Outsourcing - Frequently Asked Questions

[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!

[Awesomo]

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

[Trevor]

Originally Posted by Awesomo

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

Yep, I just added them as they came to mind, I'm sure I left out a bunch! I may add them later

[Trevor]

Originally Posted by sswaqas

thanks for your information

You are welcome and if you have any questions at all regarding outsourcing, let me know via PM or here on this thread and I'll try come up with a meaningful answer!

[Rabindra]

Hi Trevor,

Very nicely laid and a comprehensive post that warriors are getting their hands on for FREE! Some people offering WSO in the past had less valued info on their report than what you are offering here, freely.

BTW, in regards to your rule #7, absolutely! that is what all the experienced marketer do. This will definitely speed up the selection process by quickly and easily disqualifying those people who don't pay enough attention. Not only for the video or pdf instruction, this is a must even if someone is posting a job on any outsourcing site.

In this outsourcing field (or in any business), we need to work as a professional therefore one's emotion mustn't stop taking the right decision. For instant - this applies, when there is a need for someone to fire a VA (who has been working with you for X amount of time, and there is a naturally bonded relationship), as his/her service is either no longer required or becomes less effective for the sake of one's company.

Finally, even if someone who has no- experience of outsourcing yet, walks out of this thread with just one lesson - the rule no #7 (not mentioning the rest as they are equally valuable too) then, it definitely worth the time invested in this thread.

Kind Regards,

Rabindra

[Trevor]

Rabindra,

Thank you very much for your kind words and I'm glad you like my guide.

[Anthony Scorza]

Funny how things work Trevor.

I was thinking I need to get a handle on outsourcing as I was out walking the dog this morning and I come across your post pretty much as soon as I've logged in to my PC!

The Universe at work I guess

Thanks mate, really valuable post.

Tony

[Trevor]

Originally Posted by Anthony Scorza

Funny how things work Trevor.

I was thinking I need to get a handle on outsourcing as I was out walking the dog this morning and I come across your post pretty much as soon as I've logged in to my PC!

The Universe at work I guess

Thanks mate, really valuable post.

Tony

Hey Tony,

I'm glad that you like my guide. Yep, this is how things work out sometimes, life is a weird succession of coincidences

- Trev

[Bofu2U]

Good post, #3 is a deal maker/breaker. Have to keep it up front.

[D Alishouse]

"Keeping Them Separate" is excellent advice. When you are outsourcing and especially if you're working with people who are new to you, keeping it separate can save you a lot of heartache later on! I'm like you, I am not really that worried about being scammed by anyone, but keeping jobs cleanly separated makes it easier to test out the capabilities of a new person. It also helps you if some of them don't live up to what you were wanting. Everything is separate and, therefore, easier to bring a new person on to if you must.

[Trevor]

Originally Posted by D Alishouse

"Keeping Them Separate" is excellent advice. When you are outsourcing and especially if you're working with people who are new to you, keeping it separate can save you a lot of heartache later on! I'm like you, I am not really that worried about being scammed by anyone, but keeping jobs cleanly separated makes it easier to test out the capabilities of a new person. It also helps you if some of them don't live up to what you were wanting. Everything is separate and, therefore, easier to bring a new person on to if you must.

Although I have never been personally scammed myself, a close marketing friend of mine got scammed by a worker, who just grabbed the material he was sent and kept it to himself. It actually contained some valuable data like keyword selection, etc.

You are right, I believe nobody can be a real expert in all departments, if you want to truly excel, you have to keep your focus on that one thing. That's my personal belief, anyway.

[sasai]

Trevor, I want to know would you share WSO material with VA, I have a VA and it take time to train, obviously it save me tons of time if I just send them a guide and let him know my business model, thanks

[Trevor]

Originally Posted by sasai

Trevor, I want to know would you share WSO material with VA, I have a VA and it take time to train, obviously it save me tons of time if I just send them a guide and let him know my business model, thanks

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?

[sasai]

Yep, say, xfactor methods, I think some of them are open secret, I still wonder if it is a good idea to tell them how my business works

[Maraun]

I will take a closer look at paidforumposting.com, as I had trouble doing this properly with Oursourcers on ODesk. Thanks for sharing Trevor!

[TMG Jason]

Thanks, Trevor, lots of great resources there, and the post is very-well organized.

Before any new marketer decides to go down this route, though, they need to make sure they have a system in place that they fully understand. Lots of people want a "push-button" solution for making money, and those don't really exist until you have a complete system that you know top-to-bottom and can begin to duplicate.

So, make sure you know the why behind each of the steps that you are outsourcing. (I'm sure you understand all of this, Trevor, but this post is for anyone else who's reading this thread). Thanks again!

[Kenster]

great share here. You can also split up your tactic with more than one outsourcer so you aren't giving anybody your entire secret sauce. They each have a piece of the puzzle!

[kaidaiah]

Wow, definitely need to print this out and save for reference!! Your guide is a lifesaver for new and experienced marketers alike!! Thanks!

[Matt Attack]

I learn something new everyday thanks to posts like these. I never thought of the secret word trick, however it is definitely something I will be doing from now on!

Thanks for the great information here

[Trevor]

Originally Posted by sasai

Yep, say, xfactor methods, I think some of them are open secret, I still wonder if it is a good idea to tell them how my business works

I think you don't have to be afraid, just think about how many people read WSOs and never take action on them, I doubt your VA would even be experienced enough to put your WSOs into action properly. Often times they don't haveathe faintest idea about marketing, they are just good what they are good at

Originally Posted by Maraun

I will take a closer look at paidforumposting.com, as I had trouble doing this properly with Oursourcers on ODesk. Thanks for sharing Trevor!

Yep, check them out, Maraun and let me know how you like them!

Originally Posted by TMG Jason

Thanks, Trevor, lots of great resources there, and the post is very-well organized.

Before any new marketer decides to go down this route, though, they need to make sure they have a system in place that they fully understand. Lots of people want a "push-button" solution for making money, and those don't really exist until you have a complete system that you know top-to-bottom and can begin to duplicate.

So, make sure you know the why behind each of the steps that you are outsourcing. (I'm sure you understand all of this, Trevor, but this post is for anyone else who's reading this thread). Thanks again!

Thanks for your reply, Jason, indeed, there are no push-button solutions to making money on the Internet, if there were, then everybody would be doing it.

And you are right, it still takes some experience to master outsourcing, but I believe this guide can speed up the learning process a little bit!

Originally Posted by kaidaiah

Wow, definitely need to print this out and save for reference!! Your guide is a lifesaver for new and experienced marketers alike!! Thanks!

I will be honored if you print this out I'm glad you like my work.

Originally Posted by Matt Attack

I learn something new everyday thanks to posts like these. I never thought of the secret word trick, however it is definitely something I will be doing from now on!

Thanks for the great information here

Thank you Matt for your kind words, yep, the "secret word trick" is really effective and I would like to point out here that it's not my own idea, I got it from a fellow warrior but it really helps decide whom to hire and whom not!

[drewmcntyre]

Thanks Trevor for this really great post about outsourcing. Now I understand what is outsourcing and why we do this. Really thanks. I bookmarked your post.

[ish]

Thanks for sharing this Trevor, it's given me some good tips on how i should outsource.

[Clint Faber]

Nice but your stretching that when you say "Only Outsourcing Guide You'll Ever Need" as outsourcing is a continuous development of the understanding and management of people which can take over a lifetime to fully comprehend.

I would add a couple things when it comes to outsourcing especially when dealing with workers directly.

If you're hiring someone to do a complete project make sure you hire a least 4 to 5 people to do the exact same job and only bring on the most qualified individuals.

You may be asking why in the heck would you hire fortified people to do the exact same job well through our experience we have found that one out of five will actually do the job to completion so it is very very important to tell your workers that you will not pay for their time if they do not complete the job in full before even hiring them.

I just wanted to go ahead and bring this tip to you because if I would've known this from the beginning it would've saved us a lot of time as getting the product to the market is very important in our business.

[Trevor]

Originally Posted by Clint Faber

Nice but your stretching that when you say "Only Outsourcing Guide You'll Ever Need" as outsourcing is a continuous development of the understanding and management of people which can take over a lifetime to fully comprehend.

I would add a couple things when it comes to outsourcing especially when dealing with workers directly.

If you're hiring someone to do a complete project make sure you hire a least 4 to 5 people to do the exact same job and only bring on the most qualified individuals.

You may be asking why in the heck would you hire fortified people to do the exact same job well through our experience we have found that one out of five will actually do the job to completion so it is very very important to tell your workers that you will not pay for their time if they do not complete the job in full before even hiring them.

I just wanted to go ahead and bring this tip to you because if I would've known this from the beginning it would've saved us a lot of time as getting the product to the market is very important in our business.

Well put, Clint, thank you for your contribution.

It really does take time and experience to master outsourcing, reading about it is not enough, but hopefully this guide will help some of the newer marketers to get on the right track!

[Clint Faber]

Originally Posted by Trevor

Well put, Clint, thank you for your contribution.

It really does take time and experience to master outsourcing, reading about it is not enough, but hopefully this guide will help some of the newer marketers to get on the right track!

Yes absolutely happy to contribute to this thought-provoking and contributing topic.

The main thing that you need when stepping into the outsourcing arena is to be 100% dedicated as there is a lot of subtext to learn that can only be understood by implementation. This is especially true when you have never had any management position or have ever been responsible for a team before.

You will learn a lot and get frustrated a lot as well but eventually you will be able to escalate your business to a point where you can outsource the management itself and all you will need to be concerned about is outsourcing the management position so you can focus on the most important thing to your businesses success marketing.

[Clint Faber]

Originally Posted by Kenster

great share here. You can also split up your tactic with more than one outsourcer so you aren't giving anybody your entire secret sauce. They each have a piece of the puzzle!

The funny thing about this technique of splitting up the work is it tends to organically happen in itself as many contractors get bored and drift off to other projects in the middle of a contract. This fact is amplified when you test it with programmers and intellectual jobs.

Here is a tip from my experience as I have found is inevitable for the majority of these contractors to not follow through to the end of the project.

When they began to drift off in communication tends to lack let them know that you understand if they are no longer interested in the project and would love to end the contract if you can get their completed work this will often times invoked the contractor to reconnect with you in hopes that they will get paid for what the work that they have done thus far.

[michaelplies]

that's an amazing guide. thanks a lot Trevor

[sam m]

I liked the idea of secret password to weed out
slicksters and I agree you have do skype with these guys

Nice post Trevor
Will you take off for New years.. Lol

[SmileKenya]

Thanks for such a marvelous guide to outsourcing. It is true that an individual himself/herself has much to play in order to get good work. He himself chooses the workers and gives the instructions. He is in control, and for that matter the determining factor for the quality of work he will receive. So despite having experts doing your work, you are ever in charge and your decisions will either give you a good or a poor job.

[myiphoneapp]

thanks for sharing such a informative thread on Outsourcing Guide. all point have to keep on mind before starting Outsourcing services.

really informative post!

thanks!

[chrislangley]

Nice tips, I agree keeping in touch with your workers is a nice way of ensuring that the work is being done

[Georgios]

Thanks Trevor,
very nice post !

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

[Ankit Maru]

Hi, Trevor
Thanks for this.

[Kris79]

Nice job with this guide.
Could you tell me from which part of the world you are hiring people?
Is there any difference, or just everybody is going for Philippines?

[asiancasanova]

Wow, bookmarked. Thanks for the share. Do you believe in Odesk and Elance?

[wordsofmagic]

Thanks for the info, excellent guide and a real eye opener how to set up a business on auto pilot.

[Kris79]

Thanks for the answer

[Ken Somerville]

One thing that I would suggest for people is to but your work out as a bid. Tell people what you want done and then tell them something like (I know with your skills that this will be simple) This plays to vanity and you will generaly get a better price then otherwise.

[ruoall]

How I wish I had come across your thread earlier... I am actually in the final stages of getting a document automation system developed and am on my second developer.

I guess you learn from your mistakes and as you go along.

Great post by the way!

Ruoall

[casinomegamall]

Thanks for the help Trevor. You are such a genius person and i have read your almost posts on this forum.

[bigmojophotos]

Thank you very much Trevor.

[brentcans]

Fine thread, nice to be here!

[Trevor]

Wow, so many positive reactions, I wasn't expecting that. Thanks!

[Rollmodl]

Good read. I have also found that business that are now getting into online marketing (seo, social media, etc.), are still following the old business model by requiring these position to be filled "in-house".

Maybe I should include this link before applying. By the way, let me know if you still need help with keyword research.

[theory expert]

What is the 5% that can't be outsourced? Why wasn't this posted in the main internet marketing discussion forum?

[Drewry_Media]

quick question for you my friend. Do you outsource all of your online marketing, including your content creation, and PPC paper click advertising? :-)

[Trevor]

Originally Posted by theory expert

What is the 5% that can't be outsourced? Why wasn't this posted in the main internet marketing discussion forum?

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.

Originally Posted by flipgrind

Thanks for the guide Trevor. Very helpful for me since I'm going to start outsourcing my works.

That's great, I wish you good luck, any questions regarding outsourcing, just let me know!

Originally Posted by Drewry_Media

quick question for you my friend. Do you outsource all of your online marketing, including your content creation, and PPC paper click advertising? :-)

I answer this question in the guide, just scroll about half way down and you'll see what I do and do not outsource.

[Ryken]

Very nice outsourcing guide Trevor. I must say this could have easily been a WSO but nonetheless. Rich with very good information and sources. Thanks for such a valuable share. Well worth the couple of minutes to read it.

[Trevor]

Originally Posted by Ryken

Very nice outsourcing guide Trevor. I must say this could have easily been a WSO but nonetheless. Rich with very good information and sources. Thanks for such a valuable share. Well worth the couple of minutes to read it.

Heh, thanks for stopping by. I thought of making a WSO out of my guide, but it was Christmas time when I was releasing it so I thought I'd give it away as a gift

[gs000707]

Thanks for sharing!

Regards,
George