Over the past several months I have outsourced several projects and tasks associated with building passive income streams. In an effort to save more time and maximize my earnings potential, I decided to take some of my eHow earnings that I had accumulated and reinvest them. On paper (at least to me) this seemed like a great idea.
Unfortunately things didn’t work out so great for me. I had three main projects or tasks that I had decided to outsource which would help me focus more time and attention on other tasks. The details of my experience are highlighted below and are reasons why I may NEVER outsource again!
Keyword Research
One of the first jobs that I outsourced was conducting keyword research for a niche site I wanted to build. I outsourced this job with a set of guidelines (unfortunately not too specific) to conduct some extensive research on keywords and domain names. My plan was to eventually take this research and build a website that would earn a steady monthly income.
The intent for outsourcing this job was to save time. In the end, I probably spent more time working with my virtual assistant (VA) on figuring out what exactly I wanted. I paid my VA less than $4 per hour which seemed great. However, if you throw in the time that I spent plus the double work of my VA, I ran up a ton of hours on this project.
I did find an alternative that has turned out to be much more reliable and affordable. For just a little more money than what I paid for my outsourcing job, I purchased Micro Niche Finder. I have been using this tool ever since and have postponed any outsourcing of keyword research!
Ghost Writing
Another brilliant plan that I thought I had was to begin outsourcing articles using Elance. The idea was to take passive income earnings from eHow and begin paying others to start writing content for various niche websites that I planned on building.
Of the three projects that I outsourced, I found this one to be the most successful. I found that the average rate being charged is about 2.5 cents per word (give or take) for a written article. So for a 500 word article, I paid about $12.50 for someone else to write it for me.
Because of my frugal nature and unwillingness to pay for things, I probably won’t do this again for a while. I got some good articles that I used on a few niche sites (not on PFI!), but am not sure they are worth the cost at this point. Sure, I could probably find someone who would write an article for less than that rate, but the quality would be poor.
I still think this may actually work for eHow, but have decided to continue writing my own content – at least for now!
Thesis Customized Design
The most recent job that I decided to outsource was for a customized look for PFI. I have been (and will be for some time) using Thesis as my WordPress blog theme and think it is great. The only problem is that the majority of other bloggers who think Thesis is great have a site that looks similar.
I ended up outsourcing this work to a freelancer who specializes in customizing websites and blogs. As you can tell, the new look is unique from other Thesis users which I am very happy about. Overall, the designer did a good job finding out what I wanted my site to look like and built the customized look.
Unfortunately there is not a happy ending to my experience. There are still several little things that have not been finished on my site. For example, if you use Internet Explorer to view PFI, then you can see what I am talking about. I have not been able to include several other features that I had originally planned on with this site because of some coding issues.
Originally the freelancer agreed to fix everything on my site at no additional cost. Six weeks and five unanswered emails later with no response, I am now tasked with fixing these issues on my own.
Overall I think I got a good deal for what I paid for my customized look (compared with other freelancer bids). However, I now have a site that is 80% complete and will have to devote my own time to finishing the remaining 20%!
Saving Time vs. Spending Money
In the end, outsourcing for me comes down to saving time versus spending money. The three projects that I recently outsourced cost me a few hundred dollars combined. When I look back a few months later, very little of the money I spent has been able to bring in more income for me. Furthermore, the amount of time I thought I was going to save was not as big as what I had hoped for.
Overall this has been a good experience for me that I wanted to share with my readers. I still believe that outsourcing can be a great tool when building passive income. I will probably be holding off from outsourcing any new work for some time. However, if I can learn from my mistakes, then there still may be a place someday to outsource some of my work!
How successful have your outsourcing jobs been?
Related posts:
- 5 Reasons to Outsource Your Passive Income
- 3 Reasons not to Outsource Your Passive Income
- The One Thing you Should NEVER Outsource
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{ 7 comments… read them below or add one }
Please don’t confuse a Virtual Assistant with someone you paid less than $4 an hour for. A real VA would have used her extensive experience and knowledge to be sure she understood exactly what you needed, whether it was in her skill set to give it to you efficiently and effectively, and would have charged you accordingly.
@Melodee – I do understand your point. However, I also mentioned that I am cheap and really got what I paid for. Someday when I have more funds available, I may take another try at hiring a “real” VA as you noted.
It sounds like you had a bad experience with the designer. In many respects I do agree with the commenter above, that you get what you pay for. But I do know people who’ve had very good experiences with very cheap VAs. It’s the same with article writing. As someone who writes articles for clients myself, I know all too well that people think that very cheap articles are the norm and that paying even $2.50 per 100 words is expensive. The truth is that it isn’t, but it is expensive to people who are still trying to build their income online and can’t yet afford it. This is why outsourcing becomes so hard, because you need to find the balance between the cost and the quality, as well as the time it takes you to find a supplier. It’s very tricky. I just hope in the future I have more money to outsource, but I guess at the moment I’m in the same position as you and try to outsource as little as possible.
@Web Career Girl – Yeah, things didn’t go so well with my experience but I plan to learn from my mistakes!
The old adage ‘ you get what you pay for’ is true. $4.00/hr for a VA says they either don’t know much or they are trying to get lots of customers but they are not your partner, which they should be. A VA should be advising you on the best ways to accomplish your goals. Sorry you had to go through it but don’t lump all VA’s as a waste of time. The right VA will give you additional hours a week so that you can focus on building your business.
@Barbara – Thanks for the insight. It is definitely a learning curve for me!
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