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Outsourcing From The Point Of View Of German Business Ethics

Know the positive aspects of German business ethicsI have outsourced numerous jobs to Asian, African and American countries, but as an employer I am based in Germany. So, I am pretty well positioned to illustrate how outsourcing is viewed from the point of view of German business ethics.

Here are the most important positive aspects of German business mindsets that you will have to know about.

Click here to read about the negative aspects of German work ethics.

Integrity and loyalty

One of the highest praised traits in German business ethics is the ability to have personal integrity and to be loyal to your associates. Backstabbing someone, lying or corruption are not well received from the average German.

That is not to say that corruption doesn’t exist.

It does.

But compared to levels of some South American countries, it is probably much lower.

In order to impress a German employer as an outsourcing freelancer, it is of central importance that you show him:

  • he can trust you
  • you have his back
  • and you would never lie to him

A lack of integrity will be a certain reason for him to fire you.

Work loving ethics

The cliché is true that Germans love their work and that being employed and working hard are core principles in the self-confidence of a German person.

The importance of seniority

It is common in German businesses to be promoted after a certain amount of years to a certain position. If you are not advancing at a certain rate per year, people will ask starting questions.

What does it mean for an outsourcing provider?

Even if you perform great, it is not intuitive from the point of view of German business ethics to be promoted within a short amount of time. This is where patience is needed in the short-timed world of internet businesses.

It is best to stick with one German employer for a longer amount of time than trying to run up the ladder to a higher position in the shortest amount of time possible.

Try showing your employer your skills and loyalty, integrity and hard work on a long term basis. He will be impressed.

Specialization over generalization

By specializing in certain tasks, it is more likely that the worker keeps his job because he knows it better than anyone. This is a consequence of the German business ethics principle of “safety comes first”.

As a freelancer, try to get hired as a specialist for a specific position. If you have shown that you can do this, step-by-step carve out your responsibility zone.

Don’t try to do everything at once from the start.

The importance of time

Germans love to be punctual!

Germans love to be punctual. I am not an exception.

They expect punctuality from other people, even if they come from other countries. This can result in some pretty comical scenes if you experience e.g. waiting for hours to days in an African country for a bus where in Germany you would get inpatient if it has five minutes delay.

To adapt to German business ethics as a freelancer, it is best to take time requirements very literally. If a German outsourcing employer says “Three days” then he will mean “three times twenty-four hours.”

The best course of action as a freelancer is to be

  • extremely organized,
  • highly punctual
  • and to the highest degree reliable.

You cannot overdo it in this domain.

High prosperity

Germany is a pretty rich country compared to most Asian countries, where freelancing is popular.

You are extremely unlikely to die of hunger or thirst anywhere in Germany, even without having a job.

There are high social security laws; therefore most Germans are not “aware” of the seriousness of the poverty for example in some Asian or African countries. They intellectually know about it, but it is not very plastic before their eyes.

It won’t be very easy to convince a German employer that someone can actually live from an hourly rate of $1 to $2 per hour. If more Germans would know about that fact, then I believe many more people would turn to outsourcing.

On the other hand, a core German business ethics principle is to be economical at all time. Some would go as far as to say that many Germans are stingy.

Although you could be doing pretty well as a freelancer, doing outsourced work for a German employer, it will take some negotiation skills to get a share of the wealth of your German employer.

That in a sense is summing up all the core principles of German business ethics.

A final note

Everything in this article is my personal opinion.

I cannot talk about all the people from my country. I can only share what my personal opinion and observations are.

If you live in this country, you will need to admit that many of my points are true. Some of them might be slightly exaggerated, but not all of them.

And of course there are people and individuals everywhere who are very well-balanced, highly international and not stereotypical at all.

Still, stereotypes exist for a reason.

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Bad Sides Of German Business Ethics

What we don’t know, we won’t eat!Working with Germans is not always easy. To be fair to everyone, I have separated my discussion about the good and the bad aspects of German business ethics. This article talks about what are not-so-ideal typical-German ideas.

Click here to read about the good side of German working ethics.

Fear of the unknown

There is a Bavarian saying:

“What we don’t know, we won’t eat”

(Original: “Wos mia ned kenna, des iss’ ma ned”)

This saying is a good metaphor for a core principle of German business ethics. Most people from Germany like to do business and interact with people that know the German culture.

There are of course many exceptions. But if we talk about the vast majority, elderly people or people with lower education levels, this statement pretty much covers it.

Male Money Makers

Although what I am about to say is highly politically incorrect and many people are going to bash my skull in, it is a fact that many male workers are making more money than female workers.

There are actually laws trying to convince corporations to hire a specific percentile of women into the work place and into leading positions. Statistics still show that traditionally, it is the man who is making more money than the female workers.

Nevertheless, it is accepted German business ethics that working women are not looked down upon. Many Germans naturally project this point of view on foreign countries and cannot understand how, in poor countries, women might have lower education levels or work opportunities.

In general, a German outsourcing employer treats female freelancers the same way that he would interact with male freelancers.

Low sense of entrepreneurship

In Germany, traditionally, the sense of entrepreneurship and risk taking is much lower than in the US. There are also much higher barriers to launching an enterprise.

Risk taking is not one of the strengths of the traditional person following German business ethics.

Obeying your boss

Without getting into risky territory here, it is a generally accepted fact that most workers do like to follow clear instructions from their superiors. The thought-structure of the average German worker and employer is very hierarchical and organized.

Transferred to outsourcing, Germans will assume the same from strangers.

Love of Safety

Germans Love Safety

Personal safety and job safety are some of the most important pillars in German business ethics and general ethics.

The German city Munich is extremely safe. A girl could go out partying and return home alone through the dark night streets without any significant risks.

Applying that to business:

  • People are looking foremost for a safe job, even if they are just starting out.
  • Workers are trying to secure their pensions from a very young age.

As a freelancer, it is best to adapt the careful nature of a German employer, even if you would like to take more risks.  This is in order not to frighten him.

Relatively low international thinking

Most Germans do know English from school. Nevertheless, the average German is not very international. There are still many prejudices against foreign people, especially in regions and people with a lower education.

Germans are fond of travelling and are seen in many parts of the world. But there is this stereotype of a German tourist, that traditionally only goes to those few places, where he will be likely to meet many other German people. And being able to drink German beer there tops it.

As a freelancer you have to know that.

And if you find someone who is hiring online workers, then he is probably not your average German guy.

I for sure am not 🙂

A final note

Everything in this article is my personal opinion.

Not all people from Germany have these bad attitudes about business and about life.

To make my point, I use some exaggerations. Still, you can learn a lot from them. Stereotypes exist for a reason.

In general, many Germans have excellent business ethics. But they are not saints (no one is). So a fair view on them is to point out the good and the bad aspects of german business ethics.

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Learn How To Handle A Newbie Full-Time Virtual Assistant

Choosing the best virtual assistantFull-time virtual assistants is part-14 of an interview with Eric, a fellow entrepreneur interested in outsourcing his work to virtual assistants all over the world.

Follow along to learn from our experience on working with VAs!

Click here to read part 13 of this interview – Part-time vs full-time virtual assistants

Summary:

  • Learn how to get started with full-time virtual assistants to do general tasks for your online business
  • Learn how to avoid wasting time on repetitive question and answer communication with full-time virtual assistants.
  • Learn how to train and work effectively with full-time virtual assistants.

Start of the Interview:

Francis
Francis

And since my assistant has worked with me for a long period of time, he knows me. And also, can give her feedbacks. So he said okay, he really wrote that. They were chatting and since I can see the screen captures from my main assistant work diary, I saw what they were talking about sometimes.

And you are saying, okay, so first of all Francis is a nice guy and he’s really patient and he will give you great instructions via video. So, that’s what my assistant told the full time candidate.

And then he was explaining the system. How SBI! works, what my sites were all about, and where my goals are at. I didn’t have to do that anymore. So, this saved me a lot of time explaining.

And I knew about this because I am reviewing regularly the screen captures from oDesk. So, that’s I guess a pro for the project based assistants.

anonymous-user-thumb
Eric

You’re right. And I think that when you’re first hiring your first assistant, I think that you have to kind of hire that person as a General VA, you know.

You don’t want to think that they can do everything. You kind of hire them as okay, check emails, check I don’t know whatever things, doing research, different things like that.

And you hire a person to basically just do general tasks for you. And then as you start to evolve and your business starts to grow then you can kind of be like okay, well now I’m ready to add people to my team.

Then you can promote that person and then they can start like you said doing the hiring and kind of be the middle person between you and the other assistants. And they’re kind of like the team leader and, you know what I’m saying?

Francis
Francis

Yes, I believe — I agree and that’s what I’m actually doing.

anonymous-user-thumb
Eric

Because, I think as business owners when we first start getting into the whole concept of virtual assistants, I don’t think that we understand the idea of building the team. We look at it as, “Oh we’re just hiring individuals and they’re just going to work for me and do specific tasks.”

But, I think if we really want to live the dream of having a virtual assistant or being able to sit on the beach and not do anything, you know what I’m saying?

You have to build a team. You have to create certain rules that you want for that certain project. And then hire people to fill that role rather than just having a bunch of random stuff going on in your business. Does that make sense?

Francis
Francis

Yeah, it totally does make sense. And also if the team is synergetic, so working with each other to complement each other. That’s much more efficient than if everyone has sort of the same set of tasks and are not talking to each other. Then a lot of potential stuff can be lost.

Continue reading part 15 – How to outsource tasks with a team of virtual assistants?

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Can I Use A Freelance Transcriptionist For Other Administrative Jobs?

Young assistant with a headset

Freelance transcriptionist to a full time VA is part-3 of an interview from Stefan from Germany, who lives the Four Hour Work Week lifestyle in Thailand.

Click here to read part 2 – Transcription service cost comparison

Summary:

  • Most of the virtual assistants are task specific and do not provide you complete administrative support
  • You can turn your freelance transcriptionist into an Ideal-Helper but for that, you need to provide him proper and paid training
  • Find someone with good work ethics, little work experience and who’s ready to invest a lot of time for you.

Start of the Interview:

stefan employer interview
Stefan:

Actually when I’m going that further to hire a freelance transcriptionist, I would like that person to do everything. Like as you said you say something for example a new article?

Francis
Francis:

Yes.

stefan employer interview
Stefan:

You talked about that for 30 minutes and at the end of the article, I tell “The article ends” and then the instruction. I tell the assistant in Word form, my instructions.

So, I’ll tell him like, “Please insert that article and back link that”; and, “Please I saw on my website that I need you to do that and that and that also…“ So, basically, I want a full fledge assistant.

From my experience, I haven’t had people that we’re able to deliver that. I found only people that we’re able to do one specific task.

For example, one picture editing or… One article writing or it has to be specific – completely specific. It has to be like a no-brainer. Because being working on your own, a lot of people mess that up.

They don’t understand the instruction very well and that’s my feelings. So, I found it very difficult to find and go outsource some.

Francis
Francis:

Okay. So let me share my thoughts on that. I think you have told the reason to your problems itself when you said instructions need to be completely specific. A child should be able to understand it.

And what you wish to have is an assistant, who completely understands your need; who partially fulfills your wishes before you have formulated them. So, he thinks with you. And that is not possible right from the start. So, I assume it’s not possible.

Let me be more precise. Let’s assume you hire a professional virtual assistant from the USA. Someone who already has experience with many tasks and you will need to invest something like, I don’t know, $70 an hour.

That’s a possible price. And for that, you would receive a professional whom you could say:

“Please build a new WordPress blog; design it like this and that; fill three pages of content, interlink them using the latest this and that technology; and then, embed my advertisements using the forms I provide you here.”

That, I think, is sort of the thing you’re looking for.

stefan employer interview
Stefan:

Yeah. That would be ideal. That would be perfect.

Francis
Francis:

Okay. So let’s try for that. Since my website is called Ideal-helper, let’s try to find a way to give you that ideal helper. My site was inspired, sort of, of my assistant whom I have found because, for me, he is the ideal helper.

However to get that there, you have to invest time, patience and, of course money because training your assistant should be an activity that is paid for him.

If you propose to your assistant, “I will train you but you will receive no money”; you take away his time. With his time, he could do other outsourcing work.

stefan employer interview
Stefan:

That’s not reasonable. Nobody would do that, of course.

Francis
Francis:

Okay. So if we agree about that, my general rough plan on finding the ideal assistant is to find someone who has good work ethics possibly with less work experience than more because this will lower the starting price. And who’s ready to invest a lot of time for you. Find someone whom you feel is loyal and starts with very basic, simple tasks.

As you mentioned, picture research. That’s a perfect example. At the beginning, you do all the work yourself. As you do it, you use video instructions to instruct your assistant on how you do the work yourself.

You cannot expect your freelance transcriptionist to do the work perfectly without you giving him perfect instructions. Over time, you can expand the areas of expertise your assistant works for you.  So, train your assistant until he is perfect for you with picture research. 

Let me give you an example, I am using my assistant for picture research too. First, I asked him to use free pictures from Flickr which were from the Creative Commons domain.

Then I expanded to, “Please insert the attribution links under the Flickr pictures. And on Flickr, write a short comment with the link back to where a post sits the picture for SEO purposes.” 

Then I expanded this task to, “Please research stock photos on different stock photo banks based on the content of the article and I would pay for that.” Then I expanded it too, I prepaid an account and my virtual assistant just purchases the pictures as needed. 

And now we’re getting into an area which I haven’t put on my work set yet so this is premium content, my assistant found out a way to find stock photos for free.

Let me explain, he found that on the internet from time to time there are promotions from different stock photo banks. There are more Stock Photo banks than iStock photos and Fotolia. There are many more.

Those promotions we’re like coupons for 10 free stock photos. He researched them and gathered them. And then, he added several Stock Photo banks with free credits all the time. So now, I’m not paying for Stock Photos. This is like the ultimate picture researcher. 

stefan employer interview
Stefan:

Yeah. That sounds very good, actually.

Francis
Francis:

And, of course, there are more tasks to outsourcing when you have a website than picture research. In a similar way, expand but only after your virtual assistant is doing good work at the simple task you have given him. This will take some time. 

I have worked with my virtual assistant for more than 2 years and it took, I guess, half a year until I expanded into many different projects.

Because I understood he was an extremely great guy who understood instructions effectively and proposes solutions from time to time. At the beginning he was rather shy about it. 

I encourage my assistant all the time in my video instructions and say something like:

“Hey, if you have any idea to do that better, please don’t hesitate to tell me.”

Or I said even something like, “Hey if you think what I’m doing is crap, if what I’m doing is ineffective, don’t hesitate to tell me. I will not be mad. You can criticize me at all times.”

It took a few months and then he started to do that in a very polite way. 

stefan employer interview
Stefan:

Yeah. I outsourced a job where I wrote off the design and the redrawing of my pictures in my E-book. So he has to redraw or find a way to redraw the pictures for copyright reasons.

And the other thing is to redesign the layout and fix the entire layout and finish it up so that I end up with a ready and completed E-book that I can tell for my website.

Continue reading part 4 – Example job description for an EBook illustrator

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Free Transcription Software

Before getting started with a human transcriptionist, it’s good to get your feet wet with a free transcription software.

You’ll see a choice of speech recognition tools below, depending on the system you are using.

Transcribe with the Google Chrome Browser

Head over to Google Translate. You can use this service as a free transcription software!

Use Google Translate for voice transcriptionHere is how…

  1. Choose the language you want to get transcribed, for example English.
  2. Click the microphone.
  3. Talk slowly.
  4. When you are done, wait for the transcription to appear on the right.
  5. Click on “Select all” and copy your transcript to a text file.

General Tips for all Free Transcription Software

  1. Eliminate outside noise.
  2. Use a high quality microphone.
  3. Talk slowly and articulate well.
  4. You need some time to get used to dictating effectively.

Here is another great site that works with Google Chrome!

  • It recognizes different languages.
  • You can make corrections to your transcript right after you finish talking before getting your transcript. Very useful!
TalkTyper is a free Transcription Website

Look out:

When you finish recording a paragraph, make sure you save it before you make a new recording. Else, your old recording is lost!

Windows 7 – Speech Recognition Program

To find the program type Speech Recognition into the Windows 7 Search Field

The free speech recognition software that comes automatically with Windows 7 is something you might not know about.

A little disadvantage:

You will need to invest a bit of time (less than an hour) to properly calibrate the speech recognition.

On the flip side:

The voice calibration does train you with neat little tricks the program can do at the same time.

The speech recognition software from Windows 7 does not only do transcription, but also voice remote control your desktop!

Local Software for Windows Vista or Windows 7

If you are not happy with the speech recognition functionality from Windows 7 or if you are on a system with Vista, then you should check out this free local software called Dictation Pro.

You’ll need to “train” this program, too. But the accuracy is good. You can also edit and format the text using voice commands, and export the transcript in several useful formats.

All in all: a solid software.

Transcription with your mobile Phone

Do you have an iphone? Cool!

The Dragon Dictation app can be grabbed for free with your iphone 4 or 5.

Check out this video for a live demonstration of how this app works! 🙂

 

Are you in the US? Great!

You can grab yourself the Google Voice app (this link is going to the Android application). You can use it to convert your voice recordings into text and mail it to yourself.

Are you a BlackBerry user? Nice!

No worries, there’s something for your nifty smartphone, too! All you’ll need is the free “message to text” app that works with the iSpeech Dictation software.

A better solution than free transcription software?

Virtual assistant guy with a headset

The best and most effective way to get great results for voice transcription?

Especially if you want to record long texts, without worrying about a little background noise, talking extremely slowly or using fill words like “uhm” and “err”…

… Then invest a few bucks and hire a transcriptionist! Get perfectly formatted text. No additional work for you! It’s one of the best outsourcing investments you can make.

 

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Transcription With Windows’ Free Speech Recognition Software

Try doing transcription using the free speech recognition software which comes free with every copy of Windows 7. I must say that having my virtual assistant around doing voice transcription for me is much more efficient. Still, it is pretty amazing what the free voice recognition software is able to do.

Windows 7 free speech recognition software

Once activated speech recognition will listen to every word you say

I found my free speech recognition software by accident. I didn’t even know that it came automatically with each version of Windows 7 and above.

Try typing “speech recognition” into your window’s search bar and play around with this software a little bit. The advantage of course is that it is free to use while hiring a virtual assistant to do voice transcription for you will cost you money.

On the other hand, transcription services are pretty low-cost services in the outsourcing world, in general. Unfortunately for the user – and perhaps fortunately for the transcriptionists – the speech recognition software is not really ready to do perfect voice transcription work for us.

Challenges with Transcription Software

There are just too many misunderstandings.

Unable to recognize some words

From time to time you’ll have minor misunderstandings with your computer

  • Sometimes, the speech recognition software records the false words,
  • sometimes it won’t accept your commands.
  • Another time it might just jump into action without you having asked for it.

A good virtual assistant will never do any of those things above. He might misunderstand some of the words you say, but then he will clearly point them out in the transcript.

When you are using the free speech recognition software, you might think that this is very futuristic and saves lot of time. But does it really?

Using the software takes up more time than you think

Speech Recognition Voice Training

Training your software takes time but decreases the number of voice recognition mistakes

You need to set up the program correctly and perhaps even buy a high quality microphone. With a VA you also need a microphone, but the built-in microphone from your laptop will work just fine. That’s what I use most of the time.

Then, to use the speech recognition software effectively, you need to train it a little bit. This means that it takes some time reading text from the speech recognition configuration interface in order to use it better and better.

When using the free speech recognition software, you also should avoid saying words like “Umm” correcting yourself or stammering, else the transcript will look horrible.

Better alternatives to write faster

You have the possibility to correct your transcript with voice commands on the fly. However, I found that using programs like “Write-or-Die” results in a better overall writing speed.

If for any reason you are disabled and cannot or do not want to type then speech recognition software is a good alternative to remote controlling your computer in general.

For writing your documents, having a virtual assistant beats it by far. Still, it’s a nice virtual helper tool to have. If you haven’t checked it out until now then you really should. Give it a try.