Article Outsourcing Experience (This made me very happy)

Over the last couple of months I've been having my outsourcing team build some new websites, and we needed to move on to the promotional aspect (getting traffic).

My main content writer is a woman from the Philippines. She's pretty good when she spell checks and proof reads her own work. But I had fallen into the trap of editing a lot of her work and I think that resulted in her seeing me as a "safety net".

Truth is - my goal is to NOT even have to read the stuff that she writes, perhaps other than a cursory skim of the content. After all, this has nothing to do with my primary online business (where I am the ONLY content writer), and I don't even want my own name on these other projects.

So I was spending too much time reading her articles and editing them to my standards and my "style" of writing. That was a clear mistake. I was doing this because the articles were going to get put into my EzineArticles account and I didn't want to risk my account.

The solution was really simple after I stopped to re-evaluate my way of doing things. I simply had her setup a new EzineArticles account for her to submit articles to. Now she is fully aware that I'm not proof reading them for her, but I have full visibility into the account. I'm also not taking any "risk" with my existing account.

Here's the result: We submitted the first 10 articles immediately. As you know, with EZA, you can't submit more than 10 articles at first. Well, I'm happy to say that of the 10 articles she submitted every single one was approved and the account was upgraded to Platinum instantly.

I read what she submitted. The articles were totally fine. Were they works of art? Of course not, but they were useful, grammatically correct, and they do their job of creating backlinks to our new websites.

If you are wondering about the cost per article, it's about $3 each. She's typically producing about 5 articles per day, and there are 22 average work days in a month.

I hired her from OnlineJobs.ph and I used John Jonas' program to learn how to hire people and train them. I also created a lot of my own training for my own specific needs. It's VERY easy to do and totally worth doing. In fact, you can't afford NOT to do this stuff if you want to succeed in online marketing.

Here's a post where you can get a free audio interview discussing outsourcing.

Review of Mass Outsource by Tyrone Shum

Well today I had a chance to checkout another outsourcing program from a competitor to John Jonas. The guy is Tyrone Shum, from Australia. The name of the progam is Mass Outsource Mastermind.

I'm a (happy) customer of John Jonas and a member of ReplaceMyself, so I was curious what Tyrone would bring to the table.

First, let's look at the pricing. He's charging a similar price of just under $100 per month for access to a series of training modules. They get drip-fed to you weekly to keep you interested in staying on board for the program. Where he's a bit different is that after 6 months your payments STOP. You get perpetual access to his mastermind site even though you aren't paying any more.

People might not realize this but John Jonas offers a "Pro Outsourcer" package also that involves a one time fee of $697 and grants you perpetual access to his system. This is presented as a one time offer after you do your initial sign-up. This is what I bought (no recurring fees, ever). So the way I see it, Tryone is essentially matching John here.

Tyrone's videos are pretty good - everything is well explained. But that said, I feel that the content is essentially a duplication of what is inside of Replace Myself. I don't know enough about Tyrone to tell if he's "the real deal" or not. But I feel I know enough about John Jonas to say that he certainly *is* the real deal. So content-wise, I think the scale tips more towards John here.

John offers members access to MyProjectPlans.com, which is online project management software. Tyrone has come up with another website that does the exact same thing, using the exact same software (so I'm assuming it is available as something that can be licensed, or perhaps it is open source software). So he's matching John here.

Finally, let's consider how you can use Tyrone's system to hire workers. His video describes a good method for using OnlineJobs.ph to hire employees. This is where it gets a bit weird. OnlineJobs.ph is actually John Jonas' site. Unless you are a member of ReplaceMyself.com you are supposed to be paying about $50 per month for access to it. Tyrone is giving his members a way to login to the site using his own account. If I was considering purchasing this program I'd be a bit worried that John Jonas will cut off his account (and therefore cut off all of the members of Mass Outsource). That is, unless he's struck a deal with John to allow this. It's not clear to me what the reality is.

My personal preference would be to go with John's program - but I will say that Tyrone's content is pretty good, he communicates well, and he's probably done a bit better job organizing the content and providing tools such as a user forum (which I would like to see John ad). But I'm nervous about promoting Tyrone's program given OnlineJobs.ph issue I mentioned above.

Anyway - no matter what you think is the better program to use, I do encourage you to use SOME system. I like what John has, but I also will point out to you that Tyrone is giving away a series of 10 videos which provide some good content.

Here's a link to John's system
Here's a link to Tyrone's system.

Getting more qualified job candidates with less effort

This post is about how I'm using video to recruit candidates. I learned how to outsource to the Philippines by using John Jonas' lessons.

I've decided to hire yet another writer, and based on my past experience in using OnlineJobs.ph I found that it was highly useful to actually post a job rather than to simply filter through resumes. I find that the people who reply to the job postings are usually very keen, so it saves time having them come to me.

That said, I get a LOT of replies to my job postings that are one-liners such as, "I'd like to apply for this job, here is my resume at OnlineJobs.ph". I'm not interested in spending the time to look through everyone's resume, decide whether or not I need to contact them to send me a sample of their writing, confirm with them what their availability is, etc. That's a lot of work.

So here's what I started doing just with this last posting: I put a basic job posting up that says, "I need amazing writers to work online for me. Get the full details at this link: http://the-link.com"

The link that I give them is a video presentation that I whipped together with Apple Keynote (could also be Powerpoint). I export Keynote to a flash file, but I could have also used Jing to do a screen capture for free.

In the presentation, I talk about what kind of writer I want, and I tell the candidates exactly what they need to send me in order to apply. I ask for desired salary, number of hours per week, writing samples that have been written and edited by them (and only them), and a few other basics.

If people reply with a one-line email, it gets deleted. No exceptions. They obviously don't know how to follow instructions or don't care to take the time.

About half of the replies I've been getting are from people who DID watch the video, and I already have 3 solid writing candidates who have impressed me with their English skills.

Not too shabby. I like the new method. When I originally joined "Replace Myself" it came with free access to OnlineJobs.ph - and I never thought I'd be coming back to make so much use of this job site. Great resource!

If you have questions post a comment. I'll be happy to do more posts answering them to the best of my ability.

A new hire to do article re-writing

This past weekend I decided to take on a new hire in the Philippines. Basically, I had a job posting up on OnlineJobs.ph a while ago and I never took down the post after hiring my full time candidate. I got an email from a young guy who seemed keen to work, had decent english, and wanted to work part time. He wanted me to "test him out" by giving him a writing task.

I never ask anyone to do "free work", but I do often ask candidates to write me something about themselves, or about a hobby they enjoy, in order to test their writing. It's stuff that is obviously not useful on my websites (so it doesn't come off as me asking for free work). Anyway, since the guy offered, I figured "what the heck". I asked him to write about a hobby he enjoys.

Tip - it may be obvious, but I find that Filipinos are often casual writers when it comes to spelling and grammar, even when applying for jobs. Make sure you tell them that you want them to be meticulous about checking the work before sending it to you.

Anyway, this young man did a good enough job. I wouldn't want him ghost writing for me yet, but he's certainly good enough to do re-writes on my original articles so I can submit them to other high PR article directories like Buzzle.com

I can also easily have him setup a Mini-Net and write articles. The trick is that as long as he can write basic stuff, he can then always LEARN the other stuff such as setting up blogs, doing directory submission, forum posting, keyword research, etc.

ALWAYS focus on hiring people who have decent english. Then the rest is much easier.

My challenge will be to load this guy up with a lot of stuff he can do when I don't give him other specific tasks. Mini-net and article re-writes are a perfect "perpetual" task.

I figure each re-write he does for me is going to cost me about $1. Seriously. That's it. Why not give it a shot?

Here's where I learned how to outsource.

Hiring People who Write Great English

Over the past week I've been doing quite a lot of recruitment for my online businesses. I intended to hire a new full time employee to be a content writer. But, since one of my other employees had to resign due to a personal situation, I needed to fill two spots.

I use OnlineJobs.ph to do my hiring. I have free access to this site for life because I became a "pro outsourcer" through John Jonas' system. This system is called ReplaceMyself.com and you have to select the one-time offer upsell to become a pro-outsourcer. This gives you perpetual access to the job site (and other stuff) for no monthly fee. Here's a direct link to the offer.

Anyway, using OnlineJobs.ph is fantastic, but time consuming. You have two options. You can either manually search people's resumes and email the candidates that you want to connect with. Or, you can put a job posting up on the site and have people contact you.

Here are some tips that I learned while recruiting this time around:

• Job postings are effective. You'll get a lot of resumes sent to you.
• Be really clear what the main skill set is that you want. I said "English writing with awesome grammar and spelling". I got lots of qualified people.
• Ask for writing samples in your job post. Otherwise everyone will send you their resume, which is not what you want.
• Ask people to send you a link to their blog, if they have one. Bloggers who are active are good candidates, and you'll be able to see their writing style
• Don't be afraid to ask them to write you a *quick* sample. Don't ask for free work - that is rude. But asking for them to demonstrate their capabilities is fine. I would recommend you ask for a 2-3 paragraph email on a particular topic. Pick something insanely silly so that they can't possibly plagiarize. For example, you could say, "Pretend that you've just invented transparent aluminum. It's like glass, only lighter and stronger. Write me a 2-3 paragraph explanation of all the things that this new material would be great for. Have fun with it and do your best to submit something with proper spelling and grammar"
• DO chat with them over skype. I recommend using a text chat to see how fast they type and how well they communicate with text. Then, as a follow-up, use voice.

In case you're wondering what the "going rate" is for workers these days, I found 2 great candidates. The full time people are about $250-300 to start, but I expect to pay them more over time. The part time people are about $150ish.

Personally I think I might get more "bang for the buck" with a part time person because it's easier to be productive for 4 hours a day rather than 8.

We'll see how it goes.

Awesome Free Outsourcing Tutorial

I got my hands on an incredible audio (phone) interview with John Jonas. In this audio he explains exactly how he outsources his online business activities to people in the Philippines for a very low cost (about $350 per month on average).

I *know* this is achievable because I'm one of John's customers and I'm doing exactly this same thing.

List to the audio and then go get his program. It's awesome. Either way, the audio is totally free, no strings attached, and you'll get an incredible education.



Get more outsourcing information from John at this link.

Let me also provide you with this additional insight. You can get his system for a recurring monthly fee, and you can cancel anytime after you learn what you need. But, what I did is to take his "pro outsourcer" package. Yes I actually paid $697 to get this, but the benefit is *lifetime access* to the resumes, project management software and a lot of other great bonus material that is making me money. To get the "upsell", just subscribe and you'll get presented with a one-time offer. I highly recommend you get the pro package.

Beyond being a better value, the pro package kinda forces you to get off your ass and make use of the system. You'll be very committed to USING this stuff after you plunk down that kind of money. I know that's what happened for me.

Don't Fix Your Outsourcer's Mistakes For Them

Just a quick thought to share with everyone today. I know that, often, it seems like YOU can do something far better than your outsourcer. And you feel that way because you probably ARE better at doing it. Installing WordPress, picking domains, finding information, doing research, etc.

Yes, you know your business better than the outsourcer you hired, and you can do it better. But you know you're supposed to outsource, so you give your guys some work, and it comes back in a way that is not 100% acceptable to you.

What now?

Simply show them how to correct course. Don't go and fix their work for them! It's a lot like raising kids. If you always make your child's bed and fix them breakfast, they'll never learn to do it themselves. Let them do it, and show them how to improve. Keep reinforcing the message with positive feedback. Be nice.

One of my guys had a real problem with communication. He'd send me short emails that were not clear enough for me to understand. I simply told him, over and over, to be *much* more specific with things.

Before I smartened up, I tried to guess at what he was asking and answer all possible variations. Then I realized I was training him to keep giving me crappy emails with crappy explanations.

I changed course and started simply replying with the following "Can you please be a lot more specific, because I do not understand what you are saying here. What, specifically, is the problem with the XYZ project?"

This worked like a charm.

So, if you want to train your guys to do GREAT work for you, don't fix their mistakes. Show them how to fix their own mistakes.

Whatever you do, just make sure that you are outsourcing. I highly recommend hiring people in the Philippines. This is the resource I am using, and it's awesome.