Elance’s look back at the year reveals that online hiring has soared more than 100 percent from 2010, and the number of professionals working on the site is up more than 120 percent. Cumulative earnings this year should surpass $500 million.

And like his oDesk counterpart Gary Swart, Elance’s CEO Fabio Rosati (who is speaking at Net:Work Thursday) doesn’t feel the economic doldrums are the sole cause of the growing attraction of online labor platforms. What is? Structural change to work, Rosati told us in an interview:

The state of [the] economy and unemployment is acting as a catalyst. It’s forcing a large portion of the workforce to look for alternatives. It’s forcing business to remain more flexible. But what we’re seeing is a change in how work is done and it’s similar to commerce. What caused e-commerce? Did the rise of e-commerce result from problems in the economy? Not really.

E-commerce started to be more effective in some categories than regular commerce, and I think that’s exactly what’s happening in the world of work. Working online in many ways is more efficient, more effective and more immediate than traditional employment. Businesses that use the flexible work model have distinct advantages over businesses that don’t, and there are some departments within these companies that have always used a flexible work model anyway. Creative departments, marketing departments [and] IT departments have always approached talent in a very flexible way on a project basis. They’re just doing it online now. So I don’t think we’re going back. I think this is really structural.

And while some may feel this shift towards global, online labor platforms undermine American workers by opening them up to competition from lower wage workers abroad, Elance is predicting in its report that professional services will become “America’s next great export.”

“The global demand for US talent has increased steadily over the past year and is set to grow even faster as online platforms like Elance break down global barriers,” says the release that goes along with today’s numbers. But Rosati is a little more understanding of those who feel the rise of these platforms is a mixed blessing for American workers.

When you create a global workplace and a global workforce, the dynamics are very different. Suddenly, you have a lot more competition cross-border. I know that is a very strong reality, and at the same time, there’s the other side of it, which is that for the first time, a very capable, talented, U.S.-based professional can access work and have clients all over the world, and we’re seeing exactly that on the U.S. platform. I feel that it’s an important side of what’s happening, because Americans have amazing talents. We’re seeing companies that may be hiring in some parts of the world for certain types of tasks, but for others, they love the opportunity to hire people based in the U.S.

I don’t doubt there are strong pressures when you compete with someone who is living in another part of the world. For example, it doesn’t even have to be someone who is in a lower-wage country. It could be simply someone who has access to public health insurance. So if you’re working in the U.S., and you have to pay for your own health insurance, you may be at a disadvantage to someone living in Norway who absolutely doesn’t because it’s all covered by the government. So that dynamic is definitely real and a challenging aspect of what is happening, but there are also many positive things.

You have to hand it to Rosati for acknowledging that, for all the psychological and lifestyle benefits of independent work, it does offload tasks and expenses ( (like obtaining health insurance, dealing with tax issues and building retirement savings) entirely onto the worker. Also to Elance’s credit is their partnership with eHealth to help U.S. community members compare health coverage options. “I wish I had the magic wand to address the problem, but I don’t,” says Rosati.

But health insurance isn’t the only external cost shifted from employer to worker in the paradigm shift these platforms are pushing. Though Elance clearly tries to make verifying work, billing for it and sorting out logistics as simple as possible with everything from an internal file management system to built-in virtual meeting facility, one can’t help but feel independent workers are more burdened with what Craig Lambert recently dubbed “shadow work” in the New York Times.

Lambert defines the term as “all the unpaid labor — including, for example, housework — done in a wage-based economy,” and muses that all of us, not just independent contractors, are being saddled with more and more of it in the name of corporate profits:

Science fiction novels of a half-century ago dramatized conflicts between humans and robots, asking if people were controlling their technologies, or if the machines were actually in charge. A few decades later, with the digital revolution in juggernaut mode, the verdict is in. The robots have won. Although the automatons were supposedly going to free people by taking on life’s menial, repetitive tasks, frequently, technological innovation actually offloads such jobs onto human beings.

The conventional wisdom is that America has become a “service economy,” but actually, in many sectors, “service” is disappearing. There was a time when a gas station attendant would routinely fill your tank and even check your oil and clean your windshield and rear window without charge, then settle your bill. Today, all those jobs have been transferred to the customer.

From automated airport check-in terminals and the near extinction of travel agents to understaffed retail outlets where we find our size ourselves, more and more places are shifting work, with all its attendant costs in time and energy, from companies to individuals, argues Lambert. In its well-intentioned way, Elance and its competitors appear to be doing the same.

Do the larger markets for our services and increase in lifestyle flexibility make up for these extra costs?

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Speaking by phone, he explained how his platform’s vetting process ensures clients get top-notch work. This costs a premium compared to competitor sites but comes at a discount compared to work out of U.S. advertising and professional services firms, which Paolucci believes is comparable to what Solvate talent delivers. The process protects skilled workers from competing with much cheaper competitors overseas who are sometimes less than transparent about their actual abilities.

So far, pretty standard stuff as a CEO attempts to explain what differentiate his product from others in the space. But the conversation got more interesting when it turned more general, as Paolucci isn’t just saying his company fills one, higher end niche and other platforms another. He also argued that his competitors are actually accelerating outsourcing, which he called, “not good for the American worker.”

They’re trying to create a global marketplace and that’s what ends up undermining the American worker, because you’ve got somebody in the Philippines or India saying that they can do the same thing that a U.S. worker can do for $5 or $10 an hour. But the reality is that only applies to certain kinds of I.T. like backend programming. They say they can do everything and there are a few American workers on those platforms, but ultimately the customer on that platform is looking for really low cost, offshore IT work, and there’s no way a U.S-based developer can compete at those prices. Those other marketplaces are absolutely undermining the price for that kind of work. I’m not sure how else you’d find all these people.

From Paolucci’s comments it’s clear he’s not a fan of outsourcing generally, and it’s not just his competitors who he’s willing to debate about whether a globalized market for labor is a positive development. He also hit back at New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman for a recent piece on the challenges and opportunities of the ability to move work anywhere.

“My argument back to Thomas Friedman is that the world is still more round than flat,” says Paolucci. “Certain jobs are going to be outsourced, but the kind of work that we do is never going to be outsourced. Just like I wouldn’t understand how to market a product in India.”

“The American worker needs to focus on the things that can’t be outsourced,” he concludes, implying that speeding up the process of hooking companies up with cheap talent overseas, while workers here are retooling for new realities isn’t doing the American worker any favors.

Of course, Paolucci’s focus on the American side of the equation makes sense given the product he’s selling, but it’s not necessarily the only viewpoint – or even the most moral one. That’s the position of John Horton, a staff economist at oDesk. Commenting on the original complaints that sites like the one he works for drive down prices for American freelancers, Horton write:

I think focusing on what these markets do for relatively well-paid workers in developed countries misses one of the most important moral facts about these markets, which is that they generate new, relatively well-paid, meaningful work opportunities for people in developing countries. It’s obviously not a random sample of our workers, but if you spend a few minutes on oDesk’s Facebook fanpage and look at the comments and stories, it’s clear that online work is improving lives in a pretty dramatic way.

Is Paolucci’s complaint that most online labor marketplaces speed a destructive trend and hurt American workers valid? Should we also be considering how much good these platforms do for workers in developing countries?  

Image courtesy of Flickr user Paul Keller.

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After all, a recent study by online worker clearinghouse oDesk found that workers in tiny towns of less than 15,000 inhabitants are already online and thriving in a remote work environment. The analysis discovered that:

• Small towns meet or beat large cities in terms of the number of online workers per capita
• Contractors in small towns worked more than 175 hours in January, which compares favorably with the hours worked by contractors in the larger cities: New York (70 hours), San Francisco (54 hours) and Los Angeles (23 hours)

You might argue that the high numbers of hours worked and the percentage of remote workers per capita just reveals that those marooned in small towns are simply desperate for work. No doubt that’s part of the picture,  but it’s not the whole story.

Before imagining dreary call centers springing up in Nowhereville, U.S.A. staffed by hordes of marginally skilled drones, consider this profile of Atlanta-based firm Rural Sourcing, one of around 20 U.S. companies that are locating skilled IT-workers in small towns — often those near universities with plenty of job-hungry graduates — to take advantage of lower living and labor costs, higher quality of life and an underutilized talent pool.

While salaries in Milford, Penn. may not be as low as those in Mumbai, India, some often-overlooked costs associated with outsourcing abroad — such as greater management oversight, cultural miscues and occasional long-distance travel — are lower with rural-sourcing. Plus, many workers enjoy living in these slower-paced places, while bringing employment to struggling towns is sure to generate good will.

Rural Sourcing chief executive Monty Hamilton reports that his employees are:

in places where … $150,000 still buys you a great house with a great piece of property, where people want to stay and raise their families.

Obviously, outsourcing abroad isn’t disappearing anytime soon, and for some positions, the best-qualified applicants will still be found in major cities. But could looking for virtual team members in small towns, whether through a firm like Rural Sourcing or independently, be a triple win for your organization – good for costs, good for workers and even good for small towns (and your PR department), too?

Photo courtesy Flickr user Mr Marmot

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Identify Your Reason for Going Virtual

After becoming a father for the third time, Chris knew he wanted to change things. With his first two children, he was always working, but now, he had the perfect opportunity to become a virtual CEO: he was his own boss, had his own company, and a couple of hundred people working for him. If he was ever going to go virtual, this would be the time to do it.

He says, “I wanted to get to the point where I was focused on more than just my company. I wanted to be focused on my family more. I wanted also to start focusing a little bit more on my other entrepreneurial projects.” The motivations for becoming a virtual CEO vary from person to person, but in his case, Chris says, “I never liked being handcuffed to a desk.”

Before setting out to become a virtual CEO, figure out your motivations.  As Chris explains, “[it] comes down to a passion to want to make it happen. A lot of people like the idea of being out of the office, but when it becomes a reality, they get really antsy about the whole thing and end up coming in the office everyday.” If you’re not clear about why you want to remove yourself from certain roles within your company, it will be a lot harder to succeed.

Create Your Exit Plan

As Chris details, “To be able to get to the point where you can start taking yourself out of the office on a regular basis and [become] more virtual, you really only have to do one thing: delegate. I hired nine people to replace myself in a number of areas across the business, everything from sales and marketing to operations, HR, accounting, training, the whole lot.” It was a year-long process based firmly around specific goals he wanted to achieve and tasks that he knew needed to be outsourced in order to free himself from the day-to-day operations.

Four steps to creating your plan:

1. Set clear and incremental outsourcing goals. “The nine people I hired, I didn’t just hire all at once,” Chris explains, “They were very systematically put in place throughout the course of 2010. That one year-long goal I broke down into twelve monthly goals, so for instance, January I wanted to take myself out of as many email loops as possible. When I eliminated that, overnight, it freed up three hours of my day.”
2. Decide how you will recruit. What you need in the way of virtual support will determine how you recruit. Some tasks and projects are one-time, while others are recurring, and you may prefer hiring a virtual staffing company over several individuals.
3. Hire the right person for the job. It’s unlikely that one person will handle all of your outsourcing needs. “I get emails from people all the time that say, ‘I need a virtual assistant to handle my blog for me, do my SEO, handle my flight itineraries, and do my graphic design.’ This is four people we’re talking about here,” he explains, and “the first problem entrepreneurs make is that they expect that one virtual assistant can do everything.”
4. Spend enough time training new recruits. Another common mistake, Chris adds, “A lot of people look at outsourcing as a magic pill. They expect it to work perfectly from day one.” Plan to spend enough time training new members of your virtual team on how you like certain tasks done, making sure to be very clear and direct with instructions and feedback.

Develop Trust and Avoid Micro-Managing

When you’re first getting started with your virtual team, or even with an individual new hire, it can be challenging to establish the trust that important tasks will be completed. Chris adds, “It’s hard to be able to just turn around and trust [a new hire] and expect them to get on with the work.”

In the beginning, it may be helpful to closely monitor the work of a new hire. Chris recommends using tools like Hive Desk, which “allows you to keep a tab on what people are doing. They have to clock in and out, just like they would in a regular office environment, and it takes screenshots of their computer every ten minutes,” which can give you a bit more confidence from the start.

It’s important, he adds, not to micro-manage. After the initial few months of working with someone, you should have a pretty good idea whether or not they are going to make a productive addition to your team and if you can trust in their abilities so that you can provide them with the autonomy they expect as virtual workers. “Something like Hive Desk is great to begin with,” he says, “but once that rapport and relationship is starting to be built, you should be able to take your eyes off the ball a bit and just make sure they do what they’re being paid to do.”

What tips do you have for getting started with a virtual team?

Photo courtesy Flickr user Steve Keys

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After I’d nearly come to the end of my rope, I was asked why I didn’t just cut some corners with some of my projects. My immediate gut instinct was to refuse that option, and I had to step back for a bit to reflect on why I was so against the idea. Was I seeking the unattainable — perfection — or was it something else?

I came to the conclusion that I wasn’t seeking perfection. Although there have definitely been times along the way where I got too wrapped up in minor details and perfectionism, I’ve gotten to a point where I can quickly recognize that in myself and quit while I’m ahead. No, it wasn’t that I was seeking perfection, but excellence.

Certain parts of my business are what I’m increasingly becoming known for, and if I hope to continue standing out in these areas, I have to continue to seek excellence, and to me, excellence is not the same as perfection.

Perfection is not attainable, and chasing it is pointless. Excellence, on the other hand, means not letting yourself off the hook, not cutting corners where it counts, and not copping out. It’s about being extraordinary, which, as Steve Harvey says, requires doing extra. Extra isn’t always easy.

If you want to be a cut above your competition, the go-to expert in your field, and the name that stands out in the minds of your customers and clients, then you have to strive for excellence. You have to know when you’re giving too much attention to things that don’t really matter and when you need to give extra attention to those that do.

How do you maintain a higher standard for what counts, while letting go of the need to perfect what doesn’t?

Photo by Flickr user indywriter, licensed under CC 2.0

Divide and Conquer

To get started breaking down what needed to be done so that I could effectively delegate or outsource certain responsibilities, I first had to figure out what I did all day. (Oddly enough, this wasn’t exactly easy, at least not at first.) How do you name all the things that have to get done in a business each day?

To get a handle on it, I started at the top. What did I do immediately after coming into the office each day? From there, it would be easier to move through my day and week.

• First, I generally did a quick check of my email to see if there were any time-sensitive to-dos or messages waiting for me, but there was nothing there to delegate, really, at least not at this point.
• After that, I went to my Backpack account, where I keep all my recurring to-dos. (I have a template that houses a weekly checklist sorted by day that I simply copy each Monday for the new week.) Within my checklist, I had a variety of tasks. Some of them had to do with things like planning and accountability, others had to do with my writing, but most of them were administrative in nature (prime territory for delegation).
• At some point each day, I had to go back to my email box to sort through any new appointments and book guests for my radio show, magazine interviews, and podcast, which meant adding data to my calendar, as well as other locations to keep my content production schedule running smoothly.
• I also needed to sort through pitches and press releases each day, figure out who I wanted to book, and coordinate interviews.
• Then there came the actual production of content, which included things like editing down recordings and transcribing some of the interviews.

On and on, I went through my days, figuring out all the steps required to do every job I do. I noted each task on a separate index card and then divided them into groups based on context (grouping scheduling/booking tasks together, editing and publication tasks together, lead generation tasks together, and so on).

Once I had all the roles and responsibilities divided, I could decide what would be most beneficial to outsource or delegate at this point, but that required me to break things down a little more.

Focus on Highest and Best Use

To keep everything in perspective, I had to think in terms of “highest and best use.” There were certain tasks that were absolutely the most important things for me to be doing in my business. They weren’t the urgent fires. They weren’t the tasks that needed to somehow get done by someone at some point. They were those tasks that directly generated income or interest in my business, and there were only a few of them. Those few tasks were my “highest and best use” tasks, and I knew that they should have the majority of my attention each day.

In an ideal setup, I would only focus on those tasks 100 percent of the time. Of course, perfection was out of the question, but I could at least organize my workload, as well as the workloads of those who work alongside me, to focus on our individual highest and best use tasks as much as possible.

Obviously, the administrative tasks were not my highest and best use activities. I could quickly eliminate around 25 percent of my workload by delegating those to someone who charged 25 percent of what I made, so that had to be the top priority.

Organize and Execute

I decided to start with getting help in two main areas — scheduling and editing/transcription, but before I could do that, I had to organize all the tools and resources and develop a specific system around each role. That included things like:

• Setting up a branded email address for my scheduling assistant.
• Creating an email signature to clarify to guests her role within my organization.
• Creating canned email responses within that assistant’s email account to communicate in a consistent way with guests
• Creating a step-by-step checklist of “how-tos” that outlined each and every task the assistant had to do.

Once I had all that in place, the rest was pretty easy. Each time I got a new appointment confirmation email, for instance, I simply forwarded it to the new scheduling assistant with the following action in the subject line, “[Book].” There are only five or six actions that my scheduling assistant takes care of each day, and I start each email type with one of those actions so that she immediately knows what to do.

Until I know she has the hang of it, I’m saving all of the emails I send to her in a separate folder. Once a day, I’m running through them and making sure that nothing is fallen through the cracks. There have been a few hiccups, but nothing earth-shattering, and I’ve already seen a major reduction in admin time each day.

What steps do you take to make your outsourcing and delegation as painless as possible?

Photo by Flickr user Wonderlane, licensed under CC BY 2.0.

The concept of outsourcing can go beyond using virtual assistants, web designers and programmers. By outsourcing chores, you can remove the stressful things in your life, and as a result, have more time to do the things you love.

Deciding What to Outsource

Web workers often do many tasks that go beyond their areas of expertise. It may be worth investigating the possibility of having someone else take on those energy-sapping chores. How do you decide if you should outsource chores, and which ones? Here are some factors to look at:

• Take an honest look at your life. Is your mind constantly racing because you have too much going on? Do you miss important events or milestones of friends and loved ones? Are you losing touch with friends and family due to an overloaded schedule? Do you keep thinking about work when you’re not working? What’s the point of earning money if you’re not going to make the most out of your life?
• Evaluate the time and cost. Figure out how long it takes you to complete the chore. Then, calculate how much you would earn if you drop the chore for more income-producing work. Use that number to help you determine how much you would pay someone to do the chore.
• Account for possible training time. Some chores may require initial training. To shorten the training time, document the process. Even though the freelancer might do this type of work on a regular basis, the process may not be identical for all clients.
• Review spending habits. You may find areas where you can buy fewer things and invest that into outsourcing to gain more time. It’s a sacrifice, but the extra time can be worth it.
• Consider chores you despise. These exhausting chores interfere with your emotional state and energy levels, which affect work and personal activities. Hiring someone else to take on hated chores could give you extra energy and time to do the things you enjoy.

Available Outsourcing Sites and Services

You can enter your zip code or city on many of the following web sites to receive a list of services in your area. Other web sites ask you to answer a series of questions and serve up a handful of matches. However, in researching sites that provide these services, I have seen some serious complaints. As with everything else online, do your due diligence.

For live advice, try LivePerson, a marketplace for chatting live with experts in many topics ranging from health issues to spirituality. Browse for the service you need for a list of experts along with their bios, their cost per minute and whether they’re currently available.

You can enter chore requests in DoMyStuff and RunMyErrand. RunMyErrand is limited to Boston, but other cities have similar services. TaskUs not only lists administrative and sales and marketing services, but also personal services such as event planning, selling stuff and travel help. Then there’s craigslist.

Another option is to use a search engine. If you have a specific job in mind such as a chef preparing meals or a dry cleaning service that picks up and drops off dry cleaning, a search engine can help you find local resources. For example, enter “dry cleaning delivery service” to see a list of local services that provide delivery. Some search results include ratings and reviews. If you’re traveling and in need of a suit pressing, use your laptop or cell phone to search for a local delivery service to take care of it for you.

What chores do you outsource or want to outsource? How do you find and evaluate the contractor?

Photo by stock.xchng user Sanja Gjenero

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I’ve looked at some of the common services that VAs provide, and found some free or cheap alternatives that you might want to look into.

Internet research

One of the most common services that VAs provide is Internet research. If there’s something you need on the web, but you can’t seem to find it within a few minutes of searching for yourself, it might be time to ask others to assist you.

When I need to get feedback and answers from businesspeople, I’ve always turned to LinkedIn Answers. The community there is generally friendly and helpful. When I’m researching a post I’m writing, I usually go there to ask for other people’s take on a subject. Alternatively, you can also use Yahoo! Answers and AskMetafilter.

Twitter can also come in handy for this purpose, whether you’re looking for a quick answer or if you want to meet a resource person who can walk you through a complex topic. The number of replies you get usually depends on the number of people who are online when you tweet your question, as well as how many followers you have. Still, I’ve had some questions answered by people who weren’t following me, so it’s not a strict rule.

Online forums are also a useful resource, especially if you’re researching a topic with which you’re unfamiliar. Just go to a forum specializing on the subject you need to know about and ask your questions. Usually, most members are willing to help you out.

Regardless of which research shortcut you use, you need to verify the validity of the information you’re getting. You can do this by asking the people helping you to include any online articles, books and other resources that will allow you to know more about the subject. While this means you might need to put in some extra work, at least these helpful people have pointed you in the right direction.

Most importantly, you need to be very polite and grateful. Give thanks and respect to the people who spend a few minutes of their day to help you out. Don’t forget to return the favor and give back to the community, too.

Appointment setting

Scheduling a meeting or a conference call can be a little tricky because of all the back-and-forth communication with the participants. This is why many people hire VAs to schedule these events for them.

But there are also some apps that make scheduling easier as well.  These include TimeBridge (reviewed here) and TimeDriver (discussed in a previous post). Aliza Sherman also listed several scheduling solutions in her post about must-have apps for web workers.

Restaurant reservations

While I was looking through the web sites of several VA companies, I found that restaurant reservations are among their most-requested services. The tech tool alternative to hiring a VA for this purpose is to use a service like OpenTable or DinnerBroker, where you can reserve and schedule your table online.

Of course, these sites don’t have all the available restaurants in the U.S. in their databases. OpenTable claims to have over 10,000, while DinnerBroker covers just over 1,000 restaurants. And for famous restaurants that are fully-booked for a month, you’ll have to get on a waiting list. To do that, you usually have to call the restaurant yourself.

Rule-of-thumb

Generally speaking, if you don’t have the money to hire a VA to complete a task, you can find a way to automate it.

Some of the more popular services that VAs offer include reminders and wake-up calls. I’ll skip discussing obvious alternatives (alarm clocks), but if you can get an app to automate your reminders, there’s rarely any reason to hire someone else to do it. If you use Google Calendar to track such reminders and appointments, why not get Google Calendar on your phone and let that handle your reminders?

Every time you wish a VA handled a repetitive task for you, find a tool that will help you out with it instead. I had a friend who hired someone to backup his Google Docs files one by one, but there’s actually a free and simple way to do that with the right Firefox extensions.

I’m not saying that all these apps and sites can easily replace a human virtual assistant: Having a VA can be very good for your business if you know how to delegate well.  But if you don’t have the budget for one, you don’t have to do all the grunt work the hard way, either.

Have you ever considered hiring virtual assistants? What kinds of tasks are you thinking of delegating to them?

Image by Lorenzo Gonzales from sxc.hu

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Still, it’s tough to keep an effective relationship between the primary contractor (you) and the subcontractor (your hired help). Subcontractors can make mistakes that interrupt your workflow, hurt the project, or altogether defeat the purpose of hiring them.

So, what are these subcontractor mistakes you need to watch out for?

They defer all decisions to you. What’s the point of hiring a subcontractor if they’re going to email you every time a minor decision needs to be made? I’ve had subcontractors who contacted me several times each day, asking me to decide on things that they should take care of on their own. This made me feel like I might as well have done the work myself if I was going to spend several hours guiding them step-by-step.

While it’s possible that the subcontractor you hired may be indecisive by nature, you can minimize this problem by creating rules that your subcontractors can use whenever they’re hesitant to make decisions. Let them know the boundaries that separate your area of responsibility from theirs.

For example, during a recent e-book project, I told my writer that adding, subtracting and rearranging sections of the e-book was fine, if she thought such modifications would improve the final product. But if she was going to add or remove whole chapters, she should let me know and wait for my approval before proceeding.

Establishing a clear line between the things I hired her to control (sections and smaller units of the e-book) and the things I want to control (chapters and larger units), meant that she knew whether a particular issue was important enough to defer to me.

If you’re worried about losing control, don’t establish boundaries that are outside your comfort zone. Let your subcontractor’s area of responsibility start as something small, then give them more decision-making power once they gain your trust. But as you’re doing this, be clear with them about the changing boundaries.

They break their contract. They might try to steal your clients, break your non-disclosure agreement, or re-sell their work to others. Prevention is always the best way to get deal with this problem. Before hiring someone, do an extensive online search and ask for a list of references you can talk to on the phone or via Skype.

Establishing a solid two-way relationship between you and the subcontractor is also a good way to prevent them from harming your business. Remind them that they need you more than you need them. Let them know that you can refer them to your friends, give them bonuses for very successful projects and provide them with stable long-term work.

They miss their deadlines. I’ve been disappointed several times with subcontractors who miss deadlines. One of them even took the responsibility of hitting the deadline so lightly that she said to me, “Oops! I forgot to do it, I’m so so sorry.”

So was I. I never hired her again. I avoided this problem with succeeding subcontractors by emphasizing the deadline using boldface or capital letters. I’ve also moved it from the last line to the first line of my project specifications template. It also helps to include a line or two about the consequences of missing the deadline.

For large projects, you can request regular updates, say, every day or twice a week. If you’re working with a particular subcontractor for the first time, don’t just ask for a report, see the actual draft — even if it is far from perfect. Let your subcontractor know that the point of regular reporting isn’t necessarily to correct mistakes. You only want to ensure that the project is progressing at a reasonable pace.

Hiring subcontractors doesn’t have to mean that you’re leaving yourself open to these types of problems. By taking the right preventive measures, you can treat your subcontractor as your partner rather than just someone who does the grunt work for you.

Have you ever hired a subcontractor? If so, what experience did you have with them?

Image by Ginny Austin from sxc.hu

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This is what a friend of mine said when I was thinking about hiring a virtual assistant (VA) almost a year ago. Until I tried it myself, I didn’t realize that a great working relationship with a VA goes both ways. While they have to be efficient at executing your instructions, you also need to be good at the art of delegating if you want to make the most out of their services.

How exactly do you become good at getting the most out of your VA, thus freeing up much more of your own valuable time?

Get a VA that you trust 100%. Lack of trust is a sure way to waste your money. Not because the person you hire is going to scam you, but you’ll be spending an awful amount of time worrying about it. I’m talking about the time that the VA is supposed to free up on your schedule so you can work on other projects. If you’re going to spend the same time worrying about the tasks you delegated, then there’s no point to hiring a VA. Here are some ways you can find someone you can trust to work with:

• Ask your friends and associates for referrals.
• Do a thorough background check (if you’re hiring an individual).
• Look for online reviews of the service (if you’re hiring a company or team).
• At the very least, have a couple of phone or VoIP conversations with your potential assistants before you hire them.

Be specific about your instructions. “I find myself asking a lot of questions for clients if they send me general instructions. The more specific the instructions, the better the quality of the output.” said Ella Pelayo of epVirtualAssistants. Many VAs I’ve talked to echo this statement. You’ll be wasting both your own time, as well as your assistant’s, if your instructions require more clarification.

Generic instructions such as “check my email” or “research this topic” might give you results that are different from what you expected, so it’s best to include step by step instructions, as well as a few sentences describing the expected output. In a recent webinar, outsourcing expert Jeff Mills said that he even uses Jing, a free screencasting tool, to show VAs and contractors how to do more complex tasks. This is a useful suggestion, especially if the task is more complex than you can put into words.

Also, don’t forget to point out the maximum amount of time your VA needs to complete each task. This is especially important if you’re paying by the hour. Ask your VA to repeat your instructions to you, paraphrased, just to confirm that he understood the task.

Prepare a manual for repetitive or long-term tasks. When I first hired a VA to do customer support, I provided her with an FAQ  document, as well as some email templates. The FAQ document dealt with any possible questions the VA might ask herself when encountering a complex customer support situation. Here are some of the questions I answered in the document:

• What do I do if the customer is not satisfied with the service?
• What do I do if a customer is asking for a service that we do not provide?
• What happens if the customer doesn’t send the needed deliverables on time?

Alternatively, you can provide a comprehensive guide or manual that your VA can use when tackling these problems. This kind of document establishes the rules and guidelines she should follow. The point is to give an easy reference so that the VA can handle as many problems as she can without having to ask you. 

Know the special skills and abilities of each VA you hire. Many VAs are generalists and can do a variety of tasks such as booking flights, setting reminders, or providing customer support. But there are some specialized tasks which you may need assistance in, so it’s important that you know your VA can handle these tasks. After all, you don’t want to spend hours writing up detailed directions – that would be contrary to the simplicity you’re trying to achieve.

Hiring an assistant, especially a virtual one, might seem like a risky or expensive move for a web worker. But if you plan for it well and learn how to delegate effectively, you won’t have to worry too much about wasting your time or your money.

Do you work with virtual assistants? Were they as helpful as you expected them to be? How do you make the client-assistant relationship as effective as possible?

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But it seems unlikely that the trend of global outsourcing is going to go away any time soon, or that sites which enable it will go out of business. As a result, it’s probably smart for web workers to learn what’s out there, and to figure out how to deal with it. A pair of recent columns from Dan Appleman survey the programming side of this trend. Appleman’s conclusion flies in the face of the accepted wisdom: though he sees the greatest benefit to businesses, he adds “but U.S. workers who are smart, professional and keep their eyes open can find good opportunities as well.”

Appleman’s keys to potential success: understand what you’re bidding on, learn how the system works, be realistic with our pricing, and be patient.

Of course, there are other ways to deal with global outsourcing besides being part of it. Savvy web workers can continue to work on differentiating themselves on skills from the vast global labor pool, and also on marketing those skills. It’s also worth thinking about whether there’s money to be made in being a middleman: taking a job at high rates and farming some of it out to distant freelancers at lower rates, becoming a global project manager.

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The pitch here is basically the same as with the other services: if you need to have working computers and other technology to keep your business running, but learning how to do it yourself is a distraction, call in a specialist. (They do make sure to note that their team is “U.S. based” – for many, that will be an important distinguisher). They offer both subscription and pay-as-you-go plans, and the prices are fairly reasonable.

The menu of services they offer is reasonably wide: PC tune-up and optimization, network security review and setup, wireless network setup, software installation, and so on. One key limitation: your computers have to be running Windows 98, XP, or Vista (and they’re wise enough to advice you to upgrade instead of pouring a lot of money into Windows 98) due to the remote connection software that they’re using. They offer 24/7 coverage.

You can buy “SmartMinutes” to connect you to their support in blocks starting at 15 minutes for $35, up to 300 for $420. But most businesses will want to look at the unlimited service plans instead: they start at $19 per month per computer, with a mandatory $89 sign-up fee including a tune-up when you bring a machine into the program. $19 per month gets you basic service; moving to the $24 advanced plan adds more services, and for $28 a month they’ll throw in a Carbonite backup account.

Technically-oriented web workers are unlikely to be interested in signing up for this service themselves. But if you find your day being interrupted and used up by offering technical support to your own customers, it might be worth steering them towards AT&T instead – think of it as your own tech support outsourcing department. The AT&T name will leave many clients in their comfort zone, freeing you up to do the actual work you’ve been hired for.

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• Why iPad 2 Will Lead Consumers Into the Post-PC Era
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• Content Farms: The Players, The Benefits, The Risks