stevio
Member of DD Central
Posts: 2,065 
Likes: 894
|
Post by stevio on May 9, 2017 6:33:23 GMT
P2P can be very time consuming
There are multiple companies that offer a contract workforce all over the globe at very minimal cost
Has anyone any experience in outsourcing work this way? considered doing this for P2P?
Obviously I am not suggesting relinquishing security and control of your account, but I was thinking more of researching DD and keeping on top of scheduling of new loans etc Any other big drains on time outsourcing could be used for?
|
|
Greenwood2
Member of DD Central
Posts: 4,247
Likes: 2,692
|
Post by Greenwood2 on May 9, 2017 10:27:58 GMT
Bondmason claim to be doing this for their loans at a 1.5% fee.
|
|
|
|
Post by mrclondon on May 9, 2017 11:42:18 GMT
I have some experience of hiring in virtual assistance (VA) via Upwork (previously known as Odesk before merging with Elance a couple of years ago). I'm afraid the old adage of "pay peanuts, get monkeys" is very much the order of the day, but it is possible to find good assistance. There are two types of contracts - fixed price for a specific scoped task with the payment via an escrow service released on job completion, and hourly rate paid weekly in arrears based on time recording software. I've used VA to compile a list of all flight times and prices between the 5 London airports and 5 Eastern European airports for a range of specific dates (this was at the time Ryanair forced a captcha on every search request). And a p2p related one - determining the correct company registration numbers given a list of company names. More normally, I use VA to test software on specific pc configurations I don't have access to. And yes, it is possible to pay very little. What all those examples have in common is a known verifiable outcome from a known process ... i.e. a list of data looked up from specific sources, or a load of screen grabs following a test specification. What VA is not good for is subjective value added intelligence. Taking p2p loan due dilligence as an example, three Northern Ireland loans may be available. A SME on the outskirts of Belfast making precision engineered parts for the aerospace industry with predominately balance sheet security and an unsupported PG, a large shopping centre being bought back from the receivers with an apparent 60% LTV, and a plot of development land for 250 homes in the middle of nowhere at 50% LTV. Which is the best loan ? In the context of NI, clearly its the SME as the Belfast area is well known to UK business people as being associated with precision engineering, and that the discretionary spending by NI residents is likely to be hit by brexit. If you were to move the location to the south east of England though, the plot of development land would likely be the best loan of the three. This level of insight can only be sourced quickly from someone with decades of UK centric business experience. The secret of managing is to know what to delegate, and to whom. Delegate the process orientated stuff to a PA/VA, delegate anything that should be capable of being condensed to a process to a business analyst/management consultant to determine the process, and use the time freed up to enhance your own "learning" of the world, and of those in the succession plan beneath you. Contrary to what Lord Sugar clams, good business decisions are generally those taken on gut instinct based on years of subconsious experiences. And of course the same applies in the domestic non-business world as well. However given the limited number of administrative tasks that can be delegated to a VA, the norm is to buy in services for cleaning/laundry/gardening etc. |
|
ramblin rose
Member of DD Central
“Some people grumble that roses have thorns; I am grateful that thorns have roses.” — Alphonse Karr
Posts: 1,370
Likes: 857
|
Post by ramblin rose on May 9, 2017 12:37:27 GMT
A book called "The 4-Hour Work Week" by Timothy Ferriss goes into how to use such services at length (he uses them for anything and everything) and from memory gives a lot of examples and contact details for them, although I expect they are out of date by now. I read the book quite a while ago and no longer have it. I concluded that I'm not entrepreneurial enough to get involved with all that, but something I've always kept squirrelled away at the back of my mind just in case. Reckon you could make good use of it given that time is money.
|
|
stevio
Member of DD Central
Posts: 2,065
Likes: 894
|
Post by stevio on May 9, 2017 12:42:33 GMT
I am not saying I have completely thought everything through and have all the answers. Just there is a time aspect to P2P that people already pay others to reduce
I agree, decision making best left to you, but researching and finding info about the loan and borrower can be time consuming, hence why not everyone does it
I don't think gathering info for you to make decisions is that taxing
Also quite often there are several notification of loans and just managing a diary of these whilst holding down a full time job takes time
|
|
stevio
Member of DD Central
Posts: 2,065
Likes: 894
|
Post by stevio on May 9, 2017 12:43:47 GMT
A book called "The 4-Hour Work Week" by Timothy Ferriss goes into how to use such services at length (he uses them for anything and everything) and from memory gives a lot of examples and contact details for them, although I expect they are out of date by now. I read the book quite a while ago and no longer have it. I concluded that I'm not entrepreneurial enough to get involved with all that, but something I've always kept squirrelled away at the back of my mind just in case. Reckon you could make good use of it given that time is money. Yes this is where I first came across it 
|
|
|
|
Post by mrclondon on May 9, 2017 13:29:19 GMT
Also quite often there are several notification of loans and just managing a diary of these whilst holding down a full time job takes time Of course a possible option is to delegate the "full time job" to a VA, and spend the time instead on p2p due dilligence ! (And I'm only half joking here) I'm lucky in one respect in that I have the programming skills to be able to automate an awful lot of the routine stuff, and much of my own career has been involved with business/management consultancy to invoke "business process re-engineering" allowing the underlying process to be automated. Hence my first reaction when faced with a mountain of data is to consider what steps can be taken to auto-process that data, or indeed how to obtain that data in a manner that lends itself to automated processing. Its hard to express what I really mean in words - but if you have a copy of Excel on a PC (not Mac) take a look at this post on the Abundance board to which I've attached a spreadsheet which loads up full details of all SM availability and provides the analysis to be able to see where the best value offers are. Another example would be the browser filtering scripts for Lendy developed by 0risk (which I've heavily modified for my own use). What I'm hoping to convey is that investment in developing a repeatable process both conserves your own future time, whilst facilitating the subsequent delegation of managing the process to a PA/VA.
|
|
