Educate me on gradual link building

I've got one main money site and am in the process of building multiple blogs in the same niche. I haven't really done any SEO work on the money site which is now several years old (been getting traffic by other means) But now it's time and I want to make sure I build links the right way. I would like to use one of these services like dripfeedlinks or dripable etc., to slowly and gradually build links, but I've been told not to use those kinds of services to link directly to my money site(s)

So where do I begin? What's the recommended process here, taking into consideration that I'd like to outsource all of the link-building, off-page SEO, whether it's to one individual/service or multiple. Step-by step recommendations?

In short, user three tier link building technique

tier 3 sites - parasite pages. run xrumer blasts (wildly) social bookmarking demon and any other software you have on them

tier 2 sites - tumblr pages etc etc. do some sensible link building along with some forum posting and blog commenting

tier 1 sites - .info domains and some social pages like hubpages etc. article submission goes here mostly and other 100% white hat methods