Smart Corner

Making use of a freelancer online to work on a project – whether that project is article writing, advertising, creating a business plan, improving your online branding, or whatever other work you need done – has many advantages for you, freeing you from many obligations and problems that arise when you do not use such a professional. You can provide an online freelancer with a description of your needs, then turn your attention to other matters that demand your notice. Then, in a few days or a week or two, depending on the size of your project, you receive a communication from the freelancer telling you that whatever you needed done is ready for your review. Among the many advantages of working with an online freelancer, some of the most noteworthy are:

No employment taxes. Since the freelancer is an independent agent who is doing work for you on a per-job basis, you do not need to pay taxes on their payroll, handle complicated employment-related forms, pay for health or dental insurance, or worry about any of the other details which working with a non-freelance employee involves. You pay a single fee for the job, usually on completion or at intervals during the working process, and otherwise let the freelancer take care of themselves.

No technical issues. The freelancer is already set up to do the work that you need them to do, so you do not need to worry about providing them with the necessary equipment, maintaining that equipment, and so on. An employee needs a desk, a computer, printer, laptop, and office space that must be rented, heated, lit, and insured, all of which involve not only expense but complicated record-keeping. When you use a freelancer’s services, the freelancer uses their own equipment in their own workspace, and how that space is lit, heated, and insured is no concern of yours.

No training is necessary. If you hire a freelancer, you know that you are hiring an established professional, since there is no other way that they could have made it online to the point where you hire them. The world of the online freelancer is a highly Darwinian one, and only those fit to provide the service which they offer survive as freelancers until you are likely to encounter them. Furthermore, their skills are constantly honed in a dynamically challenging environment, so you can rest assured that they are able to offer you exactly what you need without the need for expensive training.

Your deadlines are met without overtime. Most freelancers are willing to do whatever is needed to get your work done on time. Since many of them are working only for themselves and can schedule their days as necessary, they can take extra time to finish your work when you need it, assuming that it is humanly possible to do within the allotted deadline. Most are dedicated professionals who will get up early, skip meals, and stay up late to meet your needs, all without requiring extra pay or additional paperwork.

Changes are made without cost. Freelancers are also quite willing to make any necessary changes in the work they have done for you, without it costing you anything extra unless the project is actually expanded to include new material that was not part of the original agreement. Although it is true that you don’t need to pay a regular employee extra to rework a project, you are still paying them their hourly wages and other benefits while they are doing it. Assuming that your changes are reasonable, you will not pay a freelancer one cent more than the original price, even if they take 8 extra hours to finish the project exactly as you want it.

No human resources problems. You don’t need to worry about dealing with freelancers’ problems like you do with employees. You will never need to resolve a dispute between a freelancer and any  other third party. You do not need to worry about office politics when dealing with a freelancer – they are present for one precisely defined reason, and once that reason is completed, they will bow out of your life again, but still be ready to more work when you need them. Furthermore, since you rarely have direct contact with a freelancer, their personal quirks and habits will not annoy you, since you will never see them.

Skills on demand when you need them, without paying for them between projects. By maintaining good relations with your freelancers, you can keep a stable of professionals on hand to handle projects in their area of expertise without needing to keep them on the payroll between jobs, paying their salaries, and finding work to keep them busy between projects in order to get your money’s worth. Keep the e-mail addresses of half a dozen freelancers on hand and you will be able to get any online project done on short notice without the need for actual employees. This is the service that eBrains offers to you – a team of freelance professionals who can meet a wide range of needs on short notice at an affordable price.

The ultimate flexibility. Since freelancers need to provide for themselves with their own skills, they are not only professional at what they do, but often cultivate several different talents so that they are suited to different kinds of work. If you are a regular customer, some of them may even be willing to learn new knowledge and build new skills to meet your needs.

Being an online service provider is an interesting and challenging occupation, which brings new experiences and new clients with every week that passes. There are many different kinds of services that you can provide on the Internet, ranging from writing articles in specific genres to creating advertising campaigns for online startups to using your programming knowledge to help clients around the world with website design and database management. But regardless of the skill you offer, there are a few traits you need to develop in order to become a truly excellent online service provider and take your place among the professionals of this new but expanding marketplace.

Patience. A major part of being an excellent online service provider is patience. You need to be patient enough to wait for your clients to decide if they want to hire you, patient enough to search for jobs, and patient enough to see each job through to its end.

Professionalism.  As an online service provider, acting as a professional is one of the most crucial parts of your portfolio. Professionalism means many different things when you are an online service provider. You should always provide your best work and strive for the highest possible quality once  you have accepted a job. You should also always be calm, polite, and reasonable when dealing with clients. Most people you deal with will be decent, friendly types, but when you meet the rare obnoxious client, resist the urge to be sarcastic or angry with them. Deal with them calmly and rationally as you do with all clients. Try to be available to answer your client’s questions during normal business hours at a minimum, and if you are working on a large project, keep them updated with brief but informative reports every few days. Remember that you are a professional offering a top-notch service and shape your actions accordingly.

Communication skills. Although you don’t need to be Cicero, you should practice good communication skills whenever you are dealing with your clients. Prompt answers, clear writing, and a certain measure of formality are all appropriate for communicating with buyers. You should not come across as stiff-necked or pompous, but you should avoid clichés and excessive informality, too – at least until your client relaxes and opens up. Keep your communications tidy and concise – don’t ramble – and make sure that all necessary information is included in each communication you engage in, whether it is sending an email or discussing a project on the telephone.

Negotiation skills. You need to cultivate your negotiation skills in order to reach the level of excellence as a provider that you need and want to attain. Fortunately, negotiation isn’t something that only diplomats and high-energy salesmen are capable of. In order to negotiate successfully, you need to learn to gauge what you can do for what price, then communicate this clearly to your client. Discuss the project with them, discover their needs and wishes, and then find the common ground that will satisfy their requirements while still giving you an adequate reward for your time and effort. Occasionally, you will also find yourself in a situation where you simply can’t adjust your price low enough to make it worthwhile to pursue a job; in this case, politely bow out of the situation and wish the other person luck in finding a provider who meets their needs. You should be flexible on prices and deadlines, but not infinitely so – being reasonable is one thing, but knowing when an offer is just not worth your time is another part of negotiation.

Self-confidence. Although you don’t need to be an arrogant know-it-all, you should project self-confidence at all times when dealing with clients. If you cultivate a mood  of calm assurance, then you will build your client’s confidence in you and your confidence in yourself. Confidence is what you need to work on a variety of topics. Often, you will be thrown a task that you have never done before, and the only way you are going to get it done is if you have enough trust in yourself to just plunge in and start working on it. You also need to be confident enough to be slightly, though also courteously, pushy. A lot of your work will come from repeat clients, and the best way to get a client to work with you again is to gently remind them what a good job you did the first time, and that you’re available right now if they’ve got more work for you.

Willingness to go the extra mile. Not only do you need to be a professional, but you need to be one who puts the needs of their client first and is willing to go the extra mile to meet or surpass their expectations. If you have a deadline coming up, then you work at your computer while you are eating, and you sleep only as much as is needed to keep yourself alert enough to do the job right. You must be equally prepared to work on a Sunday afternoon or at 2 A.M. on Wednesday, and if you need to learn something extra to finish your job properly, then you will need to learn it or do it.

Persistence.  Above all else, you need to train yourself to persist and not let yourself get discouraged when difficulties arise. Regardless of whether the problem is a dry spell during which you can’t seem to find a new project anywhere; a glut of work that overwhelms you and seems like it will never be done; or a project more complicated than it seemed it would be to begin with – the most important thing is to keep moving forward. If you are truly ‘stuck’ and unable to go forward on a specific project, switch to another for a few hours or a few days. Any progress is better than none, and sooner or later, your diligence will be rewarded with success. And that success will be another step in building your career as an excellent online service provider.

Working with a freelance provider online is, in the main, a pleasant and easy experience – much easier than dealing with the hassles and paperwork of a regular employee, and providing results that are just as good as an ‘in-house’ job, and sometimes better. However, generally easy as using an online provider is, there are still a few skills you might want to cultivate to make dealing with such providers even smoother. There are a few techniques you will find useful, and a few general rules to observe, to make your experience even better. Here are a few of the principal guidelines for being a successful buyer who gets what they want out of dealing with an online provider.

Email communication is very important. Your primary communication tool in dealing with an online provider is your email. You should check your email several times a day during the project in case the provider has any questions about the work. Clarifying these questions will help the provider give you exactly what you need. If you need to communicate with the provider, email is also the best way to do it – online providers work on the Internet, and are likely to see an email within minutes of your sending it. Emails are also useful because you can set down in black and white exactly what you’re looking for; the written word is often clearer than the spoken.

Selecting a good provider. For small jobs, you can rely on a few samples of the provider’s work and your own judgment – generally speaking, if the provider can write consistently good material in their samples, then they will write good material for you as well. If you are concerned that the samples may not actually be their work, ask for a small custom sample (no more than 200 or 300 words, since their schedule is likely busy and you are asking for something free) on a topic of your choosing. For larger projects, you can either rely on samples and customer testimonials, or you can ask for a telephone interview and possibly a CV as well. Try to keep the interview process focused and fairly brief – you are trying to establish competency, rather than get the life story of the provider, after all.

Learn to delegate and trust. Once you have chosen your provider, you need to let go and trust them to complete the work properly. You are delegating the work to them, and although you want to communicate what you need in a clear, complete manner, you don’t want to try to micromanage every detail of the job. This technique simply won’t work over the Internet and will actually slow down the process of getting your work done. Although it is natural to want to know exactly what is going on with your work at every moment, it is best to take a hands-off approach and let the provider focus on the job while you tackle other tasks. Try for a ‘fire and forget’ approach – be ready to answer any questions that your provider might have, but beyond that, free your mental energy for other tasks by letting the provider worry in your stead. Remember that they wouldn’t be providing this service to you now, if they hadn’t proven their capabilities to many other clients in the past.

Keep a good record of providers. If you are dealing with several providers, keep a good record of who is working on which project. This will ensure that if one of them needs additional information from you, or you need to contact them about how the project is advancing, you can ask or respond clearly, quickly, and efficiently. Your record does not need to be massive or in-depth, but should contain enough information so that you can keep track of your jobs and the people who are doing them.

Remember your old contacts. When you finish a project with a provider, with you now in possession of a professionally-created, polished, and approved final version, and the provider in possession of their fee, you may be inclined to simply move on and forget about the freelancer. However, you never know when another job might crop up that you need their talents for. Make sure to make a permanent note of the person or company, their contact information, and a brief description of the type of work they do, so that next time you need some freelance work done, you won’t need to start over from scratch.

Expect your provider to be responsive, but stay calm. If a deadline is approaching and you’re starting to get nervous about where the finished work is, it’s perfectly fine to send your provider a polite reminder that your work is going to be due soon. However, if you don’t receive an immediate reply, don’t panic. Many providers, if they are almost finished with a project, will prefer to spend several hours actually finishing it and make the project itself their reply to you, rather than interrupting their work to write a separate reply. Most online providers are dedicated professionals who will do their utmost to meet their deadlines, and will contact you well in advance if it appears they might not be able to meet one.

Keep a positive attitude but expect the best. Like many things in life, you will have a much better experience dealing with an online freelancer if you keep a positive outlook and trust in the process to deliver what you need, when you need it. At the same time, you should expect your provider to do the best they can, and make sure that they do – if they are obviously going astray from your expectations, don’t hesitate to let them know – calmly and politely – what should be done differently. This will seldom happen,, however, since a good provider will make sure they are on track.

KPO and his younger brothers

There are some voices whispering on the Internet that KPO (Knowledge Processing Outsourcing) is just a much more evolved version of the BPO (Business Processing Outsourcing). Well, we can’t say that we shaped another business with new jobs, new employees and completely new fees only by replacing a B with a K. It is closer to the truth to say that KPO involves high level processes and, as its name states, it is all about the way in which the knowledge of a company is applied. KPO can be considered the high-end of outsourcing, a process that brings added value by using the knowledge of workers specialised in different fields of activity. It involves component of BPO, RPO (Research Process Outsourcing) and APO (Analysis Proves Outsourcing) and it works. India, for example, it is likely to earn $30 billion in 2010 only by proving KPO services. But what are these outstanding services provided by companies specialised in Knowledge Processing Outsourcing?

Selling the knowledge

KPO can help your company with any kind of:

• Research and development
• Advanced web applications
• Analysis
• Training and consultancy
• Management
• Writing and content
• Medical services

And the list is actually longer then you could expect. Don’t forget that the main reason why KPO companies are able to provide you with a wide range of services is because they have employees that are the best in their aria, only one aria. So, for example, you could have the top postgraduates who know all about the latest trends in financial analysis working for you at a low cost.

Why use it?

• Because you realise that this could be the only way for your small firm to get the top knowledge
• Because having a state of the art office full of employees could actually slow your company down instead of making things easier
• Because you are tired of meetings and, being a smart guy, you understand that as a manager it is not your job to know everything from consultancy to finance.
• Because you are aware that this is the next big thing and you would not like to be last one joining the big club
• Because you are open-minded and you understand that an outsider can come with new, original and life-saving ideas.
• Because you like being the best and you are decided on keeping the promises made to your customers.

Think more about it when:

• You are scared to admit that out there are some great people willing to do the job you require better then you could do it
• You don’t like doing the same thing as the successful companies did
• You don’t like doing the research. In this case ask someone to do it for you.
• Your employees don’t like working in an international environment.

Before making a decision you should take into consideration some facts. A recent study made by “Evalueserve  (a Gurgaon based outsourcing company having a service chart for a global world) says the global KPO market is expected to grow at a cumulative annual growth rate (CAGR) of 46 per cent, from $1.2 billion in 2003 to $17 billion in 2010.

In its annual publication Strategic Review 2005, Nasscom said the high-end activity of the BPO industry—the KPO or knowledge process outsourcing could be worth $15.5 billion by 2010. India is still the leading country in providing KPO services. A report of National Association of Software and Services Companies (NASSCOM) stated that the Indian Software industry – Knowledge Process Outsourcing industry (KPO) is expected to reach $17 billion by 2010, of which $12 billion would be outsourced to India.

A very small share of what doesn’t go to India stays in Europe, with Rent eBrains. We offer KPO services since 2007 and have successfully completed over 300 projects in various KPO areas – thanks to our Swiss-like work quality and Central Europe location & prices.

In the age of globalization we experience a change of paradigm. Workers no longer have to go where they are needed, but now we can easily take the work to the right people. For years now, outsourcing has been a clever and practical way of reducing costs, building strong partnerships on defining processes and investing only in keeping things working. But, unfortunately you cannot let this be your long-term strategy because it leads to a point where competitors will make you redundant. Staying relevant in this competitive market is really the only challenge you should think about. So, imagine that starting today you no longer keep your outsourcing partners in a leash and you start looking at this for a new perspective. Here is a starting point.

What is your USP? How do you differentiate yourself from the other companies? What do you do best? How cost effective are you? Take a moment and find an answer for each of these questions. Remember that only by knowing your company like the palm of your hand you will succeed. Then slowly start thinking outside the box and construct real benefits for your customers, make yourself and your company wanted, desired and vital. Innovation is the first point you should consider when thinking about outsourcing. You can easily cut costs by increasing the innovation level in your firm and, because you know exactly what makes you unique, you can spot what type of innovation is the right choice for you. Are you best at creating new products, services or markets? Do you prefer constantly adding improvements to existing products, services or markets or do you feel that increasing efficiency in existing products or services is your cup of tea? No matter the answer, you should know that you don’t have to do this on your own. Find a partner with whom you can share things. Make sure you promote transparency in both business and decision processes. Find a partner that will understand your business and will help you discover and get what you want. In other words, you should start looking for a smartsourcing partner.

Instead of outsourcing small bits from your business process that will help you shorten your expenses budget, think about how useful it would be getting the same qualitative results but in the same time adding value to your products and services by integrating innovation in the business process. A smartsourcing strategy will have this positive effect on your brand. It will also help you gain leverage and take advantage of every business partnership. Also, starting a collaborative smartsourcing partnership will bring another valuable resource; it will determine you to create a strategy for your company, one that will have innovation as a starting point. So not only you will consider the entire value chain when you decide to outsource, but you will also maintain control by exercising a different kind of leadership. You are all familiar with the difficulties one might have in solving a problem after looking it in the eye for years. A trust-based smartsourcing partnership will help you exercise a thought leadership combined with constant innovation. This strategy will enable you to be one step ahead of your competition. You will have a partner that will help maximize your profits by minimizing your spending and will make sure you stay relevant in the eyes of your consumers.

Smartsourcing is another way of making sure you increase innovation in both core and non-core processes while you also take care of your business and your customers. Consider smartsourcing the starting point in creating a strategy that will support your business growth and will enable you to enjoy your job. You will take care of your brand, while we handle and implement innovation and make your business reliable.