Category Archives: Semi-Popular

The Pen is mightier than the Sword; But, is Flogging mightier than Blogging?

January 31, 2015 by 123outsource
Categories: Of Interest, Popular on Twitter, Semi-Popular | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Flogging for Blogging
In Saudi Arabia, a man is to be flogged as a punishment for criticizing Islam in his blog. Due to health reasons, his flogging is to be delayed based on what I read on 1-22-2015. The world seems to be polarized these days. There are 1.5 billion Muslims who are often not treated with respect from the rest of the world. Muslims are often not tolerant of any disrespect. Part of this reaction could be based on the amount of disrespect that has accumulated over the last several centuries towards them, particularly for those who live in primarily Christian countries.

It’s Muslims vs. Christians; Secular vs. Religious
With the Charlie Hebdo incident it is very clear that there are many Christians that will go to any lengths to offend Muslims, and will stop at nothing. The extremists who retaliated against Hebdo’s offensive cartoons will also stop at nothing in their war against offenses to Islam. Even the Islamic world is polarized. We see countries like Egypt divided between secular Muslims & Christians vs. the more religious types. Turkey has a similar division although the secular people in Turkey are more numerous than the religious ones. It seems that whenever you put Muslims and Christians in the same country, or even Muslims and Muslims in the same country, a serious conflict will result. So, what is the solution?

Punishment & Spirituality
The government of Saudi Arabia has the right to carry out justice as they see fit. It is their land, their government. My point is more of a spiritual point. If you abuse someone’s body, you are not only damaging their life, but you are also damaging your soul. For those of us who are believers (in God, but not necessarily in a particular brand of religion) we acknowledge that we have a soul, and that the condition of our soul is based on our actions and thoughts. If we behave well, we might have a chance at going to heaven, or at least be reborn well. We believe that we reap what we sow. I believe that the punishment of flogging is an extreme way to preserve a religious way of life in a country that endorses only one religion. But, the amount of damage done by the flogging extends far beyond the victim. The flogger will also reap a karmic penalty for his act of violence, his supervisor, and the society as a whole will gain a bad vibration as a result of this unmerciful act.

If Allah is merciful, then as followers, we should adopt his attributes.
Allah has 99 names according to Muslims, and 72 names according to Jews. They are only disagreeing by 27% which is not bad considering who we are dealing with! The Islamic names of God are very spiritual in nature. I only know a few of these names, but they include Merciful, Compassionate, Peace, Struggle, among others. If God is compassionate, why should we be any less as spiritual followers? You can pray to God as many times a day as you like, but if you lack spiritual values such as a love of peace, compassion and mercy, what good does the prayer do you? Prayer and religious life are meaningless unless paired with good values and character development. This means that we must exercise kindness and charity in our lives, even if we are not perfect at it.

I am also offended
I am not a Muslim, but I respect all monotheistic faiths. I take offense when someone defames the Islamic faith, especially if it is done in an insulting, unfair, or hateful way. Rather than calling people names for being offensive, I often explain how their false statement against Islam is wrong, why it is wrong, and what the truth is. I know very little about Islam, but I am able to explain some of the basics to rude “infidels” who insult this holy religion. My way is a peaceful way. I am not sure if much good is done by my way. However, my way produces no harm, and could do at least a little good. Flogging someone will do irreparable harm to everyone involved. It is an extreme measure. Rather than speaking against flogging, I’ll politely ask those in favor of it to consider a gentler way to deal with individuals whose blogging is damaging to society — whomever they might be.

I support separation
I live in America which insists on integration. Segregation is a dirty word here, and if you are for it, then you are a dirty racist pig! However, putting people together who don’t like each other and who don’t get along can be much worse than segregation and can lead to murder, flogging, and worse. Religious Muslims do not integrate well with secular Muslims or people from other faiths. Secular people tend to offend Muslims, and Muslims tend to shun secular people. Even when integrated, the two separate like oil and water. Lebanon was plagued by an horrible civil war which left many dead and many more emotionally shattered. In my opinion, the Christians in Lebanon should have their own country. The Druze should also have their own land, and the Muslims should have a country to themselves too. This way they don’t have to fight with each other over control. Egypt is teetering on the verge of civil war because secrular Muslims, Christians, and religious Muslims don’t see eye to eye. Perhaps it would be better if Egypt became two or three countries. I don’t know having separate countries for each type of people in the Middle East is best, but in the short run, it seems like it would solve a lot of problems.

Talaka, Talaka, Talaka!
The same holds true for Iran and Saudi Arabia which do not grant freedom to break Islamic law. There are many residents in both of these countries who are very Western in their thinking and cannot be happy following Shariah law. For those folks, it might be easier if a chunk of Iran or Arabia is reserved for them to set up their own communities where they can live by whatever laws they like. If you don’t get along, why fight it? Get a divorce! Talaka, Talaka, Talaka! Islam allows a couple to get a divorce, so why not allow a community of secular minded people to do the same. Everyone will be happier in the end — perhaps…

You might also like:

Outsourcing a Jihadi
http://bpo.123outsource.net/2015/01/12/outsourcing-a-jihadi-a-comedy-about-something-not-so-funny/

99 ways to die in social media — choose one!
http://bpo.123outsource.net/2016/01/05/99-ways-to-die-in-social-media-choose-one/

Good business karma or bad business karma?
http://bpo.123outsource.net/2016/03/08/good-business-karma-or-bad-business-karma/

Hiring programmers is like dating a guy if you’re a straight guy!

December 27, 2014 by 123outsource
Categories: Semi-Popular, Software Development | Tagged | Leave a comment

What a bizarre title!
But, it’s kind of true. After working with different programmers who were all men (there was one woman, but she didn’t return my calls) I came to this ghastly realization. I began to feel sorry for women as a gender for having to put up with us. Men are rough, gruff, uncommunicative, make decisions without consulting others, don’t get back to you on time, do whatever they want, and don’t always care much if at all about your general welfare.

As a straight guy…
I never thought about what it would be like to date a guy. I don’t date much, but if I do, I assure you it would be with a female member of my species. For a woman or a male client of programmers it is hard. You are completely at the mercy of this guy who does whatever he wants and doesn’t care about your opinion. If they screw up, modules of your site could be dysfunctional, unusable, or just entirely down. I began to think like a woman after a few failed relationships with programmers. (BTW, I have nice programmers now [2014] who do not cause trouble)

Why can’t they just LISTEN?
First of all, the main complain that women have about men, is that we don’t listen. I don’t necessarily need these programmers to make suggestions — I just want them to listen. Many programmers take offense if you have an opinion, because after all, what could YOU possibly know about programming. The answer is that I don’t know anything. However, I do know what the long term consequences to my business are for programming strategies that are not sound. If a programmer does too much on a huge project without letting me check anything step by step, for all I know, they could be handing me a pile of useless broken code. I like to go step by step and make sure everything is working before moving on. I want my opinions to be considered — and I am happy to hear the opinion of the programmer too, so long as my comfort level oriented considerations are integrated into the project without a fuss.

Can’t they be a little more like James Bond?
Most girls want a guy who is like James Bond. He dresses well, smells good, always is confident and has perfect manners. In real life, guys are not like this, especially not programmers who are more like inverse-James un-Bond. How they dress is a smaller consideration. But, how they are often unwilling to interact, be friendly or personable makes me uncomfortable. In my experience workers who don’t like to communicate like to avoid their clients and never do very good work simply because they don’t like you and they don’t care. How people answer the phone is another indication of professional behavior. If people answer saying, “Hello,” or have an answering machine which doesn’t state their name or company name, that makes me very uncomfortable. For girls it is more about the image of a James Bond type guy that they like. For me it is more about the indication of a seasoned professional who will be helpful and trustworthy in all actions — which is a purely practical concern. After all, I am not a girl even if I have learned to think like one.

How can I manipulate guys like girls do.
I am a guy. For me when I see other guys, I chat with them. I am not intimidated by them if they are huge and muscular, or if they are way out of my class and drive a Bentley. For me guys are guys, and unless they are outwardly hostile or offensive, I feel comfortable with guys from any culture, class or background. I am less conscious of them in terms of their “level” as I don’t size them up like women do. Women know how to size up a guy, know what his strengths and flaws are before he opens his mouth, and they know how to manipulate them too. If you hire programmers, you need to know how to keep them under control, because they have a way of going their own direction the minute you are not watching them. Girls are experts at this. Why can’t I learn to be a professional at thinking like a girl? Do you kill them with kindness? Do you flatter them and bat your eyelashes? They you threaten them and make demands? Or do you simply act polite, tell them what you want, and tolerate exactly the right amount of nonsense. After all everyone will give you some amount of nonsense, the key is to know how much is too much!

Summary
To make it short, if you are in a profession that involves hiring others who are more powerful than you are — and by more powerful I do not mean richer, smarter, or more powerful in general — I mean more powerful in how critical they are to your project, then you need to learn to think like a girl. They are in this position their entire lives having their means for survival dependent on the guy they date or marry (unless they have a considerable income on their own merits.) Having a relationship with a programmer is the closest a straight guy will ever come to anything that resembles dating a guy.

Jokes
To end a software development relationship, you could use the Seinfeld approach or these other crazy lines:

“It’s not you, it’s me”
“The commenting in the code didn’t let me comment back. Are my comments not important too?”
“Why can’t your style of coding be more like Andy’s — his is so efficient with all of those multicolored lines!”
“I think we should see other developers.”
“I love you, it’s just that I need a PHP developer who understands me better.”

Our Linked In seedling became a jungle!

December 23, 2014 by 123outsource
Categories: Semi-Popular, Social Media | Leave a comment

We started an outsourcing Linked In group over half a year ago. It was ignored, didn’t get posted on, and we had so much trouble attracting members. Then, I put a new staff member on the assignment and instructed her to get lots of “active” members who posted interesting content or responded to content on other networks. The girl in charge of this task is a very high energy gung-ho person. I knew she would get amazing results, but even I was surprised at how well the group did.

With only 600 members, participation is off the hook!
Our Linked In discussion group with less than 600 members was getting more discussions and interaction than groups over 10,000 strong. Amazing. I was so pleased. I had not looked at the group in over two months when we were only getting a handful of discussions. The quantity of content (it was quality content about interesting business issues) was so baffling, I couldn’t even find content that we had posted four days ago without scrolling for several minutes.

Our other Linked In group is getting us boatloads of clicks!
The same girl is also running our Linked In for notaries. That group unfortunately didn’t grow that much, but the quantity of high quality clicks from articles she submitted was baffling. She was only posting four posts a week, but we were getting more than 400 quality clicks per month! Another jungle in the making!

Summary
So, overall, my experience on Linked In has been good. It takes a while to figure out how to play the game the optimal way. But, once you figure out how to use Linked In effectively, it is very powerful if you want to attract a business oriented network!

Outsourcing work for $2 per hour?

December 11, 2014 by 123outsource
Categories: Outsourcing Articles, Semi-Popular | Tagged , | Leave a comment

I talk to a lot of people involved in outsourcing and read about this topic regularly as well. Prices for outsourcing work can really vary. The issue with me is that I want to know what I am paying for and what I’m getting. You never really know what you are getting, especially when you outsource to India. Companies there hire a lot of beginners who haven’t a clue what they are doing. On the other hand, they also have some seasoned professionals who will work for a reasonable cost as well.

I just got an email stating that a data entry company would work for $2 per hour. I wonder what the cost would be to fix the errors that their clerk made, or how efficient their work could possibly be. When you see prices like this, you have to keep in mind that they are probably only paying their clerk about 70 cents per hour, and their offer might only be a come on, and not a long term price.

On the other hand, I talked to many providers of social media services. I heard prices like $3 per hour if you get one hour a day and you pay a fixed monthly rate of about $120. Another social media company wanted $5 per hour. A third company wanted $500 per month for one hour per day which is about $25 per hour. I wonder how much better the quality of the $25 per hour provider is. The man who answered the phone didn’t seem at all polished. $25 per hour is more than 90% of programmers in India charge — and I assure you that social media is a lot simpler to learn than PHP programming!

In America and other wealthy countries, outsourced labor can run from $30 to $100 per hour for various tasks. Call center work pricing has really gone down due to intense competition from Manila. But, social media work in the USA is no bargain. The sad part is that the providers of these expensive services in the US or India generally have very little experience, very limited knowledge, and quit their jobs on a whim. How can anyone run a business based on outsourcing I ask?

My solution is that you become an expert at whatever you are outsourcing and keep a close eye on whomever you hire to do anything. You might be able to get some good work from the $2 and hour folks, and maybe even teach them something that will benefit both of you.

The Lamborghini effect in Social Media marketing

September 6, 2014 by 123outsource
Categories: Popular on Google+, Semi-Popular, Social Media | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

I have been doing marketing for my entire life it seems. I remember as a kid, I marketed my lawn mowing business. I came up with sweat intensive methods for attracting clients in a heartbeat. I used to write an estimate on a flyer and leave it under their door mat if they were not home. I got hired by 10% of the people I left a flyer with. That is phenomenal. But, it is because I used a personal touch, and gave a quick and customized bid to everyone. Being fast at doing accurate estimates has its advantages.

As an adult, I have been running websites for more than a decade. It is hard to run a website, and the marketing keeps changing. Google is basically in charge, so whatever they like, you had better do!

The Lamborghini effect
It sounds like a movie. The Italian Job, The Bridge on the River Quai, The Lamborghini Effect — playing at 5pm, tickets sold at the door. Basically what I am talking about is having a marketing methodology so potent, that if you just tap the gas pedal, you will hear a huge “Voom” sound, and magic will happen. Today, I had a Lamborghini moment, if I may coin that phrase. I published a popular blog entry. But, I had also channeled some traffic to my outsourcing blog (the one you’re reading,) from my newer travel twitter which gets a lot of retweets. The result is that my traffic was more than double for a few days on my blog. Wow! All I did was tweet a few tweets and voom!

Followers are useless, you need results!
Lots of companies and individuals are in social media marketing, and claim to be good at it. You will see offers where they can get you 2000 followers overnight for a low fee, or maybe even 30,000 followers. Followers are useless. You need relevant, active, engaged followers, even if you only have a hundred. Most companies hire people who are not that experienced, and who will not get you amazing results. They will get you some new followers, maybe write a few tweets if they can even write well, and perhaps get you retweeted a few times. There is no focus on results, only on spinning the wheels. I don’t like this. I not only want results, I want to be blown out of the water. Real results are traffic to your site from clicks, and getting new customers — not new dormant followers who just sit there collecting cyber-dust.

My goal
My goal in social media is to learn how to get results so potent that I can help others to promote their social media campaigns. I want one or more twitter accounts, and blogs that get so much active traffic, that one tweet from me, and you won’t know what hit you! It amazes me that my older Twitter accounts have 4000, or 8000 followers, but only get retweeted two dozen times a month, while my newer travel twitter gets two dozen retweets per day, on a bad day. Wow! But, what if I can get my campaign to the point where I am getting hundreds of retweets per day? I think it is possible.

Blogging
As far as blogging is concerned, by blogging more and more, I learn what is popular and what is not. Writing a popular blog entry in a niche market can get you a few thousand clicks over the life of the blog entry. Some entries get a lot of clicks their first week, while others slowly get clicked on and attract search engine traffic over years. Some of my most popular blog entries were written in 2011 by the way! My goal is get better at identifying what people like, and to continue to write more popular blog entries. I want to get so good, that all of my blog entries are popular. We’ll see what happens, but it is going well so far.

Summary
Most social media companies will give you “a” Twitter account and “a” Facebook account and perhaps a blog that is “blahg.” Don’t settle for less. I like it when you get results that are so amazing that you say, “What happened?” That is the Lamborghini effect in Social Media Marketing. Once you’ve experienced it you’ll never forget it!

Outsource: Steve Jobs Principle: The more people you network w/ Outside your field..

August 28, 2014 by 123outsource
Categories: Innovation, Semi-Popular | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Steve Jobs felt that the more people you networked with outside your field, the more connections you will make that could lead to breakthrough ideas.

I have noticed that people in the same profession sometimes tend to think in similar restricted ways. If you only talk to people who think kind of like you, it is difficult to broaden your thinking. If you hang around with lots of different types of people in different fields, industries, cultures, walks of life, etc., you can be exposed to different ways of thinking which will by default, expand your thinking.

Intel sends employees to live in villages in Malaysia and India to see how people live and see the world. These employees often lived with families, ate their food, met their friends, and saw how their daily life was. By understanding how they might use computers and other technological products, they can design products that people will enjoy, and be able to use.

I feel that sometimes companies go overboard with features. If you have too many features you will baffle and overwhelm people, especially the non-technosaavy. I personally feel that technological projects should be simple, nice looking, easy to use without much if any tutorials, and fun. If you make it so complicated that there is always something critical that you are missing — you took it too far. Common sense needs to accompany innovation. Over-innovating can be a bad thing. Just give people enough to solve their problems and work effectively using a new system — that should be enough.

Anthropologists working for Intel learned that dust and electrical outages were serious issues in India, so they designed computers with longer battery life. If it were up to me, I would have detachable batteries, so that you just plug another one in when the first one runs out!

Traveling to many countries, meeting many people, having many hobbies, and studying many different subjects are all great ways to form the foundation that you need to be a great innovator. Of course, if you have an intense desire to innovate, start doing it! The more you do, the better you get at it, especially if mixed with lots of different life experiences to widen your consciousness!

“Widen your consciousness”

Create stories in your blog about the experience of your clients

July 18, 2014 by 123outsource
Categories: Marketing, Popular on Google+, Semi-Popular | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

But, I don’t have a blog? Get one!

Most people just focus on acquiring clients. Their mentality is not far from a rickshaw driver’s who only wants to know, “Where are you going? Do you need a ride?” Prospective clients often want to get to know you first and don’t just want to start off talking about the work. Don’t hustle your clients, engage them instead!

Engage your prospects!
If a client talks to ten different companies, and one of those companies pleasantly engages them without any pressure, two months later when they make their decision who to hire, which one will they remember the most favorably? That’s a no-brainer! They will remember the one who engaged them, who told them charming stories about their clients, and about life in Dehra Dun, Mumbai, or wherever you might be.

Storytelling 101
Being a good businessman is more about understanding margins, numbers, hiring, firing, buying and selling. It is about engaging, and engaging with stories. Obviously, you need to be able to explain to others what is unique about your company and why they might consider hiring you. It’s good to keep in touch regularly just to remind them you are still there if you didn’t hear from them. But, tell them a story about something your client did and how they became successful using your service, or perhaps some other unrelated service. Tell them the story about how last week you had to go hungry because an elephant at a parade in Nashik grabbed your banana right out of your hand and ate it! Ask them if they have ever been to India and engage them in a conversation where they might tell you their stories too! If you want to get clients, get close to people. People will trust you more if you are nice, entertaining, and if they get to know you a little!

But, what about blogging?
You can’t tell someone a story if you haven’t met them yet, but you can blog a story to them! People find me on my blog every day. They like the crazy stories I tell on my notary blog. They like the tips and the nit-picky technical points I make. They sort of get to know me before they have ever talked to me. Blogging allows you to be personal, interact, and get people to know you, before you ever talk to them. Then, by the time they talk to you, they already sort of know you — or at least know a lot about you. So, think up some stories. Hire a writer to help you. Put your stories in your blog. Tell them how you had one client who came to you and he became a millionaire partly because of the help you gave him. Then, tell them about the time you had a head on collision with a cow while in a rick-shaw. Share, entertain — blog!

And remember, don’t sell by selling — sell by telling stories. It’s more fun and works better!

How many retweets do you need to get a new follower on Twitter?

July 15, 2014 by 123outsource
Categories: Analytics, Popular on Twitter, Semi-Popular | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

On my notary twitter, we have accumulated more than 8000 followers. They seem to be very passive. We get some clicks on our links, but not that many. We get a handful of retweets per day, but nothing amazing. I figured if the number of followers kept growing, that our retweets might grow too. It sort of works that way, but not exactly.

Passive growth is anyone’s dream in social media. Imagine creating a Twitter or Linked In account that just grows on its own? Our Notary Linked In actually does just grow on its own and the discussions on it are fantastic too! What I learned from my new travel Twitter account, is that retweets only help you if you get a lot of them.

Our Notary Twitter gets one to eight retweets per day. We can’t measure how that helps us since we are doing PPC advertising and a lot of interaction. But, on my travel Twitter account which is new, we are not interacting with existing members. We are just getting new members, and there is no PPC. We follow others, interact, and retweet. There is a lot of activity on the account, but since there is no PPC, it is easier to guestimate the realities of the retweets.

On my travel Twitter we get retweeted generally 20 to 40 times per day. That is a lot of retweets. Our growth rate is 10-20 people per day. The growth comes partly from the retweets, but more from the following, retweeting, and interacting. I would estimate that we might get about four new followers per day from the thirty average retweets per day. But, it is more complicated than that. The size of the accounts that retweet you matters too. If you get retweeted by someone with ten followers, it really doesn’t help. But, if someone with half a million followers retweets you, then you are in business.

I actually did get a comment retweeted by a guy with 400,000 followers. I was curious to see if that would help. We got a generous amount of new followers during the following twenty-four hours, but not higher than we usually get in a way that I would measure.

My official guess, based on experience, is that — if you get retweeted in a way that reaches 15,000 Twitter accounts, you might get a single new follower. If what I call a “weak interaction” gets retweeted, you might need 50,000 people to get it in order to get a single follower. The quality of the tweet, and the relevance of the followers factor into the equation. Basically, to sum it up, if you want your Twitter account to grow from retweets, you had better get a ton of them daily.

I make it a practice to follow only those who either follow me, have top notch content, or those who retweet others regularly. If they retweet others, they are likely to retweet me, and that is exactly what is happening!

Good good, analytics are confusing!

You might also like:

Twitter analytics — click rates per 100,000 impressions
http://bpo.123outsource.net/2015/11/15/doing-some-twitter-analytics-click-rates-per-100000-impressions/

Learning to profile the accounts you follow on Twitter can triple your growth
http://bpo.123outsource.net/2015/07/12/learning-to-profile-the-accounts-you-follow-on-twitter-can-triple-your-growth/

9 ways to assess the quality of your Twitter account and/or social media agency
http://bpo.123outsource.net/2014/08/01/9-ways-to-assess-the-value-of-your-twitter-account-or-service-provider/

Outsourcing or Offshoring? Which is which?

June 16, 2014 by 123outsource
Categories: Of Interest, Semi-Popular | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

When I use the word outsourcing, I am thinking of a mystical character named Rajiv who kisses his sari-clad wife goodbye, mounts his elephant, and makes his way down the crowded streets of Agra with his briefcase in one hand and his mobile phone in the other. Of course in real life, people in India only ride elephants for festivals since the cost of buying 600 bananas every time breakfast rolls around isn’t getting any cheaper. But, it is a nice caricature of Indians, having them ride exotic creatures.

But, outsourcing only means giving work to another company or freelancer to do. If the work is not done by an in-house staff member, that would constitute outsourcing.

Offshoring is another concept altogether. Offshoring is when you take your work and send it to some other country far far away. But, offshoring might not be outsourcing. If you had your own branch office in Nepal and hired your own people, it would be offshoring, but not outsourcing. If you are in Arkansas and hired a company next door to do your data entry, it would be outsourcing, but not offshoring.

Then, there is Nearshoring where you take your job and give it to somebody in another state or country that is not that far away. If an American companies hires someone in Mexico that would be nearshoring.

Then, there is Backshoring when you bring your overseas jobs back to the good ‘ole United States.

Then there is Non-shoring where you have your work done by the Outsourcing boat! Just have Isaac mix me another mojito!

All of these terms delight me, but what would be a good term for having someone on another planet do your work? What if your medium consults the spirits on the planet Gorkon for some deeply philosophical spiritual matter? Off-Planeting or Off-Terra-Firma-oring? Maybe Off-Terrestrializing.

Call earth for only 3 cents per minute!

You might also like:

Outsourcing: Why everyone is doing it. One bizarre example
http://bpo.123outsource.net/2014/03/25/outsourcing-why-everyone-is-doing-it-one-bizarre-example/

Don’t expect to get paid more due to your GPS coordinates
http://bpo.123outsource.net/2014/03/19/dont-expect-to-get-paid-more-due-to-your-gps-coordinates/

From 500 programming houses worldwide down to a dozen?

April 26, 2014 by 123outsource
Categories: Semi-Popular, Software Development | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

It is sad to say, but when you boil it down, you get the bottom of the pan, and no usable substance. I am referring to outsourcing companies. We did an experiment where we called 500 programming houses specializing in internet programming. They specialized in .Net, PHP, Java, and other online applications and languages. Most of them either didn’t answer the phone or couldn’t communicate properly. But, the ones who did answer failed our bid project.

We asked people what they charged first of all. Most companies were charging so little, that we couldn’t imagine them being any good. In my experience, someone who charges $15/hour for programming will be so bad, that they will be a complete waste of time. So, I tried to find more expensive options, but those turned out to be a disaster too in terms of the efficiency of their bids, etc. I tried to find American companies to help out, but they were too busy to assist.

We called companies in Europe, America, and India. Those who answered the phone and could communicate well, were given an easy test project to bid on. Our goal was to see if they could bid properly. The mark of a true professional is their accuracy and reliability. After we got our bids together, we found that only about 10% of the companies who could communicate well (which was only a fifth of the total who we called) could bid properly. Most bid astronomically too high on a simple project, while a few desperate and incompetent companies bid too low. Hmmm.

So, we went from 500 to 100 by weeding out those who couldn’t communicate well, or simply didn’t answer our calls or emails. Then we went from 100 companies to around 10 by weeding out those who couldn’t bid. We’ll keep you informed how our lucky 10 do.

I will say, that there are two huge programming companies in Belarus who were not the most efficient in town, but their bids were not that unreasonable and they are serious about doing business. They have hundreds of employees and do what I call “volume” business.

The most important thing I learned is that you can’t really get American programmers to be reliable in the long run. I also learned that Indian companies usually hire sloppy programmers. To get anything done, you either need to find an exceptional Indian company that takes their work seriously, or find someone in Eastern Europe. I’ll do more research and keep you posted!

Tweets:
(1) We boiled 500 programming houses down to 10 by calling them & asking for a bid.
(2) Most programming houses in India charge too little, but those who charge more are also a nightmare.

You might also like:

From 100 Indian Call Centers down to 1
http://bpo.123outsource.net/2014/01/21/from-100-indian-call-centers-down-to-1/

The 2nd test project & the second bid
http://bpo.123outsource.net/2014/01/22/the-second-test-project-the-second-bid/

The right sized company to outsource to

April 22, 2014 by 123outsource
Categories: Management, Popular on Twitter, Semi-Popular | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

In my quest to find the right programming companies, I have learned a lot. There are different cultures, different skill levels, and different sizes of companies. Some companies have workers who work remotely, while others have everyone in an office. I learned that I didn’t generally do too well with one-man shows unless they were above average in skills and always answered their phones. I found a writer who fit that description. But, programmers have the “Don’t answer your phone” gene that prevents them from matching my criteria.

I was thinking that bigger = better. But, the bigger companies were often too snobby to work for me, or too uncoordinated to even know what their schedule was like. They also lacked the intimacy of smaller companies.

After a lot of looking around, I found that companies that had 6-12 people total were ideal. Unfortunately, in America there are very few that match this criteria. I hired a company in India with 20 people who was good. But, they grew to 45 members and now it is too crazy to deal with them. They lost their star employees and replaced them with chaos and more chaos. In my case, the closer a company gets to having 9 employees, the better they are. But, if they have less than 6, it never works out. I’m not sure why this math determines a result, but the numbers don’t like.

A company of the right size is important. You can get to know the boss well. If that company grows out of control, the boss will be too busy to talk to you or manage things well. So, I need a lot of backup companies. What if I find someone perfect, and then they grow too much? They might stop being perfect — what a scary thought. Additionally, I might add that in India the companies with 6-20 people generally make it easier to talk to someone really smart. At larger companies in India, you start off talking to someone who is so dumb, they can’t even answer the question, “What city are you located in?” They always need to transfer me the minute I ask them a trick question like that. I can’t figure it out!

Tweets:
(1) In my quest to find the right companies to hire, I have learned a lot.
(2) Companies with 6-20 people generally make it easier to talk to someone really smart.
(3) Large companies are often too snobby to accept smaller clients.

You might also like:

Is bigger always better in business?
http://bpo.123outsource.net/2014/02/11/is-bigger-always-better-in-business/

Good sign bad sign: what to look for in newly hired companies or workers
http://bpo.123outsource.net/2014/01/13/outsource-blog-good-sign-bad-sign-what-to-look-for-in-newly-hired-workers/