hiring a web designer

Just doing a bit of research and want to ask those who have ever hired or considered hiring a web designer:

What were your fears/concerns when hiring a designer?
How were these fears/concerns addressed by your web designer?
What factors came into play when choosing a web designer?
Did you have to justify using a local designer vs and over seas / outsourced designer?

Thanks for any responses in advance

[drmadcat]

i build a few websites a year and the best place is http://www.freelancer.com/
there are some great guys on there that can build stuff to a high quality and very cheaply just remember not to pay anything untill you see progress
hope this helps

[Sid70]

1) Slacking and then neg repping my own rep.
2) ...
3) Quality/Speed of work, fluent English
4) Per project it doesnt matter at all

[CurrentlySober]

Bump 4 you

[xNetworx]

I'm always scared the design is going to suck fat hairy nuts. /end

well, thanks for the feedback, anyone else wish to contribute?

any more feedback for me?

[barcodes]

Ill add my 2 cents from what I hear clients talk to my boss about at my mainstream job regarding their previous encounters.

What were your fears/concerns when hiring a designer?
Lot of them say they pay someone and it takes forever or that when they need their stuff updated the business is gone, cant contact anyone, designer on the work. Some of them get quoted and pay, then after time, find out the designer couldn't do it and bailed on them. Some people who trusted smaller design businesses and had problems with them got screwed out of their domain because the designer got butthurt once they found out their clients were leaving.

How were these fears/concerns addressed by your web designer?
We keep in contact with our clients until everything is done and they have paid in full. They feel comfortable coming back to us and when they do were on top of it.

What factors came into play when choosing a web designer?
A lot of the clients we get had problems finding someone who can do what they need, whether that be e commerce, flash, stuff other than reg front end stuff.

Did you have to justify using a local designer vs and over seas / outsourced designer?
A lot of the guys we get do not like the idea of relying on someone that isn't local. Many of them have been burned and don't care if it's cheaper. Those who haven't haven't mentioned it or seem afraid to trust something like that.

From what I have experienced so far since I have started trying in the adult biz, people are used to transferring funds via paxum etc, meeting and setting up connections/work via ICQ or Skype and don't really care if you are local or not as long as you do a good job in a timely manner.

I can't speak for everyone here but from my experiences on here so far and at my mainstream job, I feel the adult biz doesn't care as much about location while local mainstream businesses care a lot.

Best of luck with whatever you need this info for. Hope my views on it were helpful in any way.

cheers barcode, appreciate your time and effort!