MPRS BPO Journey: From Freelancers to Business Success

This is the reproduction of my blog:https://mprsoms.com/from-freelancers-to-mprs-bpo-my-journey/
About a decade ago, my tax preparer introduced me to the brave new world of freelancers, marking the beginning of my MPRS BPO journey. It was my first encounter with that world of unlimited opportunities. The problems I faced then and now remain the same, namely, hiring and retaining qualified and dedicated workforce locally, at an affordable cost. This is especially true for startups and companies with less than five full-time employees. Often, once the employees gain some experience, they hunt for better opportunities and move on. Entrepreneurs like me are left to restart the vicious cycle of hiring, training, and seeing them leave. The employees leaving midship is not due to mismanagement, rather it is a systemic issue such as lack of growth opportunities within small companies and the inability for small companies to offer employee benefits such as healthcare, retirement plans, and associated perks. Over time, the employee’s salary expectations rise beyond the affordability of small businesses.

In many other countries job hopping is still not common. Many employees prioritize job security and value long-term commitment read lifelong employment. The dominance of dollar over other currencies, and the prevailing wages overseas makes offshore workforce an attractive option.

For all these reasons, hiring offshore workforce seemed to be a viable option. Since then, I have engaged countless number of freelancers. Their skill set ranged from bookkeepers, accountants, social media managers, web developers, graphic designers, content creators, architectural and interior designers and more. The freelancers whom I engaged with were living on five different continents, seven different countries and three different states in the US, each with varied levels of expertise. Through this journey I deciphered the success formula in engaging outsourced workforce.

Here I share my journey from engaging freelancers to starting my own BPO: MPRS Office Management Services Pvt. Ltd., (https://MprsOMS.com) a business process outsourcing company registered in India with a liaison office in Miami FL, USA.

To begin with I was excited at the prospect of making it big by stretching my budget. In my first contract I hired the lowest bidder and thought I would win the game. The freelancer and my wife spoke the same language, so we managed the verbal communication well. BUT communicating our “message” was difficult. It resulted in us spending countless hours at odd times of the day communicating with the graphic designer. At the end we got only substandard results.

Compared to my first encounter, my second engagement was with another graphic designer living on a different continent, and I had allotted a bigger budget. This indeed made a difference, in quality and meeting the deadlines.

From these two engagements, I learnt that more than the hourly wage, the real expertise, and the turnaround speed matters the most. You may spend a little more upfront, but you save all the headaches of dealing with freelancers with questionable qualifications. In hindsight the above experience might look avoidable, but there is no substitute to learning from the School of Hard Knocks. The purpose of this article is to share such engagements, so the reader can benefit from my experiences.

I applied my learning from earlier engagements with freelancers, in involving several more freelancers for a variety of tasks. I spent a lot of my resources, viz. time and money, engaging freelance web developers. In this process, I had three failed attempts engaging three different web development companies. Due to the poor work quality I had to terminate the contract with all these three companies. In this process I spent thousands of dollars and countless hours. At the end of the day, I ended up spending a large amount of time and money. Money is recoverable, whereas time is not recoverable. Time once spent is not recoverable or redeemable. I applied the lessons learnt from these three failed contracts in my next web development hire and ended up reaping rewards.

Finally, I landed with a web developer whom now I have on a monthly retainer. What is so unique about this freelancer? In 2018 he was just starting out his freelancing career with his own web development company. He was young, in his early 20’s, he had hunger for growth and limitless patience to educate me- the customer. When things were not progressing as I wanted, he went out of his way to put across the technical issues with real website examples and made me aware of the bigger picture. In this process he convinced me to buy a few features that I needed to make my website efficient. I wholeheartedly took his advice because it made business sense. He was willing to go the extra mile to educate me. My experience with him was in contrary to the condescending attitude of several “free lancing web developers” I had previously dealt with. He breathed in a fresh breath of air to my engagements with the freelancing world. But he did not come cheap, he came at a reasonable cost. Now we are family friends, and he visits us in Miami, FL USA.

Despite my due diligence in hiring freelancers, I can cite several examples of freelancers who literally bait and switch, yes, you read it right, bait and switch. I took it as a learning experience and moved on. Lesson learnt: Don’t Throw the Baby out with the Bathwater.

“I am an organized individual with clear well-defined goals. Rarely do we come across customers with a clear vision”. This is a certificate I have invariably received from many freelancers, social media as well as software development companies that I engaged with. Despite this validation, I found that communication with the freelancers turned out to be a bummer. You may attribute it to cultural differences, language barrier or any number of other reasons. The reason which I eventually figured out was my (customer) understanding of the subject matter is different from the viewpoint of the so called “experts”. Often, the “experts” take you (the customer) for granted. The experts presume the customer knows nothing in this field as a result the “experts” had “know it all attitude”. As a result, the expert fails to speak the customer’s language. Failure to take you (the customer) fully onboard is a major red flag in moving forward. Run away from these “experts” as fast as you possibly can.

Solution: Your first interaction with the freelancer will set the tone of future engagements. Therefore, you must do your homework first. Educate yourself about the work you are outsourcing. Ask around in your professional circles about the skill sets needed to accomplish your tasks. Knowledge is your asset. While talking to the “expert” let them know that you have done your homework.

Evaluate the attitude of the “experts”. In the initial few interviews, you will get to know the attitude and commitment of the expert. Ask their consent to speak with their previous customers, read through reviews, review work samples and ask some behavioral and attitudinal questions. While there is no foolproof mechanism, taking all precautionary measures will give the mental satisfaction of having done our due diligence.

Finally, hire an expert who comes across as humble in your interactions.

Communication breakdown: The “experts” fail to educate the customer. In their eagerness to win the contract, they are willing to take projects that are bound for cost and time over run. Though fixed price contracts, they come up with the agenda of sign up now resolve finer points as we go along the project attitude. This leads to discontent and eventual bitter parting of ways.

Solution: Set well defined milestone, clear deadlines, consequences of time overrun and the remedial measures. Let the expert answer this question: How would you handle my job, while working on my job, if you get another better paying contract?

Unreasonable price structure: The customer wants the cheapest possible price. The freelancer wants the job. In their enthusiasm to earn new businesses, freelancers take up jobs where they spend several folds more hours than they anticipated on the project. As a result, the project does not pay them a living wage. Meanwhile wiser from the ongoing experience, they land a new contract that pays them better. Now figure out where their loyalty will lie. As a result, your project is relegated to the backburner. Now, you pay with time over run and substandard work because it is a fixed price contract.

Solution: Do your background research to find out what it would cost to complete your project across geographical locations, and the experience of the freelancer. You must avoid transborder price comparison. For example, you cannot compare the price of a US based freelancer with the one from Africa, Asia, Europe or South America. You must compare the price only within the country, NOT transborder. Then arrive at a price that you can live with. Once you decide your spending limit, you can engage any freelancer below your target price and reward them later. This will boost the morale of the freelancer and your work can be accomplished to your satisfaction. You earn brownie points for being a “good customer”.

Typically, we take it for granted that once we engage a freelancer, they will be available at our beck and call. The sad truth is freelancer being a freelancer is not tied to you. Their engagement rate increases as they gain experience. As a result, your favorite freelancer does not have time to take up your project at your beck and call. The freelancer got a full-time job and discontinued the freelancing gig. The freelancer is busy and therefore, temporarily not available. Freelancer finds the project to be beyond their expertise.

These scenarios played out in my case as well. In my journey in engaging a graphic designer, I ended up engaging three different graphic designers. Every time I hired a freelancer, I had to start all over again, explaining my vision with the new hire and setting the expectations. This was sapping my energy and time. To begin with the issues that I am facing now are no different from the problem that wanted to solve: retaining a qualified and trained workforce. Then it dawned on me that I could overcome all these problems if I started my own Business Process Outsourcing company. In many other countries job hopping is still uncommon. Many employees prioritize job security and long-term commitment. Luckily, I had the resources and family support to establish my own agency in India, thus in the year 2021, I started MPRS Office Management Services Pvt Ltd with the sole purpose of taking care of my US based business operations. It should be noted that

the idea of starting my own agency was born out of over six years of experience engaging freelancers from a variety of backgrounds.

I trained the initial recruits, which established a self-sustaining team. With the lessons learned during my MPRS BPO journey, I no longer spend time hiring, training, and seeing the trained employees leave. Having my own team also eliminated the risk of a member leaving me in the lurch. Other than people leaving for maternity or medical reasons, we have negligible employee turnover, which is a testament to the success of our MPRS BPO journey in building stability.

Dr. Subbarayan R. Pochi and his wife, Dr. Malancha Sarkar, founded MPRS Office Management Services Pvt. Ltd. in Kanchipuram, India. They initially established the company to manage their US operations. Now, after honing their skills through the experiences gained from the MPRS BPO journey, they have built a dedicated and reliable team.

Our journey has led us to the point where we can offer you the same expertise. You can tap into our knowledge and form your team within our company for a fee. The MPRS BPO journey has made this possible through experience and growth, and we’re excited to help entrepreneurs like you build successful teams.

This is a reprint of my blog published on August 20, 2024 https://mprsoms.com/from-freelancers-to-mprs-bpo-my-journey/