I’ve always loved automating business processes but there are some things that just can’t be or shouldn’t be automated. Take the LinkedIn hack I talked about here, due to restrictions from the content publishers, programmatic access was denied and the best way to get the data was by hand. Granted, you could have probably written something to get the job done, but how long would that take? For smaller companies or startups, your resources need to be invested very wisely and often there are cases where writing a full-blown script isn’t the best option. Instead, you should leverage international workers.

In one of my previous roles we outsourced work to India, it was much cheaper and the quality was great. I was lucky enough to travel there and meet the team to see exactly how they worked. As you’d expect, the setup is similar to what you have in the local office, though the breaks may be longer (they called it IST, Indian Stretch Time). Overall it was a fruitful relationship but something only achievable in large scale organisations. For smaller organisations, startups especially, they should turn to Upwork.

Upwork is a platform to connect with freelancers, and one I’ve found quite useful in the past. Once you have created your account you simply write a job description and within hours you’ve got lots of applicants vying for your work. You just need to select your favourite and then you can pay by the hour or upon certain milestones. It’s amazingly cheap for simple data entry jobs, as low as USD$3 / hour.

From my experience, I have some recommendations to make sure your Upwork projects are a success:

  1. As well as looking at their portfolio, I found it useful to ask them to sit some tests first to make sure they’re able to do the work they say they can. While this is technically frowned upon as it is unpaid work according to Upwork, you would never hire an employee without fully evaluating them first, and it should be the same with Upwork.
  2. Be sure to get availability so you can set deadlines in a sensible manner. I’ve found the freelancers on Upwork can over promise as they’re eager to get more work so make sure you understand their schedule before asking them to commit to a project. By doing this you can set realistic deadlines and reduce frustration of delayed delivery.
  3. Chat with them! Maybe a little obvious, but jump on a call with them. It also won’t hurt to invite some of the other people from your team to say hello - anything to make them feel a part of the project will help change from just another job to one that they feel responsible for and are motivated to produce top results.

If you follow these and stick to your normal hiring procedures then you should be good to go. One last bonus tip: stay in contact with anyone you work with, I’ve kept in contact with some freelancers I trust and know that I can still turn to them today if I need a quick job done.