Is vWorker a Scam?

With my latest posts such as vWorker or oDesk, and vWorker Reviews, I am starting to get some people visiting my site because they are wondering is vWorker is a Scam. So I am going to tackle this thought in the same ways as my oDesk Scam post.

vWorker Scam

What Is vWorker?

Before we could even think about labeling something as a scam, we have to have a good understanding of what something actually is. So let’s take a closer look at vWorker.

vWorker.com is a dynamic online marketplace where 143,339 employers hire and manage 296,863 virtual workers to assist them in business and personal projects. Virtual workers span every country across the globe and every imaginable expertise, including computer programming, writing, graphic design, marketing and many more. vWorker.com offers the safety features and money-back/payment guarantees that allow thousands of these transactions to be done successfully every month.

When you search for vWorker reviews, you might have a bit of trouble finding out what people are saying about the company, because they have only just changed their name from RentACoder to vWorker.

Exherda Solutions (the company behind vWorker), explain the name change as:

We outgrew our name (Rent a Coder) a few years ago. Back in 2001 we were just coders, but now the site includes professionals of all types including: design, writing, personal assistants, paralegals, etc.. To reflect that, we’ve changed our name to vWorker (Via CodeItWell)

So Is vWorker A Scam?

When you look at the size of the online marketplace (143,339 employers  and 296,863 virtual workers), I find it hard that anyone could call vWorker a scam.

Sure there may be unscrupulous employers and virtual workers – that is the same with every freelance community. But that doesn’t mean vWorker is a scam. You would be surprised by the amount of work they have put in to help protect both employers and virtual workers from scammers – and I think they deserve some credit for this.

The key to avoiding scammers on any freelance community is to take advantage of the tools that are given to you.

  1. Check Feedback

  2. Ask For Examples Of Previous Work

  3. Hire On A Trial Basis

It really is that simple, but the problem is that a lot of people hire workers that have no history, or bad feedback (yet expect a good job).

vWorker is definitely not a scam, and if you are looking to outsource jobs overseas or find some freelance work, you should check them out!

=> Learn More About vWorker

vWorker Reviews – What Others Are Saying

My recent comparison of vWorker and oDesk has had quite a few people searching my site for vWorker reviews. So I have researched the internet and compiled a list of vWorker reviews by current (and previous) employers and workers on vWorker.
vWorker Reviews Image

vWorker Review 1: Telecommute FTW

They now boast close to 300,000 virtual workers and almost half as many employers. That’s one employer for every two workers! You have pretty good odds of finding some work if you’re even slightly above average in any field of work. Even though there does seem to be a lot of outsourcing going on there, there is still room for Americans to get plenty of real telecommuting possibilities. Many employers also specifically mention that they are long for someone they can trust to do long-term work, not just one or two projects.

=> Learn More About vWorker

vWorker Review 2: 1HRO

Vworker is a freelancing website that helps employers to find freelancers to do work for them. Businessmen are able to hire freelancers in various industries, including programming, editing, graphic design, writing, and publishing. The expansive community of freelancers that use Vworker, do so because it is the most respectable of the many freelancing markets.

=> Learn More About vWorker

vWorker Review 3: QuillForHire

vWorker.com is a good site to go to for work because there’s a lot of work there to be done and you get to set yourself up for free to start bidding. Everything is very binding there too which means it’s hard for either side to wiggle out of an agreement-everything has to be approved before money is put down and employers get a money back guarantee if there are problems.

=> Learn More About vWorker

vWorker Review 4: TV Bubble

Vworker has accrued a reputation as the website which best serves the freelancing community as well as the community of entrepreneurs that uses their services. Hundreds of thousands of freelancers and employers use Vworker on a fairly regular basis. Freelancers are particularly prevalent in the programming industry, but the industries of graphic design, editing, writing, and publishing are all prominent industries where freelancing exist, too.

=> Learn More About vWorker

vWorker Review 5: Affiliate Observatory

Rent a Coder was the first site i used for outsourcing, and till yesterday it had the charme of a craiglisting, with competitiors like oDesk and eLance it was very much needed that they changed the look and feel, i like the new design!

=> Learn More About vWorker

So, as you can see, even since their recent name change, there is a growing number of positive vWorker reviews popping up over the internet. If you are interested in becoming a freelancer or are looking to outsource jobs overseas, then sign up for an account with vWorker and start saving (or making) more money!

3 Ways Your ‘I Will Do It’ Attitude is Ruining Your Business!

Isn’t it funny how when it comes to our business, we always feel the need to do everything ourselves. The constant excuses given for this type of behavior is, ‘ But no one can do it as well as I can.‘ or ‘If I do it, then I know it will be done right.’

While this may be the case in a few situations, the majority of the time you are doing yourself (and your business) a dis-services by having to do everything – all the time!

3 Ways Your ‘I Will Do It’ Attitude is Ruining Your Business!

  1. It Gives Small Tasks Priority

    As a small business owner your focus needs to be on delivering the best results for your customers. If you are babying your employees (or currently  still a one person show), you are not able to give your full attention to customer satisfaction. Each small task that you take on, shifts your focus from running your business to working in your business.

    And with all your time taken up in doing these small tasks (and let’s face it, anyone can do them -  stop needing to be needed!), you are limiting the time that you can spend on developing your business and where you see it heading.

  2. It Shuts Down Creativity and Excellence

    Each time you take over a task that you do not have an expertise in, you are creating an ‘atmosphere of average’. By saying, ‘I will do it’ to things that you  really can’t do great, you are letting your staff and customers know that you are willing to settle for second best.

  3. It Destroys Growth

    And what happens when you get that big job that you pitched for, or you get a sudden influx of new customers? Do you decide to start work earlier and finish later (longer days means more work done), or do you begin rejecting customers because you can’t handle the workload (and ‘no one can do it as well as you!’).

    The problem with this mentality is that you become the star of your business, and while this may be good for your ego – it makes terrible business sense. If you are your business, what happens when it comes time to move on? You will never be able to sell it (well at least not for a decent amount), because you can’t really sell yourself with your business. AND you could never expand your business, because where would you find the time to look over 10 people shoulders at the same time.

What I am trying to get at is YOU CAN’T DO IT ALL!

And once you start to understand this, you will realize how liberating that statement really is.

Doing everything yourself can become so tiring, so let me throw you a rope  by saying ‘Let someone else do it!’

I know it will be hard at first and your mind will fight you the whole way, but once you start letting other people do your work you will come to realize:

  • Other People Can Do Things Better Than You
  • Other People Can Work Faster Than You
  • Other People Can Work Cheaper Than You

Don’t Stop Doing Everything Straight Away

This would definitely be overload!

What I would suggest is to start outsourcing little, simple jobs and wean yourself away from needing to do everything. Slowly, as you become more comfortable transfer more of your work to other workers and free up your time to focus on leading your business into a successful future!

Can you Value An Entrepreneur Salary?

The thing with most entrepreneurs is that their income is really whatever their business makes, minus all the expenses. So it definitely varies for each persons.

So is There a Way to Value an Entrepreneur Salary?

This is something that is almost impossible to do! Each entrepreneur would value themselves in a complete different way and with a unique figure that they would value as their ‘entrepreneur salary’.

What Can We Do Then?

I think that as entrepreneurs we need to stop comparing ourselves with each other and set a value that we would be comfortable working for.

Once you have a yearly entrepreneur salary for yourself, I encourage you to bring it back to an hourly rate. So divide the yearly figure into a weekly income and then once again divide it by the amount of hours that you work!

What this does is allow us as entrepreneurs to set a ‘hourly value’ on our time, which I believe will make us work a lot more efficiently.

Is ‘Checking Your Emails‘ worth your hourly rate?

How about ‘Article Writing‘ or ‘Sorting Out Your Website‘?

As entrepreneurs I find that a lot of us are completing tasks on a daily basis that are no where near worth the ‘hourly value’ that you have set for yourself.

If you are set on making your hourly value stand in your entrepreneur salary then you need to start outsourcing jobs overseas. This strategy is called geoarbitrage and will allow you to find workers who will complete your everyday tasks at a heavily discounted rate – saving you time and money!

Timothy Ferriss: Scam or Genius?

Timothy Ferriss has been able to gain quite a lot of publicity through the release of his New York Times best seller ‘The 4-Hour Workweek‘.

In it he claims to be a productivity guru and created the buzzword ‘geoarbitrage‘ (which is simply another word for outsourcing), sharing how he was able to create an $80,000/month business working 80 hours a week – and then how he turned those 80/hrs into just 4 hours of work a week!

If this all sounds too good to be true to you, then you are probably here to have me confirm your suspicions the Timothy Ferriss scam – but not so fast.

Before we start criticizing Timothy Ferriss, let’s first take a look at some of the accolades he has claimed:

  1. Created a $40,000/month Income From BrainQuicken
    I know there is a lot of debate on whether he actually achieved these figures and if it was gross or net income, but seriously, people are building $40,000/month businesses all the time – so why is it so hard to believe?

    Wikipedia notes that Tim sold BrainQuicken in January 2009 and is now a fulltime angel investor (If anyone can confirm this, please comment below).

  2. Timothy Ferriss Cheated His Way To Becoming The National Chinese Kickboxing Champion
    A lot of people bring up his kickboxing story when the call Timothy Ferriss a scam.

    For those of you who have not heard the story, Tim found a technicality that meant that if people went outside the ring multiple times in a fight – they would be disqualified. Using this to his advantage he proudly boasts how he literally shoved his competitors outside the ring for a technical knockout.

    The fact that he publicly boasts about the way that he did it, and that there was nothing against the rules in what he did – it is hard to call him a scam because he found a technicality and exploited it.

  3. Timothy Ferris Claims To Only Work Four Hours A Week
    Now while I highly doubt that Tim actually only works 4 hours a week with all his speaking and writing gigs now, I think the point he is getting across is that if you are doing what you love, then technically you are not working, and recommends that you start outsourcing jobs overseas and get rid of the time consuming, technical jobs and start doing the things that you love.

So I definitely do believe that Tim has done a little bit of exaggerating (story telling), but there well still a lot of things that I got out of ‘The 4-Hour Workweek
‘ , such as:

  • The Way That Timothy Approaches Problems
  • The Answer Isn’t To Do More….But To Do Less (Focus)
  • The Importance Of Enjoying Life All The Time (Not Just In Retirement)
  • The Ideas I Started To Get While Reading The Book!

So whether you believe that Timothy Ferriss is a scam or not, there are definitely a lot of things that you can learn from his lifestyle experiments and I highly recommend ‘The 4-Hour Workweek
‘ to anyone wanting to get away from the hold of a 9 to 5 job!

If you are interested in the ideas that Tim puts forward in his book then you may way to download my free ebook ‘GEO Arbitrage‘ that will take you through the steps to getting started with outsourcing.

Communicating With Offshore Programmers

If you are visiting this page because you are looking for a place to find offshore programmers – I use and recommend oDesk.

Well I am sure you will be glad to know that I did find a fantastic ebook cover designer on oDesk for exactly $10. There were a lot of applications that were cheaper than $10, but I made the decision as usual based on portfolio and feedback – and the designer I chose had 4.98 (out of 5) feedback after 34 jobs and a portfolio that included some fantastic ebook covers.

My new employee is based in Pakistan, so I can take a guess that English is not his first language. So the key to working with oDesk offshore programmers is the way that you communicate with them.

Tips for Communicating With Offshore Programmers

In my communications with my designer I was reminded of a couple of tips when dealing with people who do not speak English as a first language. I will use this experience as an example and you will also get a sneak preview of the design process of the GEO Arbitrage ebook cover. [Read more...]

Find An Ebook Cover Designer For Less Than $10

As internet marketers all of us at one point are going to be on the search for a great ebook cover designer at least once .

Whether it is for a paid product, or a free giveaway for building your email list. Whatever the case it’s a sure bet that you want to find the best ebook cover designer – without the expert price tag!

While a lot of people are scared of accepting low quotes for fear of inferior quality, I accept them on the basis of the background and previous results – and that is why I am able to outsource work at a much lower rate than most people believe.

Why Pay $50 Or $100 For An Ebook Cover Designer?

Now I am all for making sure that I get the best result, because I believe that excellence is an important trait to have in any form of business. But I am very much opposed to the thinking of

‘If it is expensive, it is good. And if it is cheap, then obviously it must be of lower quality.’

It is all about finding great quality for the very best price ebook cover designer (in this case) – and it’s all thanks to GEO Arbitrage. [Read more...]