Distance Subcontracting: How To Convince The Prospect

[Bhoot]

HI,

I have a question... I have a perfect setup for offshore development center and my programmers have excellent skills so do my designers.

My concern is.. you are sitting 14000 miles away from me.. so how do I convince you of my abilities?

1. references
2. portfolio
3. ethics
4. my killing smile?

tell me people.. what's the magic word.. that can convince companies or individuals in US and Europe to hire my services?

I am not desperate..but I am concerned..yes

[stonemole]

Bhoot, not wishing to rain on your parade, but from a commercial point of view (I take care of digital marketing in a large organisation and hire agencies for work), I would not be interested in any company with which I could not meet face-to-face regularly or make calls to in my own time-zone and working day. Yes, you would need to provide references and portfolio - essential for any service business - but you would need to have a local office in Europe or an account manager here to get any sort of business off the ground. I'm sure others would agree...

[LifeinAsia]

you are sitting 14000 miles away from me.. so how do I convince you of my abilities?

<nitpick>
Change your perspective. Assuming the Earth is 25,000 miles around, being 14,000 miles away in one direction means being 11,000 miles away in the other sirection.
</nitpick>
Granted, actual travel distance will probably be longer than straight-line distance, but why call attention to the fact?

[jimbeetle]

I don't know what the magic words are, though I think much of it would be a matter of starting off with smaller jobs and building a repuation.

Just flipping through a few pages of provider profiles at one of the popular "hire a programmer" sites shows many companies from your part of the world making some very serious money.

Looking at it a bit more closely this one site has buyers rates providers on quality of work, responsiveness, professionalism, subject matter expertise, adherence to cost, and adherence to schedule. That should give you an idea of some of the factors to stress.

[anallawalla]

When I was running my own SEO/PPC business 4 years ago, I used to be visible in Google groups and some forums. Someone I met online was impressed by my skills at optimising my non-SEO site at the time and referred me to a company that gave me near-fulltime work from 8000 miles away.

One way or another, a referral works for this model. If you can get to a SES or Ad.Tech type of event in the US, it should lead to plenty of initial business and eventual referrals.

Perhaps you can target a niche industry and put up a proof-of-concept web service they will need and see if they show interest.

[andye]

Bhoot, I send work over to India pretty frequently (I'm in the UK).

The way I found the company I work with:
- found them on the net
- I contacted them and they offered to do some sample work for free
- I was impressed with the quality of what came back, worked out a contract and paid them for a small initial job
- Quality was still good so we went from there.

HTH!

a.

[drepack]

I think sharing references in the country you are wishing to do business and showing your portfolio will help. I am personally skeptical of off-shore mainly because of negative experiences others have shared (oh, and of course, my own personal experiences with trying to communicate on the phone with tech reps from DELL!)

My company (in the U.S.) does use offshoring and I feel fortunate to not have to be the interface person - why? Because the time difference inhibits TIMELY communications. Also, people in other countries often do not have the busines knowledge a person inside the country would have and sometimes this business knowledge is critical to developing quality work.

But having said all that, if you have good references in the country you are trying to sell your services in, that would help immensely if I were the person you were trying to sell too. Seeing your work would help too.

[aspdaddy]

Listen very carefully to what the client wants. :)

Show them something relevant to what they need doing, then offer turn a small piece of work around very quick to prove you can do it.