The major problem in outsourcing is the communication barrier. Unless you’re dealing with a native English speaker, it’s almost impossible to fully communicate what you’re looking for. Not only that, but when the developer has problems or a question, the broken English is hard on the eyes and difficult to understand.

The solution that seems obvious is to speak in simple English. Well when you’re talking about a website development or application development project, it’s almost impossible to speak in such easy-to-understand English. Any word that the foreign developer does not understand can mess up the entire project.

After trying to finish a long-term project of mine that I have been working on for the past year, I’ve discovered how the communication barrier has slowed me and my business down. I take more time trying to explain and understand the developers I outsource to than I do to conduct my routine business.

In my opinion, after this year of facing a harsh reality that little is getting done, outsourcing isn’t worth the time. I’d rather work with somebody from the U.S. and pay them double or triple what I pay foreigners. This barrier is low-end outsourcing’s ultimate downfall.

Take a popular Chicago radio station like 103.5 Kiss FM. They’re always giving away concert tickets and money to the 103rd caller. Then the next thing you know they have thousands of people calling in and they have them all anxiously listening to the radio station as they sit on hold.

It’s simply a great idea to give away huge promotions to mark milestones. Apple’s promotion will probably get more people buying songs on iTunes, in hopes that they’ll win this gift card instead of illegally downloading the song off of freeware like limewire. Good job Apple. Feel free to comment what you think of promotions during milestones in a company’s lifespan.

The Undercover Boss sends people in high-end corporate positions, such as CEO or COO, to work undercover with the employees of their business. While it was an interesting premier last night, this article is not a review of a reality television show. Instead, I’d like to emphasize the lesson learned in this reality show and how you can implement these concepts into your business module to increase productivity and employee morale.

Lesson for the Week

When creating company policies, don’t only think about what’s best for you, and others in similar high-end positions in your business. You need to think about the people who are going to actually have to follow and work around these new policies. You could take a survey to see what your employees think of a new policy. Bring in an employee or a few employees to get their opinion on the policy. My main point is, policies are made to be followed. If the people who have to follow them don’t like the policies, they won’t be happy, which will lead to employee morale issues. Employee morale issues lead to decreased productivity. It’s a chain reaction that will only hurt you, so it’s important to make sure your employees are happy with any policies or rules in order to keep a good productivity level.

Similar to how other domaining blogs have weekly comics, I’ve decided to publish a different lesson or tip every Monday, throughout the Undercover Boss season. I think this show can teach domainers and business owners a lot about how to run a business well. Even for domainers like myself who don’t own a big company with a bunch of employees, lessons and tips like these can be helpful in a modified way. I hope you enjoyed this week’s tip. Stay tuned for more articles this week as well as the next week’s Back to Work lesson. I’d also love to hear what you think about this week’s lesson, and how you enjoyed the show if you got the chance to watch it.

On a side note, congratulations to all Saints fans.