from home and earn more money than most others.
For example, you might decide to offer a web design service. You could charge your customers $500 for a 5 page site (which is quite reasonable & much cheaper than many design companies), & have your overseas worker do the job for you for a cost of anywhere between $150 to $250.
That leaves you with a minimum of $250 profit…without actually having to do any of the work. All you have to do, is find the work!
I know of many people who’ve launched businesses that are turning over well in excess of 6-figures a year using this method, so really, there’s no limit to what you can earn.
I’ll keep you updated with how things are going over the coming weeks & will write some more posts on how to get started. In the mean time, have look on some of the outsourcing sites & see if you can get some ideas on businesses you can start up.
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
Yes, I know that a lot of people are sourcing people resources overseas at cheaper rates. However for a very complex and in depth online store and a good payments processing service, you really are better off to deal with somebody local to you who can visit you, communicate in clear Australian English and discuss all aspects of the job from start to finish without you having to co-ordinate a bunch of offshore web specialists. There is value in using local Web Design Freelancers or Companies will be a one stop shop for all your needs. Australians are usually trained in the latest of technologies where some offshore consultants are not as they can’t afford to keep updating their training.
Yes, in many cases you’re right, but there’s also some pretty terrible local web designers that I’ve seen. I guess it’s really just a matter of throughly checking out a company before you sign for anything – local or overseas!