This is a guest post by Justin Brooke. Justin writes some great articles over at SiteFling and I asked him if he wouldn’t mind doing a guest post on oursourcing.
I think you’ll agree that there is always more work, but not always more time. I mean you can always think of another task to do but you can’t always just get another hour.
That’s why it’s so important to systematize your work, outsource it, and repeat with as many of your tasks as you can. When you do this you get more time out of your days and your business starts to scale.
For example, let’s say you have 12 traffic generation methods that you have to manage. If those traffic tactics take you 2-3 hours each day to update, manage, or tweak then that’s 2-3 hours everyday that you’ll never get back.
However, if you can record a video of yourself doing these tasks you can almost always teach someone else to do them. If you have someone else doing these tasks for you, now you’ve just gained 2-3 hours per day that you can dedicate to more traffic methods or other income producing tasks.
Repeat that process just 3-4 times and you could be getting whole days worth of more time to add new growth strategies to your business. What could you do with an extra day worth of time per week?
This is how I’ve grown my business past the point of my competitors being able to keep up. I’m just simply able to out work them because I have more man hours to play with.
Here’s my process, so you can duplicate it…
1.) Go to http://manila.craigslist.com.ph, that’s the Craigslist section for the largest city in the Philippines. You’re going to post an add for a virtual assistant or technical assistant or whatever title you want to call it.
2.) Tell them you are looking for someone with strong Internet skills, able to use excel spreadsheets, and read/write in good English. Tell them you will provide training and give them a description of the tasks they will be performing. Then offer them 20,000php ($400 USD) per month.
Example:
Virtual Assistant Needed For Internet Company
I’m looking to hire and train someone to do the majority of our
Internet based advertising tasks. The job will pay 20,000php
per month and reading/writing in English is required.
You should have good knowledge of excel spreadsheets and be
able to do basic tasks like email, web browsing, and Internet research.
Your daily tasks will be:
- Researching new keywords
- Repetitive form submission
- Analyzing performance statistics
- Logging statistics into spreadsheets
- Creating performance reports
- Tracking growth of performance
- Must be able to work 8 hours per day (night or day is your choice)
- Must be logged into Skype for all 8 hours
Again we will provide video training on all these task, but you should
be comfortable with the type of work before you apply. If you are
interested please email us at xxxx@gmail.com with your resume and
a paragraph explaining why you are better then the rest of the applicants.
We will not hire anyone who is not willing to tell us why they are not
better then the rest of the applicants. We’re looking for superstar
employees only, please don’t apply if that’s not you.
3.) Once they reply to your ad you setup an interview them over Skype and ask them the basic interview questions. Things like what happened to make you not be working at your last job? Tell me about a problem you had to solve at your last job and what you did to solve it? If you were stuck on a task and didn’t know how to finish it would you email me for help or just do it wrong?
4.) If they pass your interview by answering your questions the way you like now you should ask them to do a small test project to see how they perform. If they are not willing to do this I DO NOT HIRE THEM. The test could be something simple like go to Google, find the Google Adwords Keyword Tool, when you get there type in any topic about [your niche here] and create a spreadsheet with the ten keywords that have the “most searches per month.”
5.) If they pass the test to your likings then you hire them and give them training videos. The way I create my training videos are with Jing.com (free) or Camtasia (paid). I basically, just record myself doing the task and talking out loud about what/why I am doing. Make sure you tell them to take detailed notes about the videos when they watch them. This is so you know they watched them and what they learned.
6.) After you have given them the training it’s time for a practice run. This would be on a sample campaign, something you don’t want to go live right away. The reason for the practice run is to see how well they perform and if there is anything you need to help them figure out that they or you might have missed in the training.
7.) Finally after the practice run has gone well… You give them a live campaign to run.
Tips For The Long Term
Managing The Daily Tasks
Having to manage your assistants everyday takes time away from you and that defeats the point of having them working for you. this is why we use project management software like Basecamp or DeskAway.com.
With DeskAway.com we can give create multiple users and assign projects to them with task lists. Our assistants know that everyday they are to login to Skype and then login to DeskAway. Without even having to ask us anything they just get started on their task lists assigned in DeskAway.com. Sometimes 3-4 days will go by without me ever having to talk to my assitants but the work is getting done.
There is even room in DeskAway for them to uload any files associated with each project. Thats where they upload any reports or spreadsheets dealing with that project so we can see what has been done each day.
Finally there is a place for them to log how many hours they worked for each task so we can assess how well they are performing. We often offer bonuses if they complete tasks faster then the day before or they get get a certain number more tasks done in a whole week.
Paying Your New Assitants
With Xoom.com you can have a paycheck delivered right to a Filipino assitants door! You can even fil your Xoom account with Paypal and make it really easy. It’s your choice whether you pay monthly, bi-weekly, or weekly. Some of our assitants prefer bi-weekly and some prefer weekly.
Official Paperwork
I am not a lawyer and you should seek legal advice to find out the right way to things. However, we make each new employee sign an aggreement that they are being paid as a sub-contractor providing a service to us. Then we just give them a 1099 for tax purposes.
That’s pretty much everything you need to know about getting started with outsourcing. We have our assitants doing everything from writing articles, building landing pages, building backlinks, sending emails to potential partners, and even helping us contact popular bloggers for a spot as a guest post! 
If you have any questions about this stuff or want more traffic tips then head on over to my blog at http://www.sitefling.com/blog we write daily about topics that make your websites kick ass. Or you can hit me up on Twitter http://twitter.com/JustinBrooke, I’m pretty active and answer just about every @ that comes my way. I’d love to get to know some of you.
Hope you’ve enjoyed this post, and I’ll stick around to answer any questions that come up in the comments section below.
Go Bigger,
Justin Brooke
- Comment Likes 
- Comment Dislikes
February 2, 2010 at 3:08 am
Great article. I want to try your ideas.
January 24, 2010 at 11:28 pm
A lot of people from that country is well educated and they could do the same quality job for small budget
December 10, 2009 at 1:41 am
This is really nice post. Got to know new things so far!
November 17, 2009 at 8:42 am
Great ideas – I am at this stage now with my business. It is sometimes difficult to let go of certain tasks but your comments about never getting the time back really resonated with me.
Guess its time to outsource
Thanks for the article
Regards
Sue
November 19, 2009 at 10:53 pm
Yes, outsourcing is a great way for you to free up valuable time. This is a great article! I have found that Filipinos are great people to outsource to. Not only are they cheap, they are also intelligent and speak great english.
You can try and look for Filipinos to hire at easyoutsource.com. It is a fairly new site and the workers there are all Filipinos.
Good luck on your outsourcing!
November 1, 2009 at 6:27 pm
This is a great article. I was wondering how to even start to go about outsourcing my seo work and this step-by-step guide is a great help. Is Manilla the best city to approach, or are there any others you would recommend?
September 16, 2009 at 5:58 pm
For those worried about the possible problems one might face with outsourcing.
Just think about the problems you have faced and overcome already in your online business.You learn from your mistakes as you go along.
Experience is the best teacher you can ever have.
August 28, 2009 at 7:22 am
It’s a precise and informative article. Things are formed symptom less. Get to know lot’s of artifact which were unbeknownst to me. It’s truly one of the most facilitative article I get ever read. Thanks for to percentage sensing for author from you. Symmetrical I bookmarked this diplomat as asymptomatic for to get supply from it in incoming.
August 27, 2009 at 3:56 am
Hi justin, I can feel that you have put in hard efforts. Good job!!
August 15, 2009 at 2:42 am
Excellent post.I always use DP for outsourcing.
July 18, 2009 at 5:44 am
Great stuff…
June 26, 2009 at 6:12 am
A fairly informative article, thanks. I think keyword research and optimization is still one of the most important a new business owner must figure out.
Cheers
Eric
June 20, 2009 at 10:50 am
I think outsourcing will be huge and the webmasters who get it right, will own the web.
Moe Bedard
June 6, 2009 at 5:23 am
This was an interesting way to Outsourcing. Though I have been associated with the outsourcing industry for some time now, I have never struck with such an idea. It is a simple and cost-effective way to get your work done.
June 2, 2009 at 2:36 am
Now days India best known for cheap outsourcing services..
May 22, 2009 at 5:54 pm
I am going to get an assitant next week, or maybe the next one. Thanks for the great post.
Nick
May 13, 2009 at 11:20 pm
have to admit my initial reaction is that paying someone 25% of what you would pay someone else for the same quality work seems like a ripoff to them regardless of what the wage is…I don’t have any problem with it, but I’m not sure I would do it myself
June 6, 2009 at 5:28 am
I can understand your reaction. But the fact is that all outsourcing companies are getting their work done at almost 25% of what they would pay as wages in their country. But that is what business is all about – a benefit that globalization has brought in.
The most important point here is that even if the wage is about 25% of the actual, it is huge money for the people in that country and they would be more than happy to work at that wages. Hence it is no rip-off.
May 13, 2009 at 8:43 pm
Nice…nice…yet, another informative post!
May 9, 2009 at 8:05 pm
It’s very simple post but has quality thanks Justin i will apply this technique
May 8, 2009 at 11:07 pm
Finally! I can’t tell you how many places I have looked just to find the 1 or 2 tidbits I needed to implement outsourcing in my business.
Thanks
Jae
May 1, 2009 at 2:15 am
It’s really great advice and awesome post by you. It has great opportunity for all whom seeking for some new in SEO.
May 6, 2009 at 8:17 pm
I enjoyed reading this post guest blogger it was very helpful information this is a must for anyone that wants to make money online
April 30, 2009 at 11:16 pm
Nice post. How and why do you use Skype?
January 28, 2010 at 12:25 am
Because Skype is the best tool for instantly contacting someone in a foreign country.
April 29, 2009 at 7:22 am
Crazy,
I need mass produce sewing do you think that this would work for that too? Although there are some factors that go into it, like material, and need of a sewing machine… but I bet it would work. It’s worth a try!
Thanks!
April 26, 2009 at 5:28 pm
I posed your job description and got flagged and eliminated from CL, any thoughts on why?
Your posting has been flagged for removal.
Approximately 98% of postings removed are in violation of craigslist posting guidelines.
Please make sure you are abiding by all posted site rules, including our terms of use:
http://www.craigslist.org/about/terms.of.use.html
If you need help figuring out why your posting was flagged, try asking in our flag help forum: http://forums.craigslist.org/?forumID=3. Include posting title, body, category, city, how often posted, any images, HTML markup, etc.
If your posting was wrongly flagged down (2% of flagged ads are) please accept our apologies and feel free to repost.
Sorry for the hassle, and thanks for your understanding.
April 23, 2009 at 11:09 pm
But will you please tell us why did you choose only Philippines when there are many other Asian countries as well. For an example India is also providing top quality service at cheap rates.
You have certainly explained these things in a simple way. Will you please show us some training videos of yours so that I can also create them to hire other people.
April 27, 2009 at 8:44 pm
you do make a great point there I was wondering why myself
January 28, 2010 at 12:27 am
He was just saying that’s what he uses. If you want to use another country, do it. The rest of the article is still applicable. He didn’t say, “Only use the Philippines”.
April 23, 2009 at 12:16 am
Hi Justin, I am also doing this things. I hire two agents in one of the top outsourcing company their in the Philippines and I surely attest that they do a great job.
April 24, 2009 at 9:59 pm
are you doing exactly what jeremy stated in his post. It sounds like his advice is really paying off for you i hope it works out for you.
April 22, 2009 at 12:08 pm
I have tried to outsource to both India and the Philippines with no luck.
I tried using both craigslist and outsourcing companies, both of which failed miserably at simple tasks like link submitting.
I ended up training a friend up in Vancouver to do what I need. Costs a little more but I am definitely getting what I pay for.
Just my 2 cents.
–Chubbs
April 24, 2009 at 10:02 pm
you are really lucky that you found success with jeremy’s advice and that it seems like you are doing well i’m looking to do the same thing but i don’t know if i should use the Philippines because you said it didn’t work out
April 22, 2009 at 4:11 am
There are many advantages to using a virtual assistant. I am documenting my experience on my site, and posted a few more relevant links, including a podcast from AJ Jacobs about outsourcing. For my personalized view, take a look at this post: http://www.arrowrootmedia.com/2009/04/17/outsourcing-your-work-life-my-outsourced-life/. In fact, even this comment has been outsourced and posted by my virtual assistant.”
April 21, 2009 at 9:11 pm
pretty good suggestion but you have to found such a capable person. I am trying to do the same currently but in this case I have to teach everything from A-Z to this person.
April 21, 2009 at 7:06 pm
Great post. Thanks for the how-to!
I’ve been considering hiring some offshore article writers from digitalpoint but there are challenges in finding someone with sufficient english skills for the task.
This process allows you to test the waters before-hand. I like it.
April 21, 2009 at 5:47 pm
I think this method is good, but $400 is abit above my price range. Seems like a very formal way of doing and you are also getting a good worker to outsource to. Saying that $400 for the amount they may be doing is not much…which slightly concerns me
April 21, 2009 at 5:01 pm
Thanks i was really looking for these kind of assistants for driving traffic for my site.
April 21, 2009 at 2:58 pm
The use of online virtual assistants is a very worthwhile venture to look into. Although it doesn’t work for everyone – they are many pros to outsourcing. Great post, thanks for sharing.
April 21, 2009 at 9:38 am
How do you stop people stealing your ideas? I do everything myself because I am so paranoid of people knowing how I make money. I even have a part time job so people can I see I have an income stream. If people knew how much money I was making I would be scared they’d reverse engineer my sites. I don’t think I’d outsource traffic generation.
April 21, 2009 at 2:11 am
This is truly Professional post on getting your work done by outsourcing work to the expert free lancers who knows what they are doing. This will actually help readers to manage their websites by sending work to some one else. One can actually plan to make more number of blogs or websites if the Traffic outsourcing is strong enough. Once you see the results coming out i am sure more and more outsourcing will start taking place & I am surely going to outsource all of my Traffic work from here on.
Thanks a ton for sharing such a helpful post on outsourcing work.
April 20, 2009 at 12:51 pm
This is a great article, it will help me to develop my skills in order to generate traffic, here I can get and learn awesome techniques to generate traffic. My recommendation to anyone is that follow the topics that you can get for this article and everything will become very easy to anyone.
April 20, 2009 at 3:27 am
Great advice, however im still at the stage where im perfecting my traffic generating techniques. Its no good outsourcing if you haven’t figured out how to do it yourself
April 19, 2009 at 3:23 am
The thing is to develop those traffic generation methods … outsourcing is the last step.
April 19, 2009 at 2:47 am
Hi Justin, thanks for the mention of our country Philippines.
With the current low costs of labor here, there are a lot of outsourcing companies sprouting here. Even the biggest multinational companies like Manulife, Baker & McKenzie, Dell, etc. have each set up their own outsourcing hub headquarters here in the Philippines.
A lot of clients of outsourcing companies prefer to outsource their work here in Philippines because we do have the right talent at a fraction of the cost compared to some countries.
With the current economic downturn, I am sure a lot of companies prefer to outsource their work so as to cut costs.
By the way, nice post you got here!
April 18, 2009 at 6:02 pm
Outsourcing is probably definitely something I need to start doing…I keep putting it off but I also know it would make a huge difference.
I bet you could get some people to work for free though if you offered them to just watch your videos or learn some special technique you have. That’d save you $400 and they’d probably walk away with invaluable information that would take months to learn by themselves on their own.
April 18, 2009 at 1:06 pm
Very informative and it’s explained in so much details that I could even visualize it. Thanks!!!
April 19, 2009 at 10:44 pm
Susan,
It just wouldn’t be the same if you hire “American”. We won’t work for $2.00 an hour. On the other hand, people in the Filipines need jobs too. And if the average monthly income is $150, and we can pay them $300 a month, we are not taking advantage of them. We are offering them a better way of life with a better income. Everyone wins.
April 20, 2009 at 10:11 am
$150 is too low for a monthly income. That’s only enough for paying a 2 bedroom apartment located in suburb areas. Paying a Filipno for $300 for an 8-hour job per day is ok IF he is single and living all by himself. The $2 per hour job the most Filipinos accept online are only for part-time time basis as they want to earn extra bucks apart from their regular income.
Mr. Justin is right, $400 a month will be fair enough.
April 18, 2009 at 8:40 am
Outsourcing is a fabulous idea! I would, however, implore you to hire Americans. There’s a little something called the recession going on here. Millions of highly qualified people have lost their jobs and would love to work for a company such as yours. Buy american,hire american and let’s get this country rockin’ again!
April 20, 2009 at 9:37 am
I agree that Americans need jobs, but good luck hiring someone full time for $400/month.
April 27, 2009 at 8:49 pm
its more towards people that really need the money or need just a little more money but not as a full time job and thats what he means
April 18, 2009 at 3:36 am
Interesting post on outsourcing.
April 18, 2009 at 7:55 am
I agree, covered in good depth too! Thanks for sharing.
April 18, 2009 at 3:33 am
Hey Justin,
Thanks for the tips..
April 18, 2009 at 3:31 am
Excellent post about lead generation…
April 18, 2009 at 12:56 am
GREAT Info!!!!! I out source almost everything. I didn’t know about this one though…..good stuff…always…Thanks shoe…
April 17, 2009 at 12:58 pm
Justin, that’s an awesome post. It actually goes nice w/ the vid in the Mafia Forum.
I recently went ahead with this advice, and now have an assistant working part time in the Phillipines, and she’s actually a lot smarter than me. (Although that’s not saying much) LOL
I think she even has a couple of college degrees. She should probably be hiring me to work for her.
Anyways, as always your stuff Rocks! and I read everything that you guys put out. In fact, I’m basically starting to ignore most everything else.
Great job on the guest post.
Troy
April 18, 2009 at 1:24 am
Thanks Troy… That’s awesome to hear that outsourcing has been working good for you. I know it sure changed my business.
April 17, 2009 at 10:47 am
I have been working at my job for almost 4 months. I was coming on to do “online marketing” (that is what I tell people when they ask me what my job is) sure the first week or two went good because I wasn’t doing much but updating pictures and adding a few things to what was already on the website. Now that I have the site pretty much under control and my boss is suppose to show me what to do next; that he just doesn’t have time to do himself. However he also doesn’t have time to train me on what he wants me to do either. I am willing to learn it but, trying to follow the the “not so helpful guide/examples” the program gives is not easy.
Any suggestions?
April 18, 2009 at 1:27 am
My suggestion would be to setup tracking (Google Analytics) and some Split-Testing (I like Affiliate Prophet) and then start driving traffic to the site… Tweaking it as you go for higher performance. Start small and scale up as you start getting better and better performance.
April 17, 2009 at 9:23 am
Interesting article, If you want to grow bigger nd make more you have to outsource those small easy jobs.
April 17, 2009 at 7:51 am
I must thank you, Justin. I got your SEO Android and beginning to see the wonders of outsourcing. The difficult part is managing them. Anymore tips on how to effectively “manage” them?
April 17, 2009 at 4:15 pm
As for managing them I make sure to train them well the first time. I tell them “train slow, work fast.” Because that’s just how I always wanted my bosses to treat me back when I was an employee… They were always too interested in fast training and even faster working though.
Take your time in training them so they really understand the tasks and then just use deskaway to setup a weeks worth of tasks at a time… or recurring tasks that they do everyday. They should then just login to deskaway each morning and just do what they are supposed to.
April 17, 2009 at 7:30 am
I continue to be impressed.
anyone else who likes this kind of quality content should definitely check out justins blog and also he is having a really cool site flipping/domain flipping training seminar coming up just next weekend in Boise.
By combining his outsourcing ideas to developing domains you can make a tidy fortune.
book your plane fare and get a seat in Justins seminar right away before it’s sold out.
thanks and take care
Bryan Bliss
April 17, 2009 at 5:22 am
Interesting post on outsourcing. Very helpful guide
April 17, 2009 at 4:06 am
Awesome post Justin, and just in time as I was getting ready to hire a content writer.
But damn you for making me subscribe to another blog.
thanks
Scott
April 18, 2009 at 1:33 am
HaHa sorry Scott, “That’s how I roll” lol ok so slang talk doesn’t go over so well in a blog comment… ermm leaving now… Glad to have you on board though man.
April 17, 2009 at 3:22 am
way that is very good and effesien as a form of extension of business development
April 17, 2009 at 1:49 am
It is nice of you for informing me this idea. But I think it would be better if you hire local people to the the jobs.
April 16, 2009 at 10:44 pm
Thanks for preferring the Philippines! that’s good for our economy. and yeah, Php 20K / month is a good salary here!
About payment, why not send them a direct Paypal payment? Paypal payment is now accepted in the Philippines.
April 16, 2009 at 11:40 pm
You’re right and some of my assistants do get paid via Paypal… Some others prefer to have a check dropped off (xoom) to their door because they say Paypal takes long for them to transfer money into their bank.
I do prefer the Paypal way though, gotta love push button payments!
April 16, 2009 at 9:48 pm
Are you looking for a competent, dedicated, and a well-rounded virtual assistant? If you are, then you have just found the right person!
I specialize in writing, but I can also do the following:
> link building
> setting up web 2.0
> do social network bookmarking
> transcription
> etc.
My strengths:
> multi tasking
> dedicated
> internet savvy
This is my email address: cyber_scribes@yahoo.com
April 16, 2009 at 9:47 pm
Are you looking for a competent, dedicated, and a well-rounded virtual assistant? If you are, then you have just found the right person!
I specialize in writing, but I can also do the following:
> link building
> setting up web 2.0
> do social network bookmarking
> transcription
> etc.
My strengths:
> multi tasking
> dedicated
> internet savvy
This is my email address: cyber_scribes@yahoomail.com
April 16, 2009 at 9:22 pm
that was a great post, by the way i was one of those people who hires by these type of people to do outsourcing jobs
April 16, 2009 at 9:15 pm
Hi, I am Milo and am currently looking for an online job right now. I can do these things:
- social media bookmarking
- audio transcription
- setting up blog accounts
- submitting to article directories
- creating web 2.0 properties
I am internet savvy and highly teachable. You can be sure that you can count on me if I get the chance to be hired as a virtual assistant.
April 16, 2009 at 8:40 pm
Justin, I have been following your blog at sitefling.com for quite a while now. I have to say you really stepped it up as a quest blogger. It’s very rare to get such great detail on a topic related to internet marketing for free. I’m actually motivated to finally start outsourcing my traffic generation strategies because of how simple and straight forward your article was written.
Thanks Justin,
Brian Holdren
P.S. Shoe… make sure you let him write that follow up article!
April 16, 2009 at 9:37 pm
Awesome Brian glad you liked it. Also sounds like you got some good things goin’ on for you too that’s a pretty good domain name for an affiliate blog.
April 16, 2009 at 8:30 pm
nice article thank for link love
April 16, 2009 at 8:06 pm
I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately. Thanks for the clear guide.
April 16, 2009 at 7:32 pm
This advice obviously comes from very successful, practical experience. From my position as a beginner at “making-a-living-on-the-’net” you have provided, just great reliable information… sage advice to say the least.
Actually, I would like to be competent at the required skills and activities listed in your advert. and then I could have a business that I would be in position to scale and outsource.
What I’m saying is the training you provide your outsource team would be a fantastic product in itself… besides the mentoring that your management would provide.
If you ever want to take on an apprentice would you please contact me? I’d just love to be part of something like that. Providing reliable production and work, for free even, for practical experience.
Best regards,
Wesley McCorkindale.
April 16, 2009 at 9:32 pm
Hey Wes,
thanks for all the kind words and sorry we’re not doing an apprentice type stuff right now. Just too much on our plates and wouldn’t be able to provide the level of quality that I would want to. Maybe later this year. But stay tuned to the blog you should be able to learn most of it there.
April 16, 2009 at 7:30 pm
I am a loyal follower of Justin, and all I can add to the comments above is “Just follow in this great Man’s footsteps” and I mean, tread where he treads, DO NOT DEVIATE! Also the footsteps of his fantastic wife Chaunna! What these guys say, DO!
You want success – you cannot help but get success.
Everyone, needs a mentor, these guys are the best mentors anyone can wish to have.
Love and Light
Maggie
April 16, 2009 at 8:58 pm
LoL I swear I didn’t pay her to say these things! Maggie your comments always make me blush. You’re going to be doing big things real soon, just keep keepin’ at it.
April 16, 2009 at 7:20 pm
Justin, congrats on another amazing post, you never cease to amaze me on how much information you give away on every post.
Thank you for a very detailed post on how to outsource.
April 16, 2009 at 8:56 pm
Thanks man hope things are going well… Love your domain name! that could mean two totally different things! LMAO
April 17, 2009 at 3:20 pm
Yeah isn’t it cool? anyway we are getting ready to sell the good ones the ones that you have a wonderful social experience with smoking shisha tobacco if you like to smoke you should get one and try mixing different tobacco flavors take alook at this video and you’ll see how to set up a hookah http://blog.discounthookah.com/index.php/discount-hookah-videos/
April 16, 2009 at 7:15 pm
JB just rocks. Period.
His Site Flipping book made me money last year. His SEO Lies book made me money. His blog at SiteFling made me money. And this outsourcing post will probably help make me even more money.
He and his wife really are just 2 of best people doing the IM thing right now.
I never met the dude but I visit his blog more than I call my own Dad. When I say ‘Justin’ in my house my girlfriend knows who I’m talking about.
Keep on keepin’ it real Justin and thanks for the great content.
Jon
April 16, 2009 at 8:53 pm
“I visit his blog more then I call my own dad” hahaha that’s hillarious. Thanks for all the props dude. You ROCK! Glad things are going well for you.
April 16, 2009 at 7:06 pm
Great post! We have outsourced programming and web design through sites such as odesk and elance. The main issue we have found is having set parameters or guidelines of what you want them to achieve.
Outsourcing traffic generation is something we haven’t considered but definitely something we will now address.
April 16, 2009 at 8:51 pm
I’ve been hearing lots of great things about Odesk, I’ve just been pretty happy with my people so I haven’t tried it out myself. I wish they had a separate piece of software for their monitoring your outsourcer thing that I could use without going to Odesk. I’d love to be able to have that for one of my assistants.
April 16, 2009 at 6:39 pm
Hey Justin,
I must say this post is killer information. I think a lot of Gurus would charge a lot of money for this info but you gave it away for free.
I can say I really appreciate it and I also can see that others do from the comments above.
A couple questions though:
1. Do you pay at the beginning or the end of the month.
2. Since they would be doing most of your personal work isn’t it risky for them to have you log-in information for example for Adwords and stuff?
Thanks for the great post. Looking forward to hear from you.
April 16, 2009 at 8:48 pm
Thanks, well thank god I’m not one of those “gurus” haha… As for your questions 1.) I pay weekly but some of my assistants prefer bi-weekly. 2.) We don’t give passwords to anyone we don’t trust, by the time they have our Adwords login info they have worked on many other things. Also you can setup different level users in your Adwords accounts by going to My Account > Access
April 18, 2009 at 1:24 pm
Thanks for your reply Justin.
Have a great day
April 16, 2009 at 6:25 pm
This is by far the most detailed free information I’ve ever read on outsourcing. I’ve been following Jeff Mills and John Jonas who are outsourcing pros, but they’ve never given away this much.
I’ve dabbled a little in outsourcing and want to get into the Phillipines, but without investing in a course I was reluctant about how much to put myself out there.
Thanks so much Justin. I can see why Shoemoney asked you for this guest post.
April 16, 2009 at 8:38 pm
Thanks Jane, Jeff and John are great guys too. We just have different business models, but thank you so much for the kind words. You ROCK!
April 16, 2009 at 6:13 pm
Awesome post Justin. Over the top as usual.
My experience with the Filipino people is that they are dedicated, hard workers. Always pleasant to be around, with a really good command of the English language.
April 16, 2009 at 8:36 pm
Thanks for the compliments June, and I feel the same way about my Filipino assistants.
April 19, 2009 at 11:22 pm
It’s great to see you guys show your appreciation to Filipinos and their services. Makes me proved to be one.
April 19, 2009 at 11:24 pm
I mean, it makes me PROUD to be one of them.
April 16, 2009 at 6:09 pm
Great Article Justin!!! I really needed to know more about how to outsource daily tasks. I have been online for about 1 yr 4 months now trying to make a living on the internet. Can I hire someone to make blog posts for me and drive traffic part-time? If so, how much would that cost?
Thanks
Steven
April 16, 2009 at 8:33 pm
Yeah we have part timers also, we just pay them half of what we’d pay a full timer.
April 16, 2009 at 6:08 pm
Hey Justin,
Awesome advice – you’ce just gave the boost I needed for outsourcing. Been communicating with some people in India who are very keen to undertake some of my work and will be meeting up with them in a couple of months time.
I was unsure till now
having read your article am gona go for it – and will deffinately look into the Filipino option too.
April 16, 2009 at 8:30 pm
Sounds great… I’ve worked with people in India, they’re good too. Philippines is just my personal preference, not the written in stone method.
April 16, 2009 at 6:00 pm
Excellent post!
Don’t overlook US based workers
I have one who has been with me
over 3 years now. While her hourly
may be higher – she pumps out 4 times the
work that some lower cost workers
have done.
Ray
April 16, 2009 at 8:15 pm
You’re right ray… Nothing can really beat an in-house employee that you can watch what they are doing and make changes right away. I saw the power of that when I was working at DotComSecrets
April 16, 2009 at 5:45 pm
Justin,
You just changed my life. I needed this information more than I needed a new client.
Because of some info you gave out two weeks ago, I am bursting with work.
Thanks and I am looking for writers.
God Bless you
April 16, 2009 at 8:05 pm
Really glad to hear what I’m putting out there is helping you so much. You are a rockstar and deserve everything coming your way.
April 16, 2009 at 5:43 pm
Justin,
Great post!!! This will definitely become the definitive guide to outsourcing. I look forward to reading your follow-up article.
April 16, 2009 at 5:41 pm
I have been following your blog at sitefling.com for quite a while now. I have to say you really stepped it up as a quest blogger. It’s very rare to get such great detail on a topic related to internet marketing for free. I’m actually motivated to finally start outsourcing my traffic generation strategies because of how simple and straight forward your article was written.
Thanks Justin,
Brian Holdren
P.S. Shoe… make sure you let him write that follow up article!
April 16, 2009 at 5:39 pm
Awesome post!
I will be using this information for sure… I am going to improve my seo skills and outsource seo and traffic generation…. The philippines ROCK! Great post!
@davidbeking
April 16, 2009 at 5:31 pm
Great job Justin!
April 16, 2009 at 5:29 pm
What category do you post in on Craigslist?
April 16, 2009 at 5:29 pm
PHENOMENAL article from JB.
This dude is an uptapped genius that is about to explode this year.
You thought this was good… pff… wait til you see what else he can pump out.
Thanks for the resource in this article justin.
@successfool
April 16, 2009 at 5:56 pm
LoL thanks dude… You’re making me blush!
April 16, 2009 at 5:25 pm
jeez…way to let the cat out of the bag in regards to VAs…it’s all good…but basically one of the huge reasons I’m profitable with every check my clients cut to me is strategically outsourcing my work to the point where my consulting business almost becomes a passive income stream…all I have to do is sit back and sell…which is what I enjoy doing…getting people excited about investing advertising dollars online…and even though people rag on SEOs and online marketeers, we are the reasons you’re able to monetize your blogs and get advertising revenue on your “Artisan Cookie Catering” blog.
April 16, 2009 at 11:52 pm
I used to hide the fact that I outsourced almost all the work too, but now I just tell them that I have a team of assistants that will be working on their project and I’m in charge of making sure everything is done right.
I think they like it better that way… Knowing you’re not just a one man operation. Not saying you are just maybe letting you get that freedom of not having to hide it anymore.
I even tell some clients about how much smarter some of my assistants are then me… Like my writer, she has a masters degree! They like to hear that stuff IMO.
April 16, 2009 at 5:21 pm
My biggest concern is how to “test” someone. I’ve used bestjobs.ph and haven’t found someone whose English I like real well – but say I DO find someone. What do you have him/her do, and do you pay them FIRST or afterwards?
I also need someone who understands html/wordpress – it would be GREAT to find someone who knows that AND can write well – how do you test for html/site-building knowledge?
Thank you! Joined your site a week or so ago, still going through it…
April 16, 2009 at 11:49 pm
We pay them weekly so usually a weeks worth of work has been done before we pay them. As for testing them for html/site-building… Tell them here’s my cpanel login info, install wordpress, install these plugins, install this template, and then write a blog post about such and such with a related picture at the top.
Then either give them links to training videos you have created on the topic, or ones on youtube that you like. Tell them this is their test to get hired.
If they do it right they are hired, if they do it a little wrong you might help them see what went wrong, and if they do really bad they are not hired.
That’s how I’d test them… If they can do all that then you should have a pretty competent VA on your hands.
April 16, 2009 at 4:55 pm
Thanks for going above and beyond with the details!
This really helps out big time and answers a ton of questions.
Keep the details flowing!
April 16, 2009 at 5:54 pm
Thanks Robert,
Yeah I really wanted to make sure I gave as much as I can for my first guest post. Glad you liked it and hope I can do a part 2 sometime soon… If not here then on my blog.
April 16, 2009 at 4:13 pm
Terrific post, thank you.
I’d be curious to learn more about how you conduct your training. A follow-up post perhaps?
Thanks again.
April 16, 2009 at 4:57 pm
I would like to do a follow up post, if it would be ok with Shoe… I’ve been getting a lot of twitter questions about the specific tasks I have my assistants doing.
April 16, 2009 at 4:02 pm
Very well written resource!
Thanks!
~Jony
April 16, 2009 at 4:55 pm
Hey John,
How you been, hear a lot about you from some of my buddies. Glad you liked the article… You got some pretty killer stuff yourself.
April 16, 2009 at 2:15 pm
Justin, a very good article on outsourcing.
BTW, why have you chosen Philippines over other countries. What are your ideas about India. Was it a bad experience for you?. I am sure you will get good Virtual Assistants here in India too. We do have a network of moms, highly skilled, some of them from IT field but left their jobs to be at home with their kids. So I was looking for some virtual jobs for them. Look forward to hear your views
April 16, 2009 at 2:21 pm
I’ve just personally had better experiences with the Philippines, not saying they are better. Just from the experiences I’ve had I’ve decided to stick with the Philippines over India… But I do look towards India when needing “one off” programming jobs.
April 16, 2009 at 2:23 pm
Thanks for a quick reply Justin
April 16, 2009 at 1:42 pm
Great tip on using Craig’s List. But I have no idea of its popularity here in the Philippines. I think you can get more skilled workers if your advertisement can reach a wider audience..
20,000 pesos is good as a starting salary btw.
April 16, 2009 at 2:05 pm
Yeah, I’m sure there might be better places to advertise for Filipino assistants but craigslist is just what I been using. I heard Jobstreet and BestJobs.ph are pretty good too but haven’t used them much.
Thanks for reassuring us that 20k pesos is good pay.
April 16, 2009 at 1:20 pm
I’ve been traveling around the world for the last two years and spent 3 weeks in the Philippines. I’ve also met Filipinos in almost every country I’ve been to, from the Marshall Islands to Israel.
In general, they are great people and I love to hagn out with them. They all speak English very well, and are surprisingly active online. My articles about the Philippines have always been my most popular ones.
April 16, 2009 at 1:37 pm
I agree… I’m lovin’ the Philippines and wanna head down there for a visit this summer.
January 28, 2010 at 9:25 pm
Oh no, try to avoid visiting the Philippines during your summer because that’s rainy (and flooding) season in the Philippines.
The best months to visit the Philippines is from January to April. Just suggesting.
April 16, 2009 at 12:59 pm
sorry to be repetitive but what would you have them do?
April 16, 2009 at 1:06 pm
My assistants do everything from building new niche blogs, building backlinks, creating landing pages, writing articles, transcribing my video/audio, keyword research, contacting potential partners for interviews, guest blogging spots, joint ventures…
Pretty much anything you can do, you can train them to do and relace yourself from the work load.
April 16, 2009 at 12:34 pm
great suggestion on the outsourcing Justin! I never thought about going that route.
Just a question, are you only using Philippines as an example or have tried other countries for similar services? If so, how did those rate?
April 16, 2009 at 1:04 pm
I have tried quite a few other countries like India, Pakistan, Romania, China… I’ve settled with the Philippines because I’ve just had better experiences with them. However, I haven’t been able to find a programmer that I like in the Philippines to save my life.
I am in serious need of a full time PHP/Ajax programmer.
April 16, 2009 at 1:28 pm
Cool. Were their pay difference in the other countries? What problems did you encounter (was there a common problem with those countries).
Thanks for the timely response and best of luck with your search for a programmer!
April 16, 2009 at 2:24 pm
Yeah, I’ve found countries like India and Pakistan are willing to take lower pay. I had one guy put in a bid of $1.50 per hour. I even had one guy in Pakistan tell me that $55 was enough to pay his rent and groceries for 2 months!!! Thats CRAZY!
It’s hard to say what the problems were because I don’t want to sound like I am making blanket statements publicly. But I just found less management problems when hiring Filipino women.
April 16, 2009 at 12:31 pm
Good stuff Justin! I know you always provide the good info man, this is no exception.
Glad you got to post it on here to, hope folks pay attention then come on over to sitefling and get more goodies.
Keep it up bro
April 16, 2009 at 2:25 pm
Thanks for the love JSwizzles, know I can always count on you man.
April 16, 2009 at 12:02 pm
Wow nice tips. I always hear about using elance or something but going right to the craigslist listing is an awesome tip. Is $400 US considered a lot a month out in the philipines I have to wonder or is it just ok. Would you get better quality from $300 or from $500 because of expectations by the people there for the work you are trying to get done?
April 16, 2009 at 12:28 pm
Glad you liked it, and yeah $400 per month is a very nice pay rate. It equals out to about 20,000php (their currency) which is about what a college professor would make.
In fact it’s enough money for one of my assistants that she is able to buy farm land as investments with her spare money. She gives them out to her family.
April 17, 2009 at 11:51 am
$400 is enough to pay for a condo in Manila equivalent to living in Manhattan or Embacadero in SF. When I lived in Manila (Ortigas), my rent for 1br was P12K. I also use Filipinos for my outsourcing projects via Odesk. The truth is that compared to American workers who cost more, don’t complain and are easier to work with. You usually don’t have to worry about all the extra baggage. I’ve hired people to convert jpg’s to vector images (20 for $10) and will soon hire bloggers for $1-2 an hour. Good quality work.
May 13, 2009 at 9:01 pm
Sheeeeeet!…400 bucks!…I’ll be ecstatic with 10 bucks a months! But, I’m still new to the game…
April 16, 2009 at 11:44 am
What say you?
April 16, 2009 at 11:43 am
I`m gonna try that. thanks
April 16, 2009 at 11:31 am
i really need help with more traffic …i was discussing this the other day…the question is what kinds of task would u have them do…ie post, click on sites like traffic slpash…what are the task….this by far is the greatest detail post on how to make this work
thank you
April 16, 2009 at 2:28 pm
Hey Mike,
The easiest way to get them to drive more traffic for you is to buy traffic courses and give them to your assistants.
If you know how to run Adwords… Then make a video of yourself managing your Adwords account and give it to your assistants.
They can do anything you can do they just need to be trained on how to do it, just like we did when we first started out.
Some traffic methods I’m outsourcing to them right now are SEO, Forum Marketing, Social Bookmarking, Article Marketing, and low level Adwords stuff.
April 16, 2009 at 11:19 am
im gonna try it, thanks !
April 16, 2009 at 11:02 am
wow, very detailed, and step by step. I will be doing this shortly.
April 16, 2009 at 10:34 am
Nice Post Justin!
Great Guide!
I’ve been looking into doing some “hiring out” lately and this was a great help.
April 16, 2009 at 10:56 am
That’s what you gotto do to stay in business these days. $400/mo is a good pay over there…
I am actually planning to personally go to one of the lower paying countries to get and train a team for project managers/web developers/graphic designers…
Don’t like contractors that I don’t personally know for these because cheaper ones, especially Indian and Pakistani in my personal experience, do really crappy job. Usually they do something by the spec that barely works but good luck updating this really crappy code or add single quote escaping in every single texbox, etc. However, for simple tasks like backlinks, article writing and keyword research, there are a ton of workforce out there and they perform better…
There are even websites that help you find those with past experience like odesk.com so you can look at their “previous experience” before hiring them…
April 16, 2009 at 12:31 pm
Thanks for the compliments and I wish you the best luck when you 3 start trying it out. Don’t just hire the first person though. Really make them prove to you that they are a good employee… Because firing people REALLY SUCKS!
April 16, 2009 at 3:36 pm
Firing a person who doesn’t do what he said he would doesn’t suck…
Especially if they are a contractor and there are no penalties for firing. Before someone would prove they are a good employee you need to hire them. Many people do good the first month but then everything changes, especially if their task is routine, like directory submission… Once they learn, they lose interest… In some areas the only way to go is hire for a few month and fire until you find somebody who is motivated by money rather then by what they do. 
April 16, 2009 at 10:24 am
There are plenty of people who will do that kind of work who live in English speaking countries! (South Africa is just one example). Alert Pay is accepted here (paypal is not) but if you’re hiring let me know!
April 16, 2009 at 12:37 pm
Hey Peter,
If you’re business is doing well enough to hire
U.S. employee’s who require at least $7 – $8 an hour then by all means, let’s help America first. But most small web business that are just starting out can’t really afford the $1,280 per month that an $8/hour employee would cost.
Plus, the $400 per month for a filipino employee is great wages. Just ask any of them. It’s not a ripoff to them at all, in fact it’s like getting hired for a corporate level job here in the states.
April 16, 2009 at 10:12 am
So you are encouraging people to hire workers that can work 8 hours a day for a whole month and pay them $400?
Not cool.
April 16, 2009 at 11:03 am
Think before you speak….
April 16, 2009 at 12:40 pm
Hey Rick,
Yeah it really is awesome once you have an assistant or two. The amount of work that gets done and the amount of free time you start having is amazing.
I remember a couple days when I first started I was kind confused because they were doing all my work and I didn’t know what to do anymore. Then I found new stuff to work on. But it was an awesome feeling to be like “hmmm they’re doing all my work for me.”
April 16, 2009 at 10:08 am
awesome detailed post on outsourcing.
I can’t wait till I start implementing some of those techniques into my routine.
April 16, 2009 at 9:13 am
This is an excellent idea for someone looking to use there new extra time to pursue other means. Article is very detailed, thanks.
April 16, 2009 at 12:43 pm
Thanks for the compliments GoForexYourself…
And Timon they tend to stay with us pretty long since it’s a great paying job for them. In fact I haven’t yet had someone quit on me, but I have had to fire some slackers.
I hate to say this, being a male, but I’ve found that the male employees are less focused then the females (in the Philippines).
Maybe It’s just been a coincidence, but I’ve had to fire every male and we only have female assistants left.
April 16, 2009 at 12:59 pm
I feel like I need to add to that statement as it’s horrible for me to just leave a blanket statement like all filipino males are less then the females. I’m sure that’s not true.
Like I said it could be just the ones that I have hired, could be a coincidence. I’m just telling you whats happened in my experiences.
April 16, 2009 at 9:06 am
Great article!
How long do people normaly stay employed that way? Have you had more good or bad experiences outsourcing like that?
btw: its not Jing.com but http://www.jingproject.com/ to record from your screen.
April 16, 2009 at 9:04 am
This is really a detailed and take-you-by-the-hand guide on outsourcing. Look forward to using this info when the time comes!
April 16, 2009 at 12:47 pm
Thanks Home Business Marketing, as my first guest blog post I really wanted to try and knock it out of the park. Especially since this is ShoeMoney.com!
April 16, 2009 at 8:50 am
I live here in Manila and I’ve wondered why more people don’t do this kind of thing. Filipinos are great in English, and many of them are tech savvy too.
April 16, 2009 at 8:41 am
Excellent, I have also thought of this and now you make it become true, thanks
April 16, 2009 at 8:34 am
This is some great info on outsourcing. I will be holding onto this for when I get to that point.
April 16, 2009 at 8:28 am
Great information. Details like this are very helpful in performing the work. No theory/All Facts
April 16, 2009 at 12:49 pm
Wow thank you so much to the three of you above. I was a bit nervous when writing this, wondering if anyone would like it or not. Happy to hear you think I did a good job, I didn’t know if people would like to hear about outsourcing… It can be a touchy subject. Especially in the state of today’s economy.
April 16, 2009 at 8:28 am
I have a friend in the Philippines. She’s well versed at spinning articles and she’s currently working a job she doesn’t like. She writes VERY well – as in – top 5% of bloggers I’ve ever read. Her command of the English language is likely better than yours. If you hooked her up I know she’d do well for you. If you want her email just write me.
April 16, 2009 at 12:53 pm
Oh yeah absolutely… My writer used to work for the biggest magazine in the Philippines. She’s way smarter then me when it comes to writing… I’d like everyone of my assistants to be smarter then me, let them make my company awesome!
April 27, 2009 at 9:30 pm
Vern would you like to share her email id ?
July 29, 2009 at 7:07 am
Vern,
I’d love her email – can you send it over to shabba100@gmail.com.
Cheers
Martin (from the UK)
April 16, 2009 at 7:51 am
Excellent post. I would love to get to the point where I felt outsourcing would be beneficial to me.
April 16, 2009 at 12:57 pm
In my eyes the time for outsourcing is AS SOON AS POSSIBLE because once you can start leveraging other people’s time and skills you start to double your growth. A part time outsourcer in the Philippines would only cost you about $50 – $75 per week…. If I could go back in time, I would have canceled my cable and any other luxuries I had to be able to start outsourcing sooner.
April 16, 2009 at 7:40 am
I have a feeling you have just made some very happy people in that country.
April 16, 2009 at 1:01 pm
Yeah, I’m going to go check the craigslist in manilla section to see if there are like 40 listings for assistants! hahaha
April 19, 2009 at 12:53 pm
Now that is totally funny, I did go to craigslist in manila, and guess what. Your exact ad is in there multiple times. Great Ad!
I just thought that was great.
Brad West ~ onomoney
April 16, 2009 at 7:26 am
Thanks for the great details on outsourcing Justine.
This will be of great help to me.
May 7, 2009 at 8:38 am
I agree with the idea of outsourcing but it’s not as easy as it seems. There’s a learning curve involved and managing a freelancer is not exactly easy if you’re new at this game or the freelancer is fairly green.
Maybe a good “midway” solution would be to hire an outsourcing company that can provide staffers on a monthly basis. The outsourcing company will take care of the headaches that sometimes arise in 1 to 1 freelancing deals: finding a replacement if the freelancer bails on your project or is absent, quality control, unified payroll/remittance system, and performance guarantees.