jeffsolochek

The Best way to hire somebody in a country like the Philipines is to use an escrow service. Never pay until you know that the work has been done according to your requirements.

Another way would be to use Echeck through a service like Paypal that way the worker sees that you have made a payment but the actual payment will take several days.

With one of my workers I just make a proposal as to how much the project will pay then I will make smaller payments as the worker works, usually a small payment every few days to a week.

I am only using getafreelancer.com to hire people as of now. Reason being is because the base office is in Switzerland and I have a brother that lives over there. If I can't get assistance from the getafreelancer site I will have my brother go over there in person.

maveric

Hi Jeff,

What you're talking about here IS outsourcing, but it is NOT automation. This is what John Jonas stresses and teaches so well- that is, if you're hiring a freelancer you're still doing WORK (yes, that IS work). John teaches you to AUTOMATE your processes by hiring FULL TIME outsorcers that already know what you want, and get the job done with little or (preferably) NO work on your part, after your initial investment of time. It's all about AUTOMATION.

I highly recommend checking out his blog at jonasblog dot com for more info. You can also find some great audio by searching his name with Jim Cockrum and Jack Humphrey. Hope this helps!

Eric

csm

I was looking at the page on ReplaceMyself.com with prefound freelancers who are screened and ready for hire. Has anyone hired someone via John's service?

It states on that page to send a finder's fee of $350 in order to hire someone. Is that fee only payable by people who are not already a member of replacemyself.com, i.e. can members hire the prescreened people without paying the finder's fee?

Susan

Amanda_Davis

No, the finders fee is payable by everyone.

localsearch1031

I was a member of Replacemyself.com for about two months. Solid material IMHO if you don`t want to take the time to train your staff yourself , I suggest you sign up and learn how. I have 3 people working for me from the Philippines, and yes $100/mo is not impossible however the skills and english level will vary dramatically.

I`ve been using xoom.com for a year now with no problems.

The Philippines is the new India.

fypnlp

Thought I would bump this thread.

I'm a really interested in this service.

I know you have to pay $97 to basically find out that the site he uses is bestjobs.ph.

So my quesiton is this...


Would replapceyourself.com fee stay at $97 or would i have to pay more after the 1st month. If so how much would that be?

If I wanted to leave after the 1st month would that be possible or would i be tied in for a specified time limit?

What kind of information does he provide once you are a memember of replaceyourself.com?

speak soon

TPFLegionaire

I am a member of replace myself as well as using odesk.


The way I 've interviewed people on O desk was via a 3 stage process...

I explained that there would a 2 stage interiews for a total of 2 positions

My add for a data entry clerk drew 184 applicants...I sent about 20 invites for interview...based on , bid price, cover letter (did they read and relate to my job description) and contrator profile.

12 responded , they were asked to perform a very small task (unpaid)..no more than an hours work , to test their abilities and willingness....and ability to meet dead lines.

Of these , 5 completed it successfully...

They were then given a 2 weeks paid assignment to see how they performed and communicated with me...they were competing for 2 positions...

After 2 weeks...1 had to drop for personal reasons...1 was hired by me before the end of the trial because of outstanding performance, I then chose 1 more out of the 3 left.

I paid all the loosing trialist for the maximum of hours possible for the trial even if they didn't do them all and gave them a great rating and reference , which they reciprocated

The 2 chosen persons, got given a pay rise and have been working diligently (well...somebody got to put all these backlink up...thx angela! )

I am also a member of replace myself...where I have learned a lot...but may discontinue mmbership has I seem to have gotten a handle on managing outsourced personnel (I reaaaaaly like the odesk system)

I think people should try both the replace myself tools and knowledge base as well as the odesk system for recruiting and manging contractors.

If anyone has any questions about this , feel free to PM or email.

Cheers,

mustard76

I left after one month. I thought the info was worth my one month membership. But it wasn't worth staying for more than one month.

mattsrinc

Hi, I'm writing an outsourcing report and like to include information about having tasks done beside usual outsourcing sites.

John Jonas reveals some parts of his product I haven't heard/seen before on invited video at QuickVideoMarketing site's blog (I cannot post links yet, it should be easy to find, type a domain dot com slash blog, follow Fast Track to Success link). While I found some language offensive to people from Philippines I congratulate every Internet marketer who is successful and has found a way to enrich his life and spends more time with his family.

I am asking about relations of Philippine workers with people who are not from USA. Jonas emphasizes this trust to USA citizens and I wonder if anyone other non-US marketer has good experience with smart people from Philippines.

I hope I'm not rude to anyone, it's just a social and human nature question. Writing for international audience cannot include only data by people from US.

BTW if the site info where (hipotheticaly) I hire people would be leaked I would stop emphasizing non disclosure of it.

silverbax

I hire people for $2-$4 an hour, sometimes even in the US, all the time through oDesk. Not sure why I would pay someone to tell me how to do that. It's cake.

johnjonas

Just a quick update for everyone.

The site I hire people is BestJobs.ph.

About 5 months ago the owners of BestJobs.ph decided to close down new registrations. For now, the only way I know of to get access to the contact information there is through replacemyself.com. All members get access to both BestJobs.ph and to OnlineJobs.ph, which is the recruiting site I own.

krishnaGopal

he's stuff is really good and he tells it how it is!

mustard76

Your review sounds too positive to be believable. Please tell us more detail about how you found your employee and what difficulties you had to overcome. What type of work is your employee doing?

Charles Harper

Hi John:

When you were out in San Diego in late August (great presentation by the way), it was not certain as to whether or not we would get access to both sites. So as of now, you are saying that both onlinejobs.ph and your site are both part of the $97 fee? Or do those who are part of your site have to pay extra for your site as well as the $97/mo replace yourself fee.

Charles

Wonderbaum

I know this might be a little off topic but I hope it is okay.

I've been hiring people from the Philippines for about 6 months and I have had to go through several of them and haven't found a writer yet that is able to write article in proper English.

I know that trying out 5 different people isn't much but I can't help but get the feeling that "good English" in the Philippines is like "good English" in India. It might work and you might be able to make yourself understood but it is definitely not for US/UK articles to be posted on serious websites.

Has anyone else had this experience and/or does anyone have any tips on how to test these writers before wasting too much of your time?

/Mikael

Chris Thompson

g, Guys - this thread was started a while ago and I' replying here because I'm just listening to John's free recording right now.

It's awesome.

I woke up at my hotel in San Diego and I'm 3 hours behind my time zone so I woke up at 5am and just figured I'd do some work.

John followed me on Twitter and I automatically followed him back as per the setup I have on Twitter. I bet his assistant in the Philippines followed me on his behalf, probably with the instruction of following people who might benefit from his system. A direct hit!

Anyway, I lke the message he gives. Simple video squeeze page, AWESOME audio content for free with the opt-in and it has me seriously thinking that I'd be an idiot not to try out his $97 monthly program. Heck, if I can hire someone for a full month at $250-300 then this fee is small potatoes.

Check it out ... I already pay for outsourcing with:

1) Angela's and PJ's backlinking. $150 monthly for probably 10 hours of work.

2) Elance spending ... perhaps 150 per month. total.

These things probably get me 20 - 30 hours of actual work per month by different people, and is a management issue for me. It would be better to have a full timer doing all of this, and learning.

So I'm already paying what it would cost to hire someone full time in PH. I'm just going to do it and see how it goes.

mustard76

[edit] I removed the link because John Jonas accused me of being an affiliate. I'm not.

I highly recommend checking out My Out Source Method (Google it).

They take a more complete approach to teaching people about outsourcing than John Jonas. Their webinar last night was fantastic. The recorded webinar is available here: Outsourcing Secrets Video | Affilorama

I'm not an affiliate. I just really liked their webinar.

Jonas J

Then why link to a cloaked domain?

mustard76

Why do you say it's a cloaked domain? I just posted the URL they gave in the webinar. Maybe I just don't understand what a cloaked domain is.

I removed the link from my first post to make you happy, even though it wasn't my affiliate link.

Ryce

Is ReplaceMyself.com focused on the Philippines market only?

mustard76

ReplaceMyself.com recommends outsourcing to VAs in the Philippines. I agree with this recommendation because I've had good luck with Filipino VAs.

Ryce

Hi Mustard,

I watched the outsourcemethod web seminar also a few months ago.

It seems that they have a 10 day for $1 offer going on. (not affiliate either) and would like to know how they compare to Jonas John product.

????

mustard76

I'd like to know too. I haven't been inside MyOutsourceMethod. But, you can find out what's inside for a buck. Write a review here if you do.

spartanic

In case anyone is wondering I just posted a review of Replacemyself at my blog site here:

[sorry spartanic your review is with affiliate links. please post your review here]

I've been using their service for about 6 months now and so far everything has been going great.

Definitely read my review first and see if its for you.

Greg guitar

This site seems like dynamite, but I'm not too thrilled about the "1 topic per month" aspect. Does he archive past months so you can look through and find the thing/s you really need? If not, it seems like it might not help all that much, especially if you want to outsource a complex job, and might need to train the person in three different subjects, none of which are on that month's agenda. How do you deal with that?

Amanda_Davis

Yes, the previous months are available too.

You can also purchase extra months for $97/month up front, so you don't have to wait.

In my view, there's better training available elsewhere, though.

Chris Thompson

So is John drip-feeding content to us, i.e, if I was to sign up today and you were to sign up in 6 months, and then one day we both log on at the same time, would I have 6 months more "content" than you available to me?

If so, I am not sure I like the model, but I can see how he likes it as it is a nicely automated income generator.

Still ... the big picture here is that at $300 per month or so, for an outsourcer (or maybe 2), it's NOT a big amount of money. Not much to lose here.

Emmanuel Betinis

Yes. That's why I purchased his offer of all modules in one shot for a single discounted price.


Me too. That's why I went with his Platinum package.


That's what I thought too. I'm enjoying having a VA now.

Chris Thompson

Emmanuel - thanks so much for your reply. I didn't know he had a platinum package. Does it give you perpetual access to the sites for hiring?

How long did it take you to hire someone start to finish, and how many did you interview?

Guys - FYI, thumbs up on Emmanuel's voice over work. He is outstanding.

Emmanuel Betinis

Yes. I've PM'ed you.

Yes.

About a week; it started out just going through a bunch of profiles in my price range (100+) by quickly glancing at them, then picked about 25 out of the bunch to contact, then ended up with like 3-5 candidates, then tested one at a time with a difficult first task before hiring, then hired the first candidate. I didn't even have to test the other 3-5 because the first one I tested passed good enough and she's been with me for about a month now.

cscarpero

I'm finally "replacing myself" with someone from the Ph. Honestly, I don't think John's service is needed. I think that Odesk is a much better option. I get reviews and screening and a transparent billing system.

I've been outsourcing for a while now and the most important thing is to find someone who can follow directions and is TEACHABLE. You can't find this from a resume. You need to try them out and see what they can do.

If you find someone on Odesk you really like, increase their workload. They will drop their other projects if you pay them fairly and treat them well.

Greg guitar

Amanda, do you have any information about what the screening process consists of? Do you know if the prescreened people would be way better than what you could do on your own, just a little better, or could you do just as well by having a good interview/tryout process of your own?

I've heard some of John's advice on how to hire, so I wonder if the $350 is just a luxury for those who don't want to go to the trouble of interviewing and auditioning?

Any insight you have on this would be appreciated.

Also, does anyone know if it's possible to find decent telephone salespeople from there? It would be great to replace myself for cold calling!

Emmanuel Betinis

Exactly.

I want someone to work for me full time with no other "projects" going on for other employers without having to feel pressured into overloading them just to move me into their higher priority queue. That's what I love about BestJobs.ph that Jonas includes with any level of membership. In my opinion, having that worker loyalty is worth the price for my business.


In my opinion, you can do just as well by having your own screening/testing process.

Exactly.

Chris Thompson

Update from me: I joined ReplaceMyself and I just took the up-front pro outsourcing package that costs $697 with no recurring fees ever again. I'm GLAD I did this. It seems like a lot of money, but it's 2 months pay for a good employee (maybe 3 months). Small potatoes to my future.

I am currently recruiting one person. I haven't hired because I went through ALL of John's training material for module 1 (the only module that's for you ... all others are for your employees). GREAT education.

I emailed about 12 candidates with salary expectations ranging from $100 to $300 per month. I got 6 replies within 12 hours and the girl asking for $100/month actually had decent English. Unbelievable.

I'm certainly hiring someone here. Then after I am confident I have full time work for them, I'm hiring another, etc. I have so much to do.

I'm a knowledge worker. I think of idea after idea, and I need implementation help. That's why $697 up front was worth it. I will never have to create a training video to teach someone Adwords.

So yeah, John charges a nice chunk of coin for this service but you guys all need to be thinking about opportunity cost if you create training material yourself. Those hours could be spent coming up with your next money making idea, or actually sending instructions to your employees.

My one question for ReplaceYourself MEMBERS is this: Are you paying people in constant USD per month, or are you calculating what amount of USD to pay such that your employee gets a consistent payment in Philippine Pesos per month? In other words, who bears the foreign exchange variation?

csm

Can you give an idea of what topics are covered in the videos? I had sent a pre-sales query to ReplaceMyself a while back, because I wanted to know if they had training videos I could give my outsourced workers for various tasks and specific software and/or applications. At the time, they didn't cover what I needed, but were very vague as to exactly what was covered.

If I want to hire someone to outsource link building with the tools I currently use, for example, it doesn't help if they don't have videos to cover those applications (eg. Linkvana, AMA/MAN, Backlink Solutions, etc.). So I was hoping to get a list of exactly what their videos do cover.

Susan

Emmanuel Betinis

I pay mine in constant Peso. That way she gets exactly she expects and the amount that she agreed upon in the contract each month.

Chris Thompson

Susan - you are certainly not going to get training videos for every tool that you use. The training is to get someone up to speed on the basics of this BUSINESS. They often don't know much about this IM stuff and need to be educated on:

- Adwords
- Link building
- SEO
- Article marketing
- Wordpress, etc

What you get from John is a MODEL for training someone, and it all gets hosted inside your own personal installation of project management software. Each training module is a "project" and you can create your own projects and make your own training (or have it made for you by someone else, etc).

Say you buy an ebook or video series that trains someone on Linkvana. You could link to that ebook / video in your project so your worker will see it and be able to use it.

I like four aspects of the program.
1) The training on how to hire and manage people
2) The training for the WORKERS
3) The access to resumes
4) The project management tools.

I hired my first guy. Just last night I got his acceptance email.

mrxxg

Hi Guys,

Have anyone of you worried that VAs will learn what you are doing and start their own business once is ready?? Do do you avoid that or control it not to happen?

Thanks,
Elmer

Charles Harper

You cannot worry about that, nor can you control it. The way that you keep high barriers to entry in any market is to improve your product at light speed with the things that matter to folks and then raise the price for new members.

That means then that people are not only getting your product or membership but they have locked themselves in at a low price to something that is going to continuously improve. I think you have to make it so that they would be crazy to leave something that they bought at lets say $17/mo; where others pay $37/mo and it really worth $97/mo.

Then nothing depends on what your outsourcer knows. If he copies you, fire him. He will not be able to re-create your continuous improvement.

CT

mustard76

I have a different perspective on this issue. I have noticed that the filipinos I have worked with are not interested in starting their own businesses. They would rather work a steady job, collect a pay check and work hard for pay increases.

Based on my limited experience this appears to be a cultural trait and an advantage to outsourcing in the PH.

Also, make sure that no one VA learns enough of your business to replicate your entire business.

bestjr73

great!LOL finally, it had been a blessing in disguise to arrive in this thread.: )

Yeah! I also came from that third world country you guys have been talking about.You can absolutely outsource your work to them and they will actually work as VA of yours..

We are like online factory workers trying to pump out mountains of work for pennies and taken advantage off..LMFAO

IMHO, I even recommend myself.. and price is negotiable.. Job here is difficult to find. And it is inculcated in some of our minds that stepping into the world of Internet Marketing will be able to help us.

Even $3-5 per hour is already a blessing for us..

That's all for now.

All the best..

KUDOS!!

Bernz

marklyford

Hi Guys

Just found this post. Im looking to hire 4 people asap. 3 web masters (link building adding content to wordpress etc etc ) and one VA. Ive got access to Replace Myself. But if any of you have systems, videos, questionnaires, flow chart etc etc that you use for your VAs it would be great to hear from you .

Thanks all

Mark

dingleigofai

Replace Myself is awesome. I have been a member there for about 8 months, and I could not live without it... Just to give you an idea... I have negotiated a deal with a education company to get 20% f their sales, so I told one of my filipinos to build me a review site for it...

Well. he went above and beyond... he built the site, found the competitors, wrote reviews of the competitors, AND BEST OF ALL, signed up as affiliate for the other companies for me also!!! I was so impressed with this. he could have signed up as affiliate for himself, put his link up, and I never would have known, but NO. he signed me up for them! And these are affiliate sites that pay hundreds of dollars per sale.

I easily expect to make $5k/month from this site, and I have done NOTHING.

Replacemyself is awesome... seriously.

danny12592

how exactly does one judge how many hours a given task is supposed to take?
if you tell someone to build a review site for example, they could spend anywhere from an hour to a few days.
backlinking submissions can also just be an hour or a full day...how are we to judge?

marklyford

Hey danny,, its a difficult thing I guess. you just have to judge how long it would take you , and add a % on accordingly ?

ebent

I joined his program for about a month and I hired an excellent programmer and VA from his referral program (I could have doen this myself). I enjoyed working with them and my productivity has increase since I hired them.

Ernesto

marklyford

Hi ebent

How many people did you have to interview to find these two people ?

best Regards

Mark

Emmanuel Betinis

Do it yourself first. Then you'll know.

Keep a log book with how long it takes you to do certain tasks.

Come on, it's not that hard. Afterall, you'll only have to do it
once. Then let them do it 234,453,246 times.

1medic

Hmm, now this sounds like heap plenty wisdom. Test first, measure, employ them to scale for you.

I finally listened to the free audio on the site and was mighty impressed. The content-filled audio didn't try to manipulate me which I greatly appreciate. It explained a few valuable things also.

I'm still not 100% sure my business model is a fully scalable one yet. I'll execute a bit on my own (with short term freelancers) before signing up to his site. I'd probably prefer the lifetime fee thing also (a bit pricey).

cheers,
Luke

Flierboy

Yes do it yourself first. Record the how much time it took you.

THEN multiply that by 4. That's how much time an outsourced staff will take, and the work will not nearly be same quality level as yours :-) Factor that in as well.

Not saying outsourcing is all bad. Just watch out some caveats, plan for them, and have realistic expectations.