Archive for Outsourcing
Internet Marketing Overwhelm or Oops! I Did It Again
Posted by: | CommentsAs last week drew to a close and my stress levels increased. I realised I’d made the classic Internet Marketers mistake (again!) and was trying to focus in too many directions.
One of the reasons for joining Ed Dale’s mentoring programme was so I would have a structure to work within that might contain my tendency to jump from one thing to the other. Alas, in the short-term, this has not been the case. I’m still tempted by “shiny new” and, as a result, I find myself in a position of having to make some decisions about what to drop and what to keep.
There’s a fine balance to be drawn between focussing on a single thing (e.g. this website) and bringing other things into the mix to add a bit of variety which helps me stay interested and motivated. However, I need to work at something long enough to create a system around it, so I can outsource it. I’ve reached that point with the link building for this site so I’m ready to add something else into the mix.
Since I’ve never outsourced work full-time before, this process in itself has to be learned and is, therefore, a project in it’s own right.
So, currently I have this website and setting up an outsourcing project to focus on.
But . . . I’ve also been tempted by other stuff since I started the mentoring, some of which I’ve not mentioned before. These include – list control, the free “Take Over Page One” video course, John Reese’s Outsourcing videos, Crowd Mountain and the addition of Ed’s teaching on buying and selling websites. Oh yeah. And then there’s the stuff in 30 Day Challenge+ which is included in the mentoring package. So, with all these things swimming round in my head, you can see why my mind is beginning to get more than a little muddled.
There’s simply not enough time for me to do all those things – soooooo – how do I sort out the mess and narrow down my focus again?
Well, as I said – this website and setting up an internet marketing outsourcing project are in. This website is the current focus for my mentoring and I definitely need to outsource stuff if I want to create a business that I really enjoy. There is only one more John Reese outsourcing video so I’ll watch that later once my CFT is completed and then I can delete that from my list.
The 30 Day Challenge+ I can follow as and when I need it. I have created an index of what is available so I can check there when I have questions or am starting a new process.
List control, which has been on the back burner, will have to be dropped. I don’t have enough traffic to be building a list a this point and it just takes focus from what I need to be doing right now.
The “Take Over Page One” video course will be moved to the back burner. I will look at that once I’m actually in the position of making a video. Seems pretty obvious when you write it down, but it’s so easy to get sucked in and distracted when you have emails tempting you and what you’re currently doing is more than a little tedious!
What else . . .
Crowd Mountain. Hmmmm. Bit tricky this one.
My main motivation for signing up was to have an opportunity to try out the CM tools. However, the sales message was misleading. In the guarantee Michelle McPherson stated that, amongst other things, we would have 30 days to try out the tools. Once inside, this is not the case. Three weeks in and only one tool is available. We won’t have full access until week 6 apparently, so I’m not going to be able to test them out until after the guarantee has passed. That said, I like Michelle’s approach, so I’m willing to give her the benefit of the doubt and pay the money so I can try out the tools.
That results is a bit of a dilemma though. I’m tempted to follow the Crowd Mountain process as well as wait for the tools, which ties in quite nicely with what I’m doing since it has bits in common with the 30 Day Challenge. But there simply aren’t enough hours in a day. I think I’m just going to have to try and fit this is once my critical focus time blocks are completed.
Once I’ve got some outsourcing sorted I’ll be able to spend more time in Crowd Mountain and, possibly, apply the strategy to my old sites.
Outsourcing Project Setup
Posted by: | Comments
Having made the decision to set up an internet marketing outsourcing project it’s time to plan what steps I need to take in order to make that happen. I’m feeling quite nervous about this as I’ve never taken on a full-time worker before and I have hundreds of questions and concerns going round in my mind. However, applying the dictum of ”Fail in the Field and Not in Your Head” I’m just going to get on with it and take it one step at a time.
1. The first step is to answer the question:
“What work could someone do for me today that would allow me to generate income fastest?”
In my case, the answer is:
- article marketing – consisting of writing, spinning and submitting to article directories
- creating backlinks – by commenting in forums and blogs.
Since my site is new, I am still trying to build up traffic to 100 uniques a day. The above is the web marketing strategy I’m currently using and this is where I’m spending the bulk of my time. They are tasks that are easily outsourced.
Depending where you are in your online business some other answers might be:
- building a website
- creating a product
- video production
- customer service
- accounting etc. etc.
2. Next I need to look at how long it would take them to do those tasks to determine whether or not I have enough work for a full-time worker or whether, perhaps, I could share their time with another internet marketer. If you have an established business you may have more work than can be carried out in a month, in which case you will need to prioritise what will make the most difference to your bottom line, and either get those tasks outsourced first or consider hiring more than one worker.
My task break down looks like this:
| Task | Hrs |
| Write article/edit PLR article | 1 |
| Submit to Ezine Arts | 1/4 |
| Social Bookmark | 1/4 |
| Spin and submit to MAS | 3/4 |
| Spin and submit to AMA | 3/4 |
| Spin and submit to FTS | 3/4 |
| Add to Art Dash and Base | 1/2 |
| Total Time Per Article | 4 1/4 |
| . | . |
| Hand Commenting | 1 |
| Directory Submissions | 1/2 |
| . | . |
The directory submissions are low down on my list of priorities and could be if and when all other tasks are completed. So, as a starting point, if I do one article marketing cycle a week plus hand commenting, I’m going to need a minimum of 7 websites to keep someone busy full-time or 3 to 4 if I do 2 articles per week. I have this, although article marketing wouldn’t necessarily be the best strategy for all of them but at least this gives me a place to start and allows me to get on with the business of finding someone to oursource to and training them to do this first task.
3. I need to decide where I am going to look for a worker.
4. I need to decide what system I will use to manage the work.
5. I need to decide what system I will use to manage communication between myself and a worker.
Since there are a number of possibilities I want to look into, and I’m trying not to go into overwhelm, I’ll cover these points in future posts.
Internet Marketing Outsourcing Tips
Posted by: | CommentsIf you’re considering outsourcing for your business or wondering how you’re ever going to get everything done (think Life in the Grind) then there’s a launch that will be of interest to you. As is often the case these days, there’s a lot of gold to be found in the pre-launch. What I heard last week, has already galvanized me into getting over my resistance and giving outsourcing a try again. But this time, based on the expertise provided by John Reese, I will be doing it differently.
Word of warning though. There’s some great information in the first video, with hopefully more to follow, but you’ll need to put up with the usual sun glasses, shiny car, ocean back-drop etc. – barf, barf. Don’t let that put you off though, if you’re serious about learning to outsource.
John Reece’s prelaunch series is here:
http://www.outsourceforce.com/2-dollar-per-hour-power-formula-sp
And there’s more useful information in an interview of him by Ed Dale where Ed pre-empts some of what is to follow later in the series:
http://www.eddale.co/general/the-dirtiest-of-internet-marketing-secrets-revealed-in-this-video
The main shift in my thinking about outsourcing, as a result of listening to the interview, is to think of hiring someone for a number of hours, rather than on a per project basis. And, according to Reese this can be done for $300 per month, full-time.
My experience of outsourcing has, in the past, been on a project by project basis. A couple of drawbacks with this is that I had to keep training new people when they changed their mind about wanting to work part-time, or they got a “real” job or someone made them a better offer. A good thing about having someone work full-time (and exclusively for you, as recommended by John Reese) is that you can build a long-term relationship with them and reward them for their innovation and loyalty.
Other points that were useful included:
- the more detailed the specification you can give, the better and faster you will get the work done.
- don’t give any one person access to all the parts of your business or to critical financials such as Paypal.
- ask for regular reports (e.g. every 2 days), create milestones and hold them accountable to them.
- look for someone with multiple skills such as designing and content writing
- require them to sign a contract to work exclusively for you
There’s much more good stuff in the interview but these were the most important points for me. I’m looking forward to the next video. But before that . . .
. . . here’s a tip of my own:
If you don’t have a good system in place for the work you’re doing, don’t even think about outsourcing. Instead of having one disorganised and unfocussed person you’ll just end up with two AND be paying for the privilege. A lesson I learnt the hard way.
But, if you’ve read my past posts such as “how to manage boring and repetitive tasks” you’ll know I’ve been practising keeping on keeping on, even when I’ve been bored with what I’ve been doing. And the result of that is that I’ve pretty much set up a system for spinning and publishing articles that maximises my time and the results achieved. So I feel that this is something I could now outsource (along with some of the more straight forward link building).
I notice that I’m not bounding into the sunset, thrilled to be able to do this though. Because I know that getting everything running smoothly and managing a new relationship will be another steep learning curve. However, I recognise that if I want to develop a real business, rather than one I’m just playing around with, I won’t be able to do everything myself. And, even if I could, I wouldn’t want to. So, I’m putting my fear behind me and rising to the challenge.
Once The Shiny Wears Off
Posted by: | CommentsLast week’s webinar was just the kick up the bum I needed and I made a decision and just went with what I had as I said I would in my Fail in the Field not in Your Head post. So I’ve put up a site, done days 1 to 6 of 30DC and the Stage 1, getting indexed linking, recommended by Rob in 30DC+. And . . . OMG . . . drum-roll please. I’ve just checked and I’m already indexed AND ranking for my main phrase and indexed (but not yet ranked) for 2 category phrases. Cartwheels of excitement and all that!
This was written on March 23rd and then the rubber hit the road.
As the site was indexed and ranked I assumed I could now stop doing a couple of the really boring tasks, e.g. adding the links to Traffic Bug and Propeller and Rank Tracker etc. But apparently not. And this is where, without the accountability provided by a coach, I would normally wander off to pastures new.
Interestingly, the subject of this week’s webinar was about just that. Entitled “This S@@t is hard, a job and often times, boring and repetitive”. Every project, once the shiny wears off, feels like a chore. But the difference between being successful or not depends on getting through this bit.
I actually felt encouraged by that because I know that my usual pattern, of changing tack, doesn’t work.
My mind, ever hopeful, at the possibility of getting out of such work immediately turned to the possibility of outsourcing. Maybe I should just pay someone to do this stuff. But I’ve tried that in the past too and it didn’t work. What I learned was that if you don’t have an effective system in place, all that happens is, you have 2 people jumping from task to task, from project to project, instead of one. Outsourcing comes later, once you have effective systems in place.
So, there’s nothing for it but to knuckle down and get on with the boring repetitive tasks that must be done. However, there are ways to make the process less painful which I will cover in another post.
