Why I am outsourcing everything

[99lives]

This is gonna be a short post:

If you have the money, outsource you link linkbuilding and content generation. ALL of it. Search for quality result, trusted, KIND providers and you will be fine.

I have always had the money and, now, I'm not sure why I din't do that sooner. It leaves you with SO MUCH free time to do other stuff, like concentrating in new business opportunities.

 

[Virus1]

You are right.

CEOs of multimillion dollar companies, if you think about it, is all they do--- they outsource.

 

[99lives]

CEOs of multimillion dollar companies, if you think about it, is all they do--- they outsource.

Exactly. I own 3 companies and, let me tell you, I can believe how stupid I was outsourcing just 50%.

But, obviously, outsourcing takes time. But, once you have a system and the right providers, you are done,

 

[Lebron2727]

if you find the correct people, yes..

i have money to burn on this, but so far i realize that i need experience... i need to write at least 20 texts before i can outsource

linkbuilding i will never outsource, too much crap

i will pay big dollars for good content in the future, but linkbuilding is so important that i will never outsource that

 

[99lives]

Well, it depends on your business model. If you are a CPA guy, I think that's ok. But if you are an entrepreneur or businessman, I would REALLY recommend trying new outsourcing formulas.

 

[acotut]

That's the model of a succesfull marketer,nothing new here from my point of view.

Of course,there might be some things that you can't outsource for security reasons.

 

[99lives]

That's the model of a succesfull marketer,nothing new here from my point of view.

I'm just telling my story. Not discovering the wheel.

 

[pokerjk]

I agree in the end the goal is to out source or get someone else to do the work for you. If that be employing people or getting freelancers to do it that doesn't matter.

What does matter is the quality. That's why I would prefer hiring someone I can teach and tell exactly what to do. Too many freelancers who you don't meet face to face are garbage. Not all but a good 90% in my experience.

 

[blancog76]

who do you recommend for link building and article writing that will not get you sandboxed?

 

[paulcarter97]

There lies the problem. It is very HARD to find good provider who good KIND provider. And the most important one, we need to know what kind of service we need. Can you tell me, if I want to start from zero, what do I need ?

 

[t0m3313]

I think you are absolutly right. Outsourcing is the key. Nevertheless you have to get a good knowledge of the things you want to outsource. Otherwise it takes to much time to rate the qualitiy of the work you get.

But if you have this knowledge i think it is a great way. When i was beginning i tried to do everything by myself.
But after a few months i recognized there are people which do the work for a good price and in a even better way than me.

So after switching strategies IM is a lot more fun!

 

[TheMatrix]

Just so we are clear, if your budget doesn't allow don't outsource. If you cannot spend, then don't. Do the work yourself. You have nothing (but time) to lose, which will be "lost" in learning something.

 

[pirondi]

The major mistake i see is that people outsource work without knowing enough about the subject or comparing prices,and they end paying too much,or paying for something of low quality.

Like i had a friend outsourcing link Building paying 2k monthly for a guy that was using the reports from some popular tools and if he just bought the tools and teached someone to use he would spend 400$.

 

[johnwho]

On my MLM days, we call this the Law of Leverage. Its basically means, getting/teaching/allowing people to work together with you and then earn a portion of their effort.

On the I.M. part, paying someone to do the time consuming work for you.
If you are planning to outsource some of your work, you better do a TRIAL work for your potential freelancer/firm then see their performance.

Also asked for client reference, and their portfolios.

 

[jr_sci]

Yo.... I already have a tie-up with a local BPO center. This is the best practice but make sure you have a manager to manage all your outsourcing work or else, you will have to deal with a couple of stupid folks from those BPOs. .

 

[99lives]

Ok, there are some questions. This is MY experience. I don't like to "show of", but one of my companies sold it's first million dollars last week (yeah!!). It's "only" a 20% revenue, but that's fine by me (we are 3 business partners, tho). The other one (with one partner), in nine months, have sold USD 200.000. But it was hard. Hard as fucking hell. It took me a lot of time to really "get it". But, now, I'm celebrating.

Here are some good tips:
1.- You gotta do yourself EVERY TASK before you try to outsource it or hire someone. E--VE-RY-PART-OF-IT. If you buy a linkwheel, do some yourself first. If you buy content, write 10 articles yourself first. Once you KNOW what you are asking for, you are gonna know what to ask and when someone is giving you excuses.

2.- If you have your special sauce, DO NOT hire a freelancer. Hire someone and make him/her work at your office. Make him sign an NDA but, most importantly, make it FUN for him. Ley him enjoy his work.
Always put him on a trial period. Give specific instructions and see how he goes. What I like is people who ask all the questions first (even if they are "stupid" ones) and, then, work without bugging you.
If you have a feeling that an employee is not trustable, fire him. Don't hesitate.

4.- The less people you hire, the better. You won't believe how hard things become when you have 10 guys working for you. Even 4. There are a lot of "hidden costs" that you won't predict. Only hire a new person when you need it to escalate.

5.- Before hiring a freelancer, purchase some small services. Work with people who already know what they are doing (linkbuilding, public relationships, etc.). I like Fiverr (yeaps) and Odesk. But there are a lot more options, I think.
I have a VA. And I love it.

6.- Document everything. I don't, but I should. If you lose someone, you need to replace him ASAP.

7.- There are a lot of services and apps. USE THEM. But remember the first rule: use them yourself before giving it to your team. ASK THEM if they like it. If they can work faster with it. If they don't, then don't use it. It's not only for you, it's for everyone.
Al the services must be SIMPLE and with limited options. I use Teambox, Dropbox, Skype, Google+ Hangouts, Gtalk (Adium for me), Google Docs, Freemind, Whunderlist and Balsamiq Mockups (I've heard Mockingbird is cool, but I haven't try it yet).

That's it. If I can help, let me know.

 

[AGSniper]

I couldn't agree more, but like others have said, it is absolutely crucial that you know about the subject before outsourcing it.

It also takes time to build a team, but once you have it up and running, it's extremely worth it.

 

[celinemindia]

Thanks for the post 99. I am also outsourcing more and more those days, and making even bigger margin on each contract... All relies on communication since the better you communicate, the better people you find and the quicker they work under your orders.

 

[Gary Becks]

This is solid advise, and personally - with the advent of sites like fiver along with all of the various services there's absolutely no reason for even the cheapest marketer not to outsource in this day and age.

I decided about a year ago that I wanted to learn how to program and I knew I didn't want to go to school to learn so that meant spending long hours every day studying. Luckily I had already been making decent money from my sites so even then I could afford to start outsourcing.

I own Xrumer, BMD, Scrapebox, Ubot, Scrapejet, LFE, MNF, AMR, TBS, and probably a hundred other tools that I can't even think of - the only one I still use is Hrefer and Scrapebox to harvest new links for my VA.

Now I am not saying that there's anything wrong with tools, but you get to a point in your career where you just don't have time for it. I got into IM so I wouldn't have to "work" anymore and outsourcing has really freed me up over the last 11 months.

Here's the thing though, I have found that the only thing I have to outsource is content creation.

If you know how to program, or know how to use something like Ubot, Zenno, etc.. The only missing piece to the puzzle is submitting the content to the various blog networks and syndication hubs.

I rarely spend more than 45 minutes per day on SEO related tasks which leaves me with oodles of time to study (and post shit here on BHW) so I definitely see where the OP is coming from.

On a side note, don't give up on all of your current seo tools/tasks if they are working for you today. Make a gradual approach into outsourcing..

 

[BiggestPin]

You can not always outsource everything and finding good, reliable and quality workers is hard, not to mention trust, lucky you I guess.