Outsourcing your ENTIRE offline business?

What's your plan of attack for lead generation? Purely telemarketing?

You already have a solid framework for a business plan. Take some initial action and see the results you get. If you don't get the results you want, start tweaking every variable that you've already stated in your post such as the price, the telemarketer etc. until you achieve success.

It's great that you're starting with a system in mind. This will work. You just have to find the correct prices, employees, and outsourcing team. Get off the forum and start tweaking your system

Hey HazeBlazer,
I clicked this because I thought it might be information about outsourcing, however it wasn't and I am even more glad I clicked it. I have also fantasized about the idea, and took action. I currently have one 5-8 Monday to Friday telemarketer and one lead generator working one hour per day seven days per week. I tried to originally hire commission only, as I was worried about risking money I didn't really have, however I find I got much better results when offering an hourly wage, and my telemarketer is amazing. Anyhow I find that this combination is perfect, as the tele marketer calls approximately 100 people in an eight hour shift, and the lead generator generates 100 targeted leads per hour, so they basically work together very well. I plan on continuing to grow the amount of people I have working for me very slowly, as I work out exactly how everything works together, as this is my first time doing this type of thing.
I definitely believe you can do this, I mean I'm finding success and I'm just fourteen!

If you want to add me on Skype - dylan.hubel.motiv

the salespeople should make more than web designer

I literally do what you posted about.


If you have any questions, let me know.

Couple of things you forgot:

- Customer support: Business owners wants to tweak here and there, make changes, revisions etc.
You can hire an online phone support for that, for let's say $2k/month.

- Usually telemarketers don't want commission-only jobs, they need some sort of salary. Even if you hire them part-time, it will cost $1k/month upward.

- Payments: you don't want to send out invoices and collect payments? if that's too much work for you, you can hire a VA from $300/month (overseas).

Of course, you need someone you can trust to login to your paypal account.

Oh and by the way, you need a telemarketer and a phone support which understand a bit about web design .. so you won't be over promised and under deliver.

Now, from time to time, your outsourcer will quit or unavailable for any reason, if you don't want to look for a replacement, you can hire a VA manager.

It can be done.

I believe a good rule of thumb is to hire people to do tasks that you don't want to do but that you are able to do. It's so much easier to hire people to take over these tasks when you are intimately familiar with them. Have you considered starting the business doing everything yourself and then allowing other tasks to be outsourced as you get too busy? It's very easy to count chickens and play hypotheticals about how much you CAN sell but may be much more difficult to actually sell and manage that much until you get into the trenches.

You should ask yourself: AM I COMPETENT? Will I be LEADER with my skills?

If you dont answer positively to these questions you would end up in a situation where your employees know more than you do. First educate yourself on every job and get your hands dirty...then start outsourcing...

First of all let me say that I have never done anything like you describe, however I see no reason why it couldn't be accomplished.

If I were going to, I'd probably tackle the idea from several angles.
As with any new project , especially new to you projects, I would do my due diligence in research. I would, from my own knowledge, make a list of the steps in setting up what business you are considering. Lets say web design. What elements are necessary? For example:

• Design Platform-Dream Weaver, Front Page, xSitePro, Word Press etc.
• Graphic design- Complex like Photoshop or simpler..
• Copywriting
• SEO
• Etc.,etc.

Then I would put together a mastermind of some warriors for example with skills in these areas. I would ask them to help formulate a list of the basic elements of their expertise. All this so you have a basic knowledge of what you need in an outsourcer and be able to evaluate if they know what they claim to.


Then start looking for people who can provide you with these services. Ask them about their fees, experience and references. Find services for all the steps determined in your mastermind.


Decide what kind of minimum profit margin you would like. 12%, 35%, 40%, 50%, X%??? If you say I don't know. This is best answer for the 1st time out. You could ask others. But why would what makes them happy, necessarily make you happy? So lets figure this out.


You have a pile of info now from all the research you did. Now lets analyze it form a cost/profit stand point.


Pick a PM say 12%. you have some fees for service quoted to yo so just plus them by 12%. Go though every thing from Domain name to eCommerce fees. A-Z . Look at the final cost and say, can I sell this at this price and if I do how much will I make? Then try 30% but this time just plus the total of all costs because you can dig that out of the former exercise. Then plus 50% etc.


You now have something to evaluate and a heck of a lot more knowledge if your fantasy, if realistic, is doable. You can play with variables in different PM's in different steps.


This is the way I usually work out all my business venture ideas and when deciding to out source various activities. It's basic problem solving not rocket science. If you decide to just go for it with out your due diligence all I can say is you are doing something that most successful people don't do.


My opinions only,
ld Dog

A few tips:

$100 probably isn't enough to attract an able salesperson. Even if they do make a sale a day, that's insufficient $$ to meet their income needs.

You will almost assuredly have to burn through a few bad apples of telemarketers, designers, programmers etc. to get to the good ones. Be ready for this. Hire slow, fire fast. Their failures reflect back 100% on YOU.

Taxes could be an issue. They're 1099s and you cannot tell them when or how to do the work. All you can do is set expectations and deadlines. This lack of direct control can be unnerving.

Getting a qualified VA or Support personnel should cost you around $400-$500 in the Philippines, that's if you want to get the competent ones...

Start "doing" instead.

A wealth of knowledge from all. I guess that if you put everyone's ideas together, then you'll have a pretty good starting point to go by.

I would definitely have a plan in place in the event that the outsourcing sources do not deliver the quality you expect - this is a common issue and could potentially leave you in a bad position. You want to be completely hands off and that is a model that can work well, provided that you have good people in place. Since the model is so dependent on having good people in place, make sure you have a safety net in place in case someone falls through so that your entire business does not crumble - good luck!

I'm gaining knowledge

That's an excellent goal to aim for.
Probably, it's best to approach it in a step-by-step manner
so that as you progress with your plan, you eliminate
first one task through outsourcing. Then move on to the
next task to be outsourced, until you've accomplished as
much as is possible.

Thanks! I really appreciate that, and yes, I hope you can take any information possible and become successful. If you'd like to talk about my recent experiences, I can provide tips from my mistakes over Skype :
dylan.hubel.motiv

I am finding everyone on oDesk. I find it easier to use and find people vs Gurus.com and eLance. Craigslist didn't work out for me. And yes I am paying them hourly full time. Took me a while to finally come to the realization it is completely necessary to pay hourly for a decent telemarketer but I have come to that conclusion.

It's good that you made some projections as for the economic aspect, but you need to take things further by making a detailed project proposal and more accurate calculations. You just need to consider things such as inflation, depreciation, fixed costs, variable costs, and you have to be realistic with your projections on the amount of money you can make. Along with this, you need to start considering the different possibilities you can try out with outsourcing your telemarketing and web design to see which would best work for you.

outsourcing is the best way, but be very picky so both of you will grow together.

It's a great idea. I started doing this myself... Getting the design job, creating the website, SEO, loading it up... I got so busy that I checked out oDesk. I have used the same kid to help me with design and someone else for off page SEO. I still have my hands in it all, and it is work to manage a small team, but well worth it. So far all my work is by word of mouth and I'm finally caught up to start taking on new jobs now that I have a small team to help me.

Your idea is good but to make it happen the way you want it would be near impossible. Why? because you will single handedly have to deal with ALL these people and trust me it would drive you up the wall very soon.

My solution is for you to get a PROJECT MANAGER for your projects. Pay this guy/guys handsomely and let him worry about your outsourcing team.

Basically, you will have to deal only with your project manager and he in return have to answer to you about the impending projects.

Hope that helps.

Qamar

Theoretically this will work and DOES work in reality given a few variables here and there..., but just tweak the expectations. In other words, sometimes a TM wont show up for work , or they will have a bad day, at least 2 days a week you will be missing at least ONE person from your crew... the pistons dont all fire at once... Sometimes customers want redesigns and you have to pay your designer more... all kinds of stuff.

Have you figured costs for auto dialers? Leads?

This plan is how it works. Fantastic. Its classic, just tweak your numbers expectations a bit and lowball your figures as far as you can to where it still looks good... Then you will out perform your expectations.

If I plan to hire 5 I only project on the production of 3, to carry the expense of the whole five and still profit. Thats wise.

The only thing I see wrong with this is expectations management because the numbers dont leave any room for error.

Its best to plan for 5 telemarketers and build your projections based on two of them not performing everyday. Then you have something.

Project at only 50% of what you think you can really do... You can manipulate the numbers by increasing telemarketers, price, lowering web design cost... Whatever, but put some cushion in there.

Plan for at least 30% more costs or less production... If you can still profit based on that then go for it, you may have a successful formula. If the costs dont come, or the TMS perform better than you expected on some days, you out do yourself!

Good luck!

You can do it but your pricing is just a race to the bottom and even though you plan to outsource the entire operation you paying yourself like an employee and not like a business owner.

The price you put in your first post places you in the, "we are cheap category" and if you continue down that path you'll never be able to raise your pricing in your area because you'll be known for being cheap.

LET ME BE CLEAR HERE: I recently purposed a project for a relatively simple 6 page site with a custom WP theme, mobile site, custom FB fan page, and a new brand, for $6500 dollars. That doesn't even include deployment or content.
Guess what happened?
My prospect went elsewhere and paid MORE for the EXACT same specifications.

You aren't charging enough money.