Deciding what part of our content production to outsource

Quotes

• “Not only are we the largest company in the US doing what we do, and at this point, weve got all the European languages covered. By being the first, the oldest, the biggest, weve got more clients ordering a variety of things that you get a network effect so I particularly benefited from that over time.” -Phillip

• “I think what weve done over the last 15 years which is somewhat unique is we put such a big emphasis on quality control and quality assurance. So we rank our authors between 2 stars and 5 stars.” -Phillip

• “Because of the pandemic, there is a huge change in how much companies are comfortable with remote work.It has really expanded.” -Phillip

• “So the willingness about remote work has changed and whether to hire in-house or outsource specialists depends partly on the resources you have. Its always a good place to start and the time availability of those resources for creating content.” -Phillip

• “So much of building what youve built in content is the tone, the style, of how you do what you do and for years weve heard, yeah I dont think a freelancer would be able to match that and time and again we can show you, they can. As long as we give the right information they absolutely can.” -Phillip

• “It surprises most people that you should be able to use a freelance author if you set it up well for not everything but for almost everything. If its really specialized or maybe a new product youre going to need somebody internal but in most cases, you should be able to take advantage of outsourcing.” -Phillip

• “I think that is a really important distinction is that when you have institutional knowledge of what you are writing about, something that isproprietary, and only somebody inside your company is going to write, it doesnt really make sense to off-board that information to a freelancer.” -Ben

• “On the flip side, the tone is something that can be matched and also you can have your in-house teambe the editors.” -Ben

• “I think its always easier if youre dealing with the same person. If youve got plenty of resources, Im going to be the last person to tell you that outsourcing to a freelancer youve never met, who is not ingrained in your company is going to be easier because I dont think it is easier but I think it is more cost-effective and it might be more scalable.” -Phillip

• “I think where outsourcing is the way to go is when you dont have that level of expertise or you dont think youcan train that person quickly if you can hire someone internally. And the other part is the consistency of your need. If for instance, Voices of Search is one a quarter kind of podcast, would it really make sense to have somebody on staff for all that time when you only need them few times a year so thats when cost factor comes in.” -Phillip

• “I think the question that I have really struggled with is paying for a freelancer on a cost-per-word basis as opposed to paying for time or an individual article on a project basis. Thats where I struggled with, the cost-comparison.” -Ben

• “We have an authors forum so they can talk amongst themselves and really help each other out and from a company perspective, it is interesting to be able to see whats on their mind. So every once in a while they would ask, hey, how much are you making per hour question pops up amongst them.” -Phillip

• “I get what youre saying, Ben. I think that math is a little more complicated given that its probably our fault. Our tag line is each word counts so we are paying per word and we built that standard but from the authors perspective, they are valuing their own time and while per word is a little tricky when you do the calculation.” -Phillip

• “For instance, if somebody asked meto write a thousand words about basketball, that is not going to take time for me but if you ask me to write a biography where I need to do research and that research time should be factored in on a per-word basis.” -Phillip

• “Having somebody just crank it out is not something we would advise, in general. We have definitely experienced burnout and we have clients coming to us now and they feel it would be great to have fresh new ideas and fresh voices.” -Phillip