I'm hiring more and more foreign workers on places like upwork, reddit, and craigslist. I'm trying to figure out what is the appropriate way to discuss payment/prices with them, in order to pay them as little as possible? I feel like sometimes I overpay, when I don't have to. (I'm talking about countries like...South Asia(India), Eastern Europe(Poland), West Africa(Nigeria)).
For example, consider the following: I had a writing job I needed someone to do. I find someone, and we start talking on skype. After explaining my expectations, we start talking about payment.
The first person who brings up price usually loses, because the other person can then base a rebuttal based off of it, "Joe, that's too low/high, I was thinking more like X."
So I ask him what he wants me to pay him. He then asks me what I can pay him. I don't want to reveal my price range. So we do a bit of back and forth...
I can see that I'm going to have to do something drastic or I'm going to lose here(I had spent some time explaining what I wanted done to him, and didn't want to waste that and have to re-explain the work I needed to someone else).
I DEMANDED an hourly rate from him. He gives it to me (its like $5 an hour), and then we take it from there.
That situation worked out because that was kind of what I was planning on paying him, and I was adamant about not revealing initially what I was thinking of paying him. But I'm just wondering, is there a better way to go about it? When I post ads:
1. Should I just enter a range
2. Post a really low budget
3. Post a really high budget (to get people to underbid each other)?
Any feedback would be appreciated.
-Shameless American Capitalist