Outsourcing - Frequently Asked Questions

[dengkane]

Great guide, thank you.

[mjbmedia]

Hey Trevor great thread thanks

Bit of advice esp rule 4 what about when you outsourcing something you know nothing technically about but you know the result you want . The outsourcers could run rings round you if you start to throw in terminology to test them out and many times you may not know whether one response is better than another . Lets take programming unless you know you need say PHP to get the results you want how would you approach this as unbeknown to you another language could be a better fit for the results you want

[jenniferwhittle]

Hello Trevor!

What a wonderful Christmas gift you had there! And it's indeed very informative for the newbies in Online Marketing. Outsourcing people may be a bit complicated at first but eventually, one must realize that in outsourcing, faith and trust between you and your worker is the key for a successful project!

[Trevor]

Originally Posted by gs000707

Thanks for sharing!

Regards,
George

Originally Posted by dengkane

Great guide, thank you.

Originally Posted by mjbmedia

Hey Trevor great thread thanks

Bit of advice esp rule 4 what about when you outsourcing something you know nothing technically about but you know the result you want . The outsourcers could run rings round you if you start to throw in terminology to test them out and many times you may not know whether one response is better than another . Lets take programming unless you know you need say PHP to get the results you want how would you approach this as unbeknown to you another language could be a better fit for the results you want

Originally Posted by garathnormanmtts

Great post..!! Its really helpful for me, need to take a print of the article.

Originally Posted by jenniferwhittle

Hello Trevor!

What a wonderful Christmas gift you had there! And it's indeed very informative for the newbies in Online Marketing. Outsourcing people may be a bit complicated at first but eventually, one must realize that in outsourcing, faith and trust between you and your worker is the key for a successful project!

Originally Posted by seoguro

traver you are really providing the best marketing techniques.

You guys are making me happy and prove to me my work was worth the time.

[onlineproject]

its nice to here thanks for bringing up the PHILIPPINES!

[transcriptionservices]

Thanks Trevor. It is really nice topics to share information.

[messi1453]

thanks for sharing.

[Steve Foulds]

I ALWAYS give a deadline when i outsource too (though I guess you could say you covered that where you said tell them EXACTLY what you want)

[dburk]

Originally Posted by Trevor

For example, PPC bidding management and things like that - This is nearly impossible to outsource, for it needs your expertise and if you gave your keywords to someone else, he would probably take the profits for himself.

Hi Trevor, great OP, but when I saw this post I just had to jump into the thread and share an alternative viewpoint.

I strongly disagree with your assertion that PPC bidding management "is nearly impossible to outsource". The reason you give also seems to contradict your earlier advice about outsourcing SEO projects. Certainly you must give your keywords out to your SEO workers, do you not? Either way, I hope you don't think that a professional ad agency will have any difficulty identifying your keywords, that is one of their core competencies. In fact, a half decent agency will identify more keywords and gather more intelligence about those keywords than most small business owners could ever manage.

If you take a look at many of the best ran corporations around the globe you will find that outsourcing PPC bid management is quite common in those firms. In fact, many of those firms outsource their ad campaigns to ad agencies, and many of those top agencies will further outsource the PPC management to a specialist. The reason for this is that it is a difficult task that requires a highly focused specialist to get top performance.

Outsourcing PPC bid management is such a common practice that Google AdWords has, from the earliest days, focused on providing tools and resources for agency support. Here is a partial list of Google's dedicated agency support:

• Google Engage for Agencies
• AdWords Agency Help
• Google for Agencies - Google Ads
• Agency Toolkit
• Google AgencyLand
• My Client Center (MCC) - AdWords Agency Help
• AdWords API - AdWords Agency Help
• https://groups.google.com/group/adwo...orum/subscribe

Hmm.. I wonder why Google has so many resources dedicated to agency support if, as you say "This is nearly impossible to outsource."

The best PPC ad agencies often do not rely on a single expert. PPC is arguable the most technically difficult aspect of marketing to master today. A competitive industry will need to employ talent from range of disciplines, graphic artists, marketing strategists, ad copy writing, Video production (including video script writing, video editing, sound engineering, etc.), marketing experiments, Marketing analytics, Keyword research, and project management and more.

There is no way that a single individual can be an expert in all of those various disciplines. If you try to do it all yourself, you cannot specialize. If you do not specialize you will not be able to keep up with those that do.

In my opinion, one of the best reasons to outsource is that there is no quicker, and cheaper, way to assemble a top notch team of specialists to launch a new product/service, or to dominate an industry. And of all of the areas of outsourcing opportunities, PPC management is one of the most established and thoroughly supported specialties. Judging by the decision of so many well ran companies, a very popular choice as well.

[jhonybravo222]

such a great information that you deliver in this post amazing

[ina696]

Very helpful information. I just posted a new thread asking for advice for outsourcing a series of tutorial type videos. You answered many of my questions and concerns with this advice.

Many thanks!

Ina

[revstan]

How much of the work of the average bigger internetmarketeers is outsourced?


Simplestan

[Tiffiney Cowan]

Thanks for sharing your insights Trevor! As a ghostwriter for nearly 5 years I find that when a client is invested in the project and is willing to communicate in the ways you've outlined the project is more fun, engaging, and successful. I love delivering a product which exactly meets the clients vision - and clear, complete communication is a big part of making that possible.

[7bdanie]

Great post!!! Does anyone have paid SEO services, suggestions?

[Guru72]

Trevor,
This is so concise and wonderful. I just experimented with outsourcing as my current seo company has been taking me for a ride. I was confuse how to move forward. You enlighten us

[Trevor]

Originally Posted by onlineproject

its nice to here thanks for bringing up the PHILIPPINES!

Originally Posted by transcriptionservices

Thanks Trevor. It is really nice topics to share information.

Originally Posted by messi1453

thanks for sharing.

Originally Posted by jhonybravo222

such a great information that you deliver in this post amazing

Originally Posted by ina696

Very helpful information. I just posted a new thread asking for advice for outsourcing a series of tutorial type videos. You answered many of my questions and concerns with this advice.

Many thanks!

Ina

Originally Posted by Guru72

Trevor,
This is so concise and wonderful. I just experimented with outsourcing as my current seo company has been taking me for a ride. I was confuse how to move forward. You enlighten us

Awesome guys, you are making myself happy.

Originally Posted by Steve Foulds

I ALWAYS give a deadline when i outsource too (though I guess you could say you covered that where you said tell them EXACTLY what you want)

Thanks for your contribution, Steve!

Originally Posted by dburk

Hi Trevor, great OP, but when I saw this post I just had to jump into the thread and share an alternative viewpoint.

I strongly disagree with your assertion that PPC bidding management "is nearly impossible to outsource". The reason you give also seems to contradict your earlier advice about outsourcing SEO projects. Certainly you must give your keywords out to your SEO workers, do you not? Either way, I hope you don't think that a professional ad agency will have any difficulty identifying your keywords, that is one of their core competencies. In fact, a half decent agency will identify more keywords and gather more intelligence about those keywords than most small business owners could ever manage.

If you take a look at many of the best ran corporations around the globe you will find that outsourcing PPC bid management is quite common in those firms. In fact, many of those firms outsource their ad campaigns to ad agencies, and many of those top agencies will further outsource the PPC management to a specialist. The reason for this is that it is a difficult task that requires a highly focused specialist to get top performance.

Outsourcing PPC bid management is such a common practice that Google AdWords has, from the earliest days, focused on providing tools and resources for agency support. Here is a partial list of Google's dedicated agency support:

• Google Engage for Agencies
• AdWords Agency Help
• Google for Agencies - Google Ads
• Agency Toolkit
• Google AgencyLand
• My Client Center (MCC) - AdWords Agency Help
• AdWords API - AdWords Agency Help
• https://groups.google.com/group/adwo...orum/subscribe

Hmm.. I wonder why Google has so many resources dedicated to agency support if, as you say "This is nearly impossible to outsource."

The best PPC ad agencies often do not rely on a single expert. PPC is arguable the most technically difficult aspect of marketing to master today. A competitive industry will need to employ talent from range of disciplines, graphic artists, marketing strategists, ad copy writing, Video production (including video script writing, video editing, sound engineering, etc.), marketing experiments, Marketing analytics, Keyword research, and project management and more.

There is no way that a single individual can be an expert in all of those various disciplines. If you try to do it all yourself, you cannot specialize. If you do not specialize you will not be able to keep up with those that do.

In my opinion, one of the best reasons to outsource is that there is no quicker, and cheaper, way to assemble a top notch team of specialists to launch a new product/service, or to dominate an industry. And of all of the areas of outsourcing opportunities, PPC management is one of the most established and thoroughly supported specialties. Judging by the decision of so many well ran companies, a very popular choice as well.

Don,

Thanks for your great contribution, I don't claim to be an expert in all aspects of internet marketing and my opinions are, as anyone's, subjective. Again, thanks for sharing your point of view with us, I'm sure you are right!

Originally Posted by revstan

How much of the work of the average bigger internetmarketeers is outsourced?

Simplestan

I mentioned that in the OP!

Originally Posted by Tiffiney

Thanks for sharing your insights Trevor! As a ghostwriter for nearly 5 years I find that when a client is invested in the project and is willing to communicate in the ways you've outlined the project is more fun, engaging, and successful. I love delivering a product which exactly meets the clients vision - and clear, complete communication is a big part of making that possible.

My pleasure, Tiffiney.

[mihaiherman]

Thanks for sharing this Trevor, i thought about starting outsourcing to phillipines a few months ago, but never had the courage to do it however, i might have some projects for them this month. Will let you know how it works.

I've used some from fiverr and odesk, but as you said, i never found one that can do a great keyword research.

[AdamDer]

I have been doing out sourcing for the last 5 years. You can contact with me.

[mc9320]

Hi Trevor.

Great thread here. Is it possible you could provide an example of the instructions you give when outsourcing?

i have used fiverr for article writing but need to look at backlinking now as i don't have time. any guidance would be appreciated!

[phpdevelopment]

Thanks, Trevor, Thanks for the great information about outsourcing Now I understand how I should outsource.

[jamesquin]

If you find a good outsourcer - hang on to them. There are some good ones out there but also a whole lot of terrible ones

[paradoxical]

great post.thanks for sharing .Another piece of the puzzle is now clearer.

[Mike Linley]

Great post on tips you have there! I think all things can be outsourced these days provided that you give them with all the exact details and explanation about your purpose. Outsourced workers need complete details most of the time so they could understand your business well. Thanks for sharing these things for FREE! Much help!

[bloation]

Good job! thanks for sharing, let me know about how clear do i need to be to for my outsoucers.

[offshoredataentry]

Really its a nice information.

[Jean1]

Originally Posted by Trevor

Hello fellow Warriors,

I was planning on writing this guide for some time. Today I just got to finish it and now I want to share with you my guide on outsourcing containing my thoughts, experience and things I think are important to keep in mind when it comes to outsourcing.

Well, first off, Happy Holidays to all of you, and do not be tempted to think I'm such a workaholic I even work during Christmas - I don't, I only added a few last lines to the guide today and the only work I'm doing is uploading in onto the forum. All right, enough beating around the bush, let's get to the nitty gritty!

So What Is Outsourcing?

This is probably clear to most of you, but just in case you don't know what outsourcing is, let me clarify. It's having work done by someone else and paying them for the work, either up front or upon completion.

The fact is, most of the tasks in internet marketing can be outsourced (I believe up to 95% of all).

Why Would We Want To Outsource?

This is obvious, we are internet marketers. Not writers, not webmasters, not coders, not graphic designers, we are, over and above all, marketers. Our work is to market, not to write our butts off trying to come up with valuable content or what not.

That's why it's great to have your work done by someone else, while you can focus on other more important things, while other people do the work you tell them to do. The fact is, you don't have to be very good at any technical stuff to be a very successful internet marketer. I myself only know a bunch of html tags and cannot do any programming at all.

General Rules Of Outsourcing

This is the core of my outsourcing guide. Be sure to go through the below rules one by one, I hope you will get something out of it.

Rule #1 - Always Tell Your Workers Exactly What You Want

Many people don't realize that they should be more exact, while telling their workers what to do. For example, if you are paying someone to create banners or e-book covers for you, always tell them your exact idea of how it should look like, what should be included in the picture, how the pic should be structured, what text should appear within it, etc. The more detailed instructions you give to your workers the better.

Rule #2 - Stay In Contact With Your Workers On Skype

Being in touch with your workers on Skype is much better than simple email communication. Skype is faster and you can reach out them at any time and the response is usually much more prompt than communication via email. In fact, my first contact with any of my workers is via email, but I tell them right away that they have to be able to be online on Skype while they work, or else I won't hire them. Which leads us to the third rule, which is

Rule #3 - Fully Speak Your Mind Before You Hire Them

This is in correlation with the first rule. You have to give detailed instructions, but you also have to give them anything and everything that comes to your mind about the work you need them to do for you. You should also express your expectations (time, quality...), and ask them in your first email you send out whether or not they are willing to live up to your expectations. If not, don't hire them, there are tens of other people out there, who will be more than glad to work for you.

Rule #4 - Be Sure Your Workers Understand You

It is sometimes difficult to be sure your workers understand you well. It's not enough to just ask them "Do you understand this?", you should be a little more creative and tell them to answer some questions, so you can be sure you don't hire anybody, who doesn't know what he/she is going to do. In the questions you can include some jargon words or specialized terms only experts can understand to make sure your workers are real experts and knowledgeable in their department.

Rule #5 - Send Them A Sample

This has proven to be really helpful, not only in the process of selecting and weeding out the workers, who are not that great, but also for your workers to give you exactly what you demand. If you send them a work sample, they can be more targeted and the outcomes are usually better.

Rule #6 - Give Them Instructional Video(s) Or PDF(s)

This is optional, but has also worked really well for me. If you give them a video or two describing your demands, the outcomes tend to be better, as well. You can also send them a simple PDF with instructions, which also works great. See the following step to see how I always make sure they read the PDF(s) to the end.

Rule #7 - Include A Secret Word Within The PDF(s) Or Video

I actually learned this from another Warrior and it's a really clever thing to do while you are in the "hiring" process. If you send them an instructional video or PDF, you can include within it a secret word, a "password", which you tell them in the PDF or video to mention in the response email. This way you can see exactly which people actually read your PDF or watched your video and which ones did not. Therefore you can rule out the ones, who apparently don't care to read your instructions and the ones, who are really eager to work with you and read the instructions you send them.

Rule #8 - Test Out At Least 5 People Before Hiring Anybody

If I want a certain type of work done, I always reach out to at least 5 people and send the same message and give them the exact same resources. I pick only the best one (best in terms of how fast they reply, what they have to say/offer, how knowledgeable they seem to be, how well they understand what I want and how correctly they answer my questions, etc.)

Rule #9 - Keep Them Separate

If I'm starting a website, I hire one person to do the graphics stuff, another one to write content for me, another one to build backlinks, etc. There have been cases of marketers being ripped off by their workers. Although this didn't happen to me, if you asked just one person to do everything, you would also have to give him all the resources and ideas and it could happen he would steal your own ideas. So be on a watch-out and keep everything separate.

What Can Be Outsourced

As I said above, I believe that 95% of internet marketing work can be outsourced. Below you can see some great places to hire your workers and what kind of work I usually do outsource and do not outsource. However, this is just my personal approach and yours can be different, of course.

Writing - There are many places to hire quality writers. You can hire people from the Philippines at, for example, onlinejobs.ph. They are usually hard workers, who do what they are told to. Other places to hire quality writers: Warriors "For Hire" section, fweez.com, iwriter.com.

Linkbuilding - Although I also build links myself, a big part of my backlinking campaigns is outsourced. There are guys, who work in conjunction with certain blog networks. I've heard Vin does a great job, as he writes short articles and submits it to Build My Rank himself. All you need to do is give him your URLs and keywords. Linkbuilding can also be outsourced in other places like Fiverr. There are some really great Fiverr gigs that offer links from BMR, LinkVana, Article Ranks, Free Traffic System or Article Marketing Robot and Unique Article Wizard submissions. To find the best ones, do your search using the names of those blog networks and submitters and order the results by rating.

Graphics/E-design - I suck at graphics! I'm really horrible at any kind of graphic art and I hate doing this stuff myself. You can hire really great and talented graphic designers at Odesk, eLance, vWorker or Guru.

Forum Posting - You can outsource forum posting for backlinking purposes, but that doesn't necessarily have to be the only purpose of having somebody create forum posts for you. Have you ever thought of starting your own forum? It's a great way to get content for free, yet many people are afraid of starting their own forums, because they think the start is too hard. Well, it is, but it's not that hard. You can hire quality "posters", as I call them, at paidforumposting.com. They are really cheap and you can even hire somebody to moderate your forum! Think about this, you can simply start a forum in your niche, buy thousands of posts at the mentioned site (and these are not spam posts, the guys at paidforumposting.com make sure the posts are relevant, on-topic and provide value) and even have somebody moderate the forum for you. Auto-pilot is the right word here!

Copywriting - You can hire quality copywriters in the Warriors For Hire section of this forum.

The above are the tasks I outsource and now let me mention the ones I don't outsource and rather do myself.

Keyword Research - After many attempts of finding a reliable person to work with, I decided to rely on myself only. Maybe I was just unlucky, but I didn't really find anybody who would live up to all my expectations and do keyword research for me with all the aspects I demanded.

Setting The Sales Funnel - I like to do this myself, as well.

Writing Email Newsletter Series - I would not hire anybody to write the follow-up messages for my lists, I actually do care a lot about my subscribers and everything I send out is written by myself. I always strive to provide value in my emails, even when I'm promoting something, I wouldn't send my list anything I don't believe is a great product.

Recap & Conclusion

A few things I haven't mentioned yet: Be prepared that people tend to exaggerate about their skills and often lie in their claims and descriptions of themselves. You have to be really careful and picky, and as I said above, always try and test out more people before hiring anybody!

Last but not least, I didn't intend to promote anything with this guide, none of the links included are affiliate links and I have no affiliation with any of the sites I link to.

Ok, I hope this rather long post will be of some use to at least some of you. If this helps at least one person avoid the costly mistakes I made, then my work will have been worth the time!

If you have any questions at all, you can ask below and I will try my best to answer them. And if you want to thank me, don't leave a spammy-looking reply to do so, simply clicking the "Thanks" button will carry out the job!

Allright, that's it guys. Take care and enjoy the rest of the holidays!

This is a very good post on outsourcing. Thanks for the great tips man..

[mukeshsoftona]

thanks for sharing it

[jadesource]

Wow, great post. I'm in a rush right now with family matters but am going to digest it better on the plane back to Manila.

There is an art to delegating, and not everyone has it. True in a small office, true when your employee is 5000 miles away in Cebu.

I constantly struggle with the not under utilize and not overwhelm stuff too. If you underutilize you can make your outsourcer feel like they either aren't helping enough, can go get another job, etc. or a whole host of things.

If you overwhelm, they'll disappear because they can't do it.

And then, there's just patience, cultivation and time. Not push button, by any means.

But I think any boss has that problem, and folks I talk to forget that the minute you outsource, you become a client/boss, and have all of the incumbent responsibilities.

Each outsource country has a particular mix of cultural mores and work styles.

But the same core rules apply.

Wow, just a great post, thanks!

Mark

[rohiteshwar]

thanks brother

[Jeremiah L]

I've always think that outsourcing was easy once you have the proper knowledge and a clear plan -and it is !

[mdsurf]

outsourcing is the bane of my existence, cant live with them cant live without them. anyone who is succesful online has to be using outsourcers

[mundamuh]

Hi Trevor,

Excellent post. I am just about to embark on the journey of outsourcing and going towards automation. Although I am very new at internet marketing, I am learning every day and this post definitely is on the top 10 most useful information thus far.

Although this might be a very *newbie* question but what are some good resources to ensure that the articles that are being written are indeed unique.

Thanks,

Munda

[shailu]

nice article... good stuff here. thanks for sharing it is very helpful to me.

[speedbird]

Thanks for sharing your thoughts on outsourcing. This will definitely be beneficial to Internet marketers who are new to outsourcing and also freelancers who work in the now many outsourcing sites.

[sanjuk61]

Great....post....

Thanks for the share nice information...

[GISA]

Thanks Trevor, it's a great post with lot of information. Few more things to add to the list -> you can also outsource, Facebook landing page, twitter management video creations, blog commenting, setting up websites.

Anyway thanks could be a WSO

[bbbjdcan]

thanks for your information

[seo123india]

Really nice posting and learned a lot from the posting.

[HighRanking999]

Originally Posted by Trevor

Hey

On the first occasion I would not give the VA any secret material or information, I would first test him out to see if he's responsive and trustworthy...

I'm not sure I fully get you there, you mean send him a WSO that he would work by?

Great post Trevor and thank you for sharing. Is there any specific criterion for trusting VAs? My experience is that they can be untrustworthy any time.

[alherabd]

Certainly this is very informative and helpful post. Both the newbie freelancers or advance level freelancer will be benefited by reading this book. The above mentioned discussions has brought some important things before us like job categories, payment system and so on. So it is helpful for us.

[Seo Mall]

I agree with all of your rules, Trevor! But MOST of all with 1st)
I'm thinking about printing out your rules and put it near notebook!

[Lyfe Lyte]

I agree...outsourcing has made a huge difference in the success of my online ventures....too many of us try to do all the simple tasks that waste our time when that time should be involved in the direction of the business..

I first started outsourcing...then eventually started hiring employees..from the Philippines and India...you can get good quality employees for $1-2 an hour.....there is a problem if you can't make some money off of that... It will for sure get you into the mode of ceo vs factory worker.

[HighRanking999]

Originally Posted by warriorwealth

I agree...outsourcing has made a huge difference in the success of my online ventures....too many of us try to do all the simple tasks that waste our time when that time should be involved in the direction of the business..

I first started outsourcing...then eventually started hiring employees..from the Philippines and India...you can get good quality employees for $1-2 an hour.....there is a problem if you can't make some money off of that... It will for sure get you into the mode of ceo vs factory worker.

Agreed, But why only from India and Philippines, I think there are several natives that are available in these rates, any particular reason?

[chicka]

Thanks for the share Trevor, this is indeed an awesome guide.=)

[chriismicro]

Well outsourcing become a big platform to make revenue online. Now I also become familiar with WSO and all information you have stated here up. Nice stuff for the business online and for outsourcing.

[zpivat]

Very nice post Trevor! How often do you update all the resources about outsourcing?

[gaboman]

Excellent information, in my business today is very common the use of managed outsourcing support and have had some bad experiences, fortunately always find a gem in the industry, its guidelines are very helpful for me
regards

[troysmith1012]

"Stay In Contact With Your Workers On Skype" and and general the contact, communication and collaboration is the key!!- RULE # 2

This is great! Thanks.

[Chase Watts]

Originally Posted by troysmith1012

"Stay In Contact With Your Workers On Skype" and and general the contact, communication and collaboration is the key!!- RULE # 2

This is great! Thanks.

Very true! It's amazing how many people fail to actually build relationships with the people they have working for them.

[Saranya2011]

Wow.. Great information about outsource.. Very helpful for me.. keep it sharing like this always.. thanks a lot..