Will your outsource army steal your ideas?

hehe.. true true..

Agreed completely here...

I agree that most outsourcers (is this a word?) are just contented with being employed by someone. However, there are also marketers who accept outsourcing jobs from others. I, for one, have dry days of no money coming in so I look for quick jobs that will help me pay some of my bills. Although some people will say that it's better to write an article for myself and earn money from it, than write an article for another person, get paid for it, and that person will earn much more money than what they paid for that article.

Based on my observations, people you hire may steal your ideas. I'm sure it's happening. Sometimes when someone hires me to write articles, I think "What if I use these keywords to build my own sites?" But I think it's a lazy way to make money, not to mention unethical. I'd rather work my @ss off looking for gold mine keywords than steal someone else's ideas. Makes me sleep better at night.

Filipino here... LOL. The business environment here is not as sophisticated as in other countries. You have to consider the fact that Internet penetration here is very low compared to developed countries. Most people here have no idea what Internet marketing is all about. It's mostly the rich or tech savvy Filipinos who have an idea what online business is all about, and they're the ones who don't hesitate to buy something only or try to set up an online business. The most common form of business here is the small retail store or what we call here as "sari-sari" store. Hope you'll like our country of friendly and hospitable people. :-)

I agree. Don't put all your eggs in one basket so to speak.

This is the best approach. Alternatively, learn to code yourself!

It's not so much the fact that your ideas may be stolen that causes you to diversify your work across several people, it's more to ensure that the job gets done reliably and on time.

Think about it this way - if all your work is given to just one person, what happens if they get sick, decide to quit or something else bad and unexpected happens?

You want the work to go on, and by spreading it among several people you're minimizing the risk of untoward delays/issues occurring. You can usually have the others pick up the slack in case something happens with one of them.

Paul

Why would this be an issue of stealing your ideas. Search engine optimization should not be a concern. For one you want the one doing seo work on your site to also link to other keywords. They should be able to find you even better keywords then you already had in the first place. They also typically do not go looking at your site in most cases. They will just do as you want build you your web 2.0 pages with a little info. Build your link wheels with your given keywords. Bookmark your site with the keywords you have given them and so on. I would not pay someone to ping anything for you can do that your self in a matter of seconds. However it can take some time to build accounts at rss sites and so on so it could be a good idea to have someone do this and add your rss feeds for you. For the most part though this type of work shouldnt be a problem at all.

I'm not sure why you're obsessing so much over this. Just take the plunge and do it, as has been mentioned time and time again the majority of people you will be outsourcing to have the mindset of an employee - they want a job and not a business venture. If you keep thinking like this, you'll never be able to expand your business and you'll be in a continual state of analysis paralysis.

Paul

You hire people that are to perform a function. I would purposely Not hire people that wanted to follow in my footsteps.

I do both--I have a regular employee who works full-time and then if I need something handled that doesn't fall under her or my expertise (or I'm too lazy to train or do it on my own), I find a service provider who does it well. If it gets to the point where I can keep them busy even half-time, I'll probably hire them and then have them take on some more work of mine to fill their schedule.

As for not trusting outsourcers, don't worry about it for the reasons mentioned above. Most employees are employee-mindset and that is so much more than just something people say.

I've even tried to tell people how to do what I do for themselves because I wanted to get rid of them--they didn't want to do it--they just wanted to work for me. When I finally fired them, I still gave them my entire business model to go try on their own, and they never went for it. Entrepreneurs are a unique bunch--don't ask me why.

I've also found that Filipino workers are not very likely to want to go out on their own, but I'm not an expert in their culture yet (moving there this month LOL so we'll see later)--not to mention there are many exceptions in such a populous country.

All that said, as mentioned by someone above, you should want people to have the desire to follow in your footsteps. If you're not hiring the very best at what they do because of fear, you're severely limiting your business. You should be hiring people who are better at what they do than you are and who are extremely ambitious, in my opinion.

Is there a chance of losing them? Sure. Might they adapt, improve on, and use your ideas for themselves? Sure. Are they good for your business? Absolutely.

Actually, I continually encourage my current VA to pursue her own business ideas. I regularly talk to her about businesses that would be good for her online, I've given her free hosting in my reseller account to dabble with, and I randomly give her ideas I think she should pursue if they come to me, even though it means I might lose her as an employee.

If she took my business model and ran with it, I would be more than happy with that. I like to see people take control of their lives and better themselves.

Just my take on the matter--good luck!

Cheers,
James

If you have sufficient work to outsource to a full-time employee, then that would be better as this will ultimately be cheaper in terms of what you'd pay per hour. In addition to that, having a full-time employee trained specifically by you to execute your project would be more reliable, as you wouldn't need to go out and find a new outsourcer every time you had a new project/task. You'd be dealing with a known entity, and you wouldn't have to waste time looking for a new outsourcer, interview and train them, monitor their progress, etc.

Paul

I think anyone here making say 5 figures a month
will swear by outsourcing as the reason for making
that amount.

For myself, I couldn't do what I accomplishing each
month if I didn't.

If I worried about someone stealing my ideas, I
would go crazy. If they are producing income for
you, share a little something with them.

They might work longer for you. It is a bitch always
intervering new outsourcers.

Get on with your business.