Building Your Outsourcing Team Using Fourerr

Fourerr is a great way to get started outsourcing certain tasks like writing articles, doing keyword research, and getting one-off multimedia pieces for your business. Eventually though, you want to build a team of contractors that you can contact directly and rely on as your business grows. You can use Fourerr as a tool to help you build that team.

Start With a Competition

If you’re really serious about finding the top person and are willing to put out a bit of money to do so here’s an idea for you: Give a few service providers the same assignment and see who does the best.

For example, if you’re looking to add writers to your team you could pick two articles you need written and then assign it to four or four of the top writers you find. As work comes back in you can compare based on a number of factors:

• Was the project delivered on time, or early?
• Did the service-provider understand the project? If they didn’t understand, did they ask questions?
• Is the work up to the quality expected?
• Was the work beyond the quality expected?
• Was the work original?
• Did the writer find a new angle for the article, or did he or she simply restate the same tips you’ve seen everywhere?

You might spend a bit of money running your competition, but it will be money well spent if you find a good writer or two to add to your team.

Talk to the Service Providers

For obvious reasons, Fourerr.com would prefer you continue to hire these people through their site, but when you’re building a team that you can outsource to regularly, sticking to four dollar projects isn’t the most practical thing. Talk to the service provider and if you can, move the conversation off the Fourerr site.

Be aware that Fourerr’s terms of service require you don’t provide your contact information to the seller or pay them directly for a Fourerr gig. If you violate these terms you could end up banned from Fourerr. You can ask the service provider if they have a business website and if they can provide you with that link. Or you can ask them if they have any other services you can hire them for off-site. Be careful about how you word this as you don’t want to get your seller in trouble, either.

If your seller has built an actual business off-site then they may have a website that you can simply look up. In the case of one Fourerr beat-box gig, you could easily find the seller through YouTube and contact him there.

Put Together a Team

Once you start working directly with a few service providers, it’s time to start putting together an entire team. To begin with, you may need just a graphic designer, a writer and possibly a web designer. None of them have to be full-time people. Just contract out work here and there as you need it done.

Another option is to put people on retainer. You pay them a set amount of money per month (let’s say $200 for example) and in return they will work on whatever you need done, up to a certain amount (write you up to 50 blog posts for example). It’s a win-win situation. Your contractors have a certain amount of money they can count on each month and you’re sure that that work is getting done no matter what. You’ll also often get a better rate for work on retainer than ordering it piece meal.

Expand your team as needed on Fourerr. If you’re running a fairly large online business, and rely on fresh content being created regularly, you may want to consider hiring a backup writer or even a small team of them.

Continue to grow and tweak your team as needed for business growth.

How to Find Good People on Fourerr

Successfully outsourcing tasks on Fourerr.com is all about finding the right people. Don’t assume everyone is right for you just because they are offering something for $4. You will be investing your time to train them, however briefly, and assign them work and that is valuable time you could be spending on your business. So take this seriously and you’ll get the most out of every four bucks you spend. Here are a few tips for finding great people on Fourerr.

Look at Feedback

Every service provider on Fourerr has a feedback section where people can post their comments. Read the comments of anyone you want to hire and go with your gut about what it all means. Some sellers have a star next to their offers that say ‘Top Rated Seller’, this is a good thing, hire them!

If someone has very little feedback yet, realize you are taking a chance with them. If someone has a lot of negative feedback, that’s a sure sign not to hire them. Another thing to look for is someone who’s been on the site for quite some time but has not gotten much work. There’s not too many reasons to avoid hiring people on a site like Fourerr unless spotty work is involved.

Request Samples

If you’re hiring someone for writing, graphics, video or any other deliverable, ask to see samples of their work. You can learn a lot about both the quality of the work you can expect and their style by looking at some of their previous work.  Ideally you want to look at a variety of samples to be able to judge if this person will be able to produce what you’re looking for.

For example, if you see one style of ebook cover in the sample file that isn’t what you’re looking for, consider asking for a different sample. It may also help to show them something similar to what you’re looking for and then asking if they can show you something they’ve done along those lines.

Keep in mind that service providers will show their best work in their samples. If they’re a professional then you could try searching on Google to see if you can find other work they’ve done. Or you could just try them out. Obviously you don’t want to spend a ton of time checking out this person. You find the right balance of research vs. hiring and then give them a try. The worst you can do is waste $4. Many of us spend that much daily on a coffee and donut!

Expect To Try A Few People

Don’t get discouraged if things don’t work out on the first gig, even if you checked feedback, requested samples, or the person came highly recommended by a colleague.
Instead, hope for the best but prepare for the worst. Expect to go through a few different people before you find someone that’s a good match for you and your website.

Once you find that great graphic designer or writer, keep working with them. Even better, find two or three people for each task, so you’re able to get work done whenever you need it even if your “regular” graphics guy or writer isn’t available.

Finding good people to work with does take up time and effort on your part but it’s well worth it for your business. Fourerr is a great place to start because you won’t go broke in the process.

There are good and great service providers out there – go find them!

Introduction to Buying Services on Fourerr

Buying on Fourerr is a pretty easy process.  You find what you need, pay via Paypal and then wait for the other person to get back to you with questions or the finished project. All communication is done via the Fourerr interface, which makes the process simple and painless – no lost or misplaced emails to deal with.

Don’t let the simplicity fool you, though. If you’re not careful you can suck up a lot of valuable time on Fourerr. Between the browsing and the hiring and the decisions on details, you can easily spend hours on the site, and since you’re outsourcing to save time, not waste it, you need to be careful.

Here are some tips for making the Fourerr hiring process as smooth as possible, from sign-up to finished product.

Sign Up For a Free Account

Start by singing up for an account. All you need is a valid email address to get started. You will be asked to confirm your account before you can order a gig. The sign-up process is quick and easy, you’re just setting up a username and password for the site.

You have the option to set up a profile for your Fourerr account including a picture and some info about yourself. Unless you’re planning on offering Gigs on the site, there’s no reason to fill out all that stuff. If you do decide to fill out your profile, it won’t hurt to use keywords, but unfortunately your description cannot contain live links.

Browse Through the Categories or Use the Search Function

Next it’s time to take a look at what some of the users on Fourerr have to offer. Start by browsing through the category that most closely matches what you need done. If you’re looking for someone to create an ebook cover for you, start with the graphics section. If you’re looking for someone to proofread your latest report, look in the writing section. It’s a lot of fun to browse categories to see what others are willing to do for $4, but that can easily turn into a huge time suck. Better to go in with a plan, so you can get in and out efficiently.

If browsing the 18,000+ listings on Fourerr seems a little overwhelming, you can use the search tool instead. Whether you’re looking for an ebook cover, blog post, or singing telegram, the on-site search engine is the fastest way to find it. You can also sort the results by highest-rated, newest, whether it has a video, or offers express delivery.

Compare Providers – Look at Feedback

Once you’ve found a few providers that are offering the gigs you’re interested in, it’s time to compare them. This is actually pretty easy since the price per gig is the same. Look at how long they’ve been a member of Fourerr, how many gigs they’ve done in the past and what kind of feedback they’ve been getting. This is one of the greatest advantages to using Fourerr – you can sample multiple service providers with small projects before you start handing them over big orders.

If you’re ordering a graphic or having some articles written, you may want to ask for samples of the service provider’s work before you order. This will give you a chance to look at their style and find one that’s close to what you’re looking for.

For graphics, look for people that offer to do at least one or two revisions for you in case the end result isn’t quite what you were looking for. It’s great to see example of their work as well, displayed on the offer page so you can easily see their style and abilities.

Ordering a Gig – Be Prepared

Once you’ve narrowed it down to just one person, it’s time to order the gig. You’ll be sent over to paypal to make your $4 payment. Once that’s done, you’re sent back to the Fourerr site where it’s time to give some details on the gig. Be as detailed and specific as possible here. Some service providers do a great job at asking you what exactly they need to get started, while others are a bit more vague.

The more information you can give them from the start, the sooner they get the final product to you and the more likely it is to be the result you wanted. For example, if you’re ordering an ebook graphic, be specific about size, colors used, title of the ebook, author name and anything else you would like on the cover. Spending a little time here will be well worth it in the long run and make your first Fourerr gig a big success.

Also, keep in mind that you will be communicating with the service provider through the Fourerr website, and will need to log in to grab your delivered product.

Buying services on Fourerr can be a very rewarding experience. A caveat is that you should expect a few flops. Not every service provider is going to be stellar and that’s to be expected. The good news is that it’s only going to cost you four bucks to sort through the duds and come up with some great people you can work with again and again. If you had to go through websites and randomly surf online to find these people it would likely cost you a whole lot more time and money than you’ll be spending on Fourerr.

Good luck and go order a gig!

Things You Can Outsource using Fourerr

Outsourcing can be a fantastic way to grow a new business or to turn a profitable business into a powerhouse. The problem is, not everyone has the budget to hire someone on retainer for ten hours per week or even per month. Fourerr is a great place to start outsourcing and it’s a great place to get some experience before you move on to work with someone on a more permanent basis.

There are all sorts of different tasks you can outsource here for your online business. Here are just a few ideas to get you started.

Graphics

Whether you need a new logo, a few button ads, or an ebook cover, Fourerr is a great place to find graphic designers that will create those graphics for you for next to nothing.  Look for someone with a good reputation and request samples of their work. This helps make sure that their style matches what you want in your design.

Graphics are often a little tricky to outsource until the person you are working with really knows you personally and understands the style and look you’re going for. Keep this in mind when hiring and either be willing to try something new or be open to making a few attempts before you find someone who really hits on a look you want. For $4 a shot you can afford to experiment a little.

Also – look for a graphics person who will do at least one or more revisions so you do have the opportunity to provide feedback and have some tweaks as needed. Don’t expect them to move mountains and recreate graphics for just $4 or you’ll just be disappointed with the results. A good attitude to have with this sort of thing is to expect the worst and hope for the best!

Compare what you’re getting to hiring the services of a professional who charges going rate and you’ll really get a good idea of the kind of deal you’re getting on Fourerr. If you find someone good keep their information and hire them again because good graphics people are very hard to find!

Articles and Blog Posts

Obviously you need content for your business and it needs to be high quality stuff. Good writers are gems to be treasured. You’re on the hunt for a few good ones to keep and assign lots of work to so they don’t leave you.

To get started, here are a few tips:

*Keep your initial writing assignments simple. Good first jobs are things like 7 Tips to X, 5 Ways to X or How to X. Don’t get too deep and give them a structure to follow.
*Make sure your writer shows you some samples. When you look at these samples check for grammar, spelling, proper layout (opening, body, closing), make sure each article has one main point.
*Don’t hire one writer to do a dozen articles right from the beginning. Get her to do about three and then review. If you’re happy with those, then hire her for more.

One problem you’ll likely come across when working with writers is that the work won’t be turned in on time. You can read reviews left by others who’ve worked with this person, make sure they are positive and that there’s no mention of an issue with meeting deadlines.

Another potential problem to be aware of if copyright infringement. Unfortunately, it’s all too easy to simply copy and paste articles found on other sites. For that reason, it’s a good idea to use a service such as copyscape to check the originality of any articles you purchase from writers you don’t know – whether you find them on Fourerr or some other site.

Link Building

You can also find all sorts of link building gigs on the site. You’ll find everything from offers to set up profile pages to directory submissions to forum participation. Stay away from any listings that sound like a lot of hype and try out any link building gig on a smaller niche site first before risking your money making sites. Overall success and quality of work is very hit or miss in this category.

Social Media

This category has all sorts of interesting options from offers to get a certain amount of friends and followers for you to gigs of people with a large social media following who are offering to tweet or Facebook your message.

If you can find a tweeter with a following that’s a good match for your product or service, this could be a great way to expand your brand and make some sales.

WARNING – Be careful with this one. You don’t want to pay someone to spam for you. That will have a negative impact on your business and it’s just not ethical. I’ll tell you right now that just because it’s on Fourerr it doesn’t mean that they’re not spamming. You must do your own due diligence and figure out if the source is legit or if they’re getting blocked left, right and center. You know how annoying it is to be spammed. You don’t want to be the person doing it, even inadvertently.

Videos

Video is one of the most fun categories to browse through on Fourerr. People are offering to record all kinds of fun stuff from creating a Lego animation with your messages to sleep-talking your website name. One of the most useful offers is for voice-over services. You record a short video – perhaps a simple PowerPoint presentation – and have a professional voice-over artist read your script. These short videos make fantastic promotional pieces.

You’ll also find a lot of offers to record a video testimonial. This is highly not recommended! It’s unethical and it’s also illegal to pose fake testimonials as real ones. I know TV commercials get away with it but we all know they are actors and there is a disclosure. Trying to make a fake video testimonial look real is not cool and people can see it a mile away.

Fourerr is a great resource for your business if used right. Make sure to do your research and use it for good, not evil. The tips you’ve found in this article are just the beginning. I’m sure with a little creativity and some time on the site you’ll find many more ways to use the services offered there to grow your business. Check out some gigs and hire something that suits you be heading on over to Fourerr.com today.

All the best!