Hi! It's Tyrone Shum from Outsourcing Live and welcome to the dedicated channel where
I talk about outsourcing and share with you my strategies on how to outsource business.
In today's video, I want to share with you my top 5 tips on how to be able to outsource
for software and IT. Now this is a very common question because a lot of people are not very
technical and a lot of people don't know and understand all the knitty gritty stuff works
say like Wordpress and building a website and all that kind of stuff. Now if that's
you which I know there's a large population out there and a lot of people don't know about
all this stuff, you need to outsource it and this is why I want to share with you the top
5 tips on how to be able to do that.
And, to give you some really good insights on how I've been able to do it as well because
nowadays I don't do any of my IT stuff. I got it all outsourced to my full time programmer
and I let him handle all those things for me. All right, so the first thing I want to
share with you I got them written down, the first tip I want to give you is make sure
that whenever you're outsourcing any technical stuff such as a website, such as creating
IT software, or anything related to those things, you need to be very clear and concise
with what you're going to do.
Now, when I say clear and concise, I mean actually writing out a wireframe and giving
this person that you're going to be outsourcing it to the specific exactly layout the color
schemes, the wireframes, everything that you can think of in a fine detail because one,
that will save you so much time later on instead of going back and forth to make changes, and
two, it's clear for both parties especially if you're dealing with people who are virtual.
So that's one and the first tip that I recommend is to be extremely concise with what you're
going to be doing.
Now, second one is to make sure that you do set deadlines. Deadlines are very, very crucial
in terms of getting your work done. Because the fact is a lot of times when you're outsourcing
to people, if you don't set a deadline, the IT person will spend all-day long fixing up
bugs and if you don't have a - like a deadline set or milestones set or any boundaries behind
it, they'll just keep working and working until they charge you really when you don't
have any money left. So be careful with that.
I personally have had that issue and when I was first working with my first Indian programmer,
I wasn't specific enough and I didn't set a specific time frame and when that happened,
he just kept fixing up problems, fixing up problems and never, ever get anything done
and just keeps charging me for it. So just be very careful with that.
Now the third thing is when you do get your software back or your website back whatever
it is, make sure you test it through thoroughly, now when you're testing through thoroughly,
make sure it works, that's the first thing and then second thing is just make sure that
when you've asked them to do in a certain way and implemented that they - the way that
you wanted as well. That's very crucial because the fact is, is that a lot of people just
get the website back and go yep, I expect it to be all working and then hopefully get
it out in the market. Now that's a big mistake. Before you do actually finalize your payment
and pay this person who's outsourced it to, make sure that you thoroughly, thoroughly
test it, because if there are any bugs then you want go back and get it fixed. And what
I mean by bugs is just areas or messages that shouldn't be popping up and so forth. So you
need to make sure that's been fixed up.
Now, if you do have any of those things that come up, then you want to make sure that you
have in your contractor agreement with your outsourced IT person or outsourced software
man, whoever that you'll be going to that they allow for that period of time to do it,
and usually it could be anywhere 3-4 days to get it fixed or many hours. Depending on
what you agree upon so make sure that's another point there.
Fourth point that I want to share with you about outsourcing the IT is make sure that
you communicate with them using a screen capture software. The best way and the quickest way
is to pull up a screen capture software and the popular one that I've recommended is Jing
Project. It allows you to record up to 5 minutes of screen capture for free and even store
it online for you, or another one is called Screencast-o-matic, and that allows you to
record up to 15 minutes of screen capture. It's very easy, you just get a mic, you have
your screen on, and basically you'll record everything that you're doing in the screen.
And all you need to do is if you've got a mouse and a cursor, just simply point exactly
where you need to change and just tell them and show them then that way when you send
the work the work back to change this and that, it'll get fixed up and they'll understand
it clearly.
I found that email doesn't work for me, I've received many emails back and forth from programmers
and everytime they pointed that I said yes change that and then they come back with something
different. So you don't want to waste your time doing that. Make sure it's clear.
And then final thing, final, final thing that I want to give away to you is make sure that
you do set your expectations to reduce the amount of risk. Now, what I mean by setting
expectations is at the beginning before you do start this project, you can say to them
look, I have a budget, budget might be $500 to get this website done and I have a set
frame, set timeframe that needs to be a one month maximum. Now if you say to them look,
in one month's time, if you have it completed earlier than that, then that's fine, I'm happy
to pay you the $500 and you know, you don't need to worry about anything else and make
sure the bugs are all fixed. But if they do go overtime, which more than likely does with
any software outsourcing is that you need to tell them look, if you do go overtime,
I'm not going to pay you on time and furthermore, on top of that, you are going to have to actually
cover those costs that I lose on getting that project delivered.
By setting that kind of expectations, it really, really forces them to make sure that they
are clear about getting their project done. And if they know that they're delayed, it's
their fault not yours. So you've really set the table clear and open for them.
Okay so those are the 5 tips, the top 5 tips that I recommend with outsourcing software
because the fact is is that it's such a common thing while the people just like to prefer
to actually get their technical stuff outsourced like myself and if you can, don't do it yourself.
Just get someone else to do it for you. And those are some of the things that I recommend
you make sure that you're clear up when you're outsourcing IT and software.
All right, thank you so much for watching this. I wanted to actually also ask you a
question. What is the biggest frustration that you've had that I can help you with?
Simple as that. What is your biggest frustration that you've had with outsourcing IT and how
I can help you with that. I should probably answer that question but you tell me what
your biggest frustration is.
All right so just feel free to leave it down below and love to be able to interact with
you and help you and assist with any of that type of outsourcing as well.
All right, my name is Tyrone Shum from Outsourcing Live. And remember as always, just outsource
it.
Now, if you like more resources like this one, you can find them inside Mass Outsource
Mastermind along with video tutorials and step by step instructions showing exactly
how I use them. To get a 30-day no risk trial membership to Mass Outsource Mastermind, simply
visit FreeVideoSet.com. Until next time, I wish you success in your quest for outsourcing.