John Jonas Outsourcing

[2stepup]

I listened with great interest to John Jonas and the outsourcing plan he laid out, thanks for the informative video you sent out Tim, what a cheek putting in an affiliate link careful you might get a reputation as an internet marketer :-)

It makes so much sense, but here comes the paralysis by analysis, that you may be able to help with. To work out how to budget to afford the cost would you

( A) plan a strategy based on getting sites up like you suggest, with a view that you do the research for keywords and products and get your outsourced employee to put all the stuff together while paying the 97 per month to John for membership to his site.

(B) Go to the websites research a possible employee and engage them for a trial period and give them an allotted amount of work, with the option for further work if it the numbers were working out.

(c) Would it work to approach somebody who already has an employee doing what you require and offer to contribute to the outsourcing cost until you gained enough traction to offer employment to your own full time person

Russell

[Tim Buchalka]

Hi Russell,

For those wondering, you can view the video I made about Outsourcing the John Jonas way, including my video showing inside his membership and finding a suitable worker in real time.

In answer to your questions Russell, all three options will work

I think it's a better idea to get your outsourced worker to do specific things, it's unlikely you will find a resource that can do everything, at least initially unless you are really lucky. Initially we tried to get a "jack of all trades" but big problems with this, so we try and start of getting them to do a specific task for example submitting to article directories, and then build up their skills over time.

Remember the training they need is included.

We found it (and still find it) better doing it this way.

The people who know all aspects well seem to be very expensive or in high demand. None of this is rocket science so a little time learning and teaching your worker will help you a lot.

The "trial" is a must, and I normally do a "pre-work" minor trial to get rid of the "tire kickers" (those people who say they have experience in a certain thing but don't).

For example I might require a person to install blogs, post comments, etc and their resume might say they know how to install plugins on a blog).

I would give them instructions to "login to this blog and download this plugin and install it".

If they couldn't do it (but indicated it on their resume) I'd take that as a sign not to use them.

I virtually 100% of the time interview people over Skype (text chat only) and asking some "hard" questions weeds out people further.

For example people say they are an "expert on link building" I would ask for an example site, ask for keyword(s) they were targeting and paste it into rank tracker in Market Samurai and check the results. If the keywords were on page one (or where they said they were) then good, if not I'd query it.

By doing this, it really helps you qualify people. Take a little longer to interview but worth it, because you end up with better people.

Also you option c) might be something that could work on this forum, you could post in a relevant area about wanting to share a resource and see if you get any takers (General Business might be a good category).

Hope this helps.

Cheers



Tim

I listened with great interest to John Jonas and the outsourcing plan he laid out, thanks for the informative video you sent out Tim, what a cheek putting in an affiliate link careful you might get a reputation as an internet marketer :-)

It makes so much sense, but here comes the paralysis by analysis, that you may be able to help with. To work out how to budget to afford the cost would you

( A) plan a strategy based on getting sites up like you suggest, with a view that you do the research for keywords and products and get your outsourced employee to put all the stuff together while paying the 97 per month to John for membership to his site.

(B) Go to the websites research a possible employee and engage them for a trial period and give them an allotted amount of work, with the option for further work if it the numbers were working out.

(c) Would it work to approach somebody who already has an employee doing what you require and offer to contribute to the outsourcing cost until you gained enough traction to offer employment to your own full time person

Russell

[Jeff]

Thanks for the outsourcing info Tim.

I’ll post my question here as I know this post is on the very long side for a forum post.

Here’s my question:

Before committing to John’s $95 recurring program, as I have already racked up a few of these elsewhere, I’m wondering if anyone can tell me what it’s like to manage a small group of average to good workers from the Philippines who might be given tasks like WP setup, content creation (articles and eBooks) , SEO/link building, directory submission, video editing/submission etc.

John makes a convincing case and I have to say, I’m very keen to give to give it a shot, but have others had good or not so good experiences they feel able to share?

Here’s a bit of my back story

I wish I'd seen Tim’s outsourcing video earlier, like back on January 7, 2010. But then again, I wouldn't have known then what I now know, or think I know now. (Geez, sounding like former Secretary of Defence, Donald Rumsfeld there for a moment).

Here's why ...

On January 7 just past, I started my internet learning as a complete newbie. I know I’m late for dinner, but at least i made it to the table, right?

Since then, I’ve registered over 180 domains. I know that I’m not sure if all of these will ultimately pay off and I think I’ve probably bought or registered a few duds. Watch out for those on Netfleet shortly.

Market research was done primarily using Market Samurai and a few other tools. Some of these domain names were bought at drop auctions, or through Sedo, Netfleet, Pool and Namejet.

Focusing on three main market verticals, which is probably two too many.

The domains that have been acquired are primarily generic keyword type domains for high search volume/low competition keywords in the three market verticals of interest.

Many of these domains have had WP Thesis blogs installed on them with an SEO’d article or two, a link back to the main domain that has an AWeber opt in for a free e-book that I wrote and had designed by a guy in Romania for US$100.

Burnt some bucks at the Ad words alter. Watch those babies burn.

The opt in list is building slowly although I managed to burn quite a few bucks in a lowly converting ad words test. Man, there’s some big stuff to learn in this ‘racket’.

My smart ass link network might be leaving Bigfoot prints

Each of the relevant domains in the network have a link back to the main domain in each of the three main market verticals.

I didn’t know about ‘footprints’ until just this week … thanks Tim, I could otherwise have been blissfully ignorant and continued some pretty impressive wheel spinning. So now I’m worried that I’ve been blundering around like Bigfoot and that a Google slap might be lurking around the corner. Yikes!

Anyway, for each of the three main verticals I’m interested in, a site will be developed that will list products for sale, a bit like a carsales.com.au type of offer. They'll hopefully become over time, one of the ‘go to’ places in their space. That’s the plan.

The first one of these sites is in development, scheduled for launch by the end of April 2010. About 70 articles were written for the first of these sites by a writing bureau in the US.

Naively, I thought that these articles were to be written by native English speaking Americans however it became obvious they had been outsourced to somewhere else, most likely India. About 75% were just kinda publishable as SEO stocking filler but none could be called foundation content. Some of these have been used for article marketing.

Imagine my surprise at paying US rates for this stuff!

Where I'm at with this

The first of the three sites I mention above, set up as a WP blog with those 70 articles posted, is ranking Page 1 and Page 2 in Google for some pretty competitive keywords although there is still a lot of work to do to get it where it needs to be.

I've learnt this stuff from scratch over the past few months and don't think I have any particular aptitude for it so I know it can be taught and learnt as John Jonas suggests.

Back in January, I committed myself to seeing how far I could get with this project during the period up to 31 March. I've covered a lot of ground, put in lots of hours but have had to place just about everything else on hold to do it.

Pretty tedious work

But here's the thing ... without sounding like a compete wanker, I’ve got to say that I find a lot of this set up work really tedious, repetitive, time consuming and not something that I think I can do myself as a sustainable strategy over time.

I’ve done it so far because I’ve had to. I haven’t the resources available to employ others here in Australia.

And, the whole reason for starting this caper was so that I could be location independent after being tied to one city for many years in property project related activity. I’m so over that scene and yearn for the day when this ship can leave the harbour.

But the idea of being location independent yet spending an unhealthy amount of time glued to a screen of one size or another, riveted to them until my eyeballs bleed (as Gary V seems fond of saying), is not my idea of a fun life. Just sayin’

Can outsourcing really work? I sure hope so.

I once started and sold a small off-line business that I’d successfully kicked off from scratch and grew into a reasonable size. But it had things that caused me grief.Things that I swore I’d never have again in any business I started.

Things like:

• Unskilled or semi-skilled staff
• Stock
• Debtors

Hence the allure of an internet based business that I could run myself appealed greatly, but I’ve got to say, there’s massive amounts of work in it (at least the way I’m doing it)

So, the prospect of outsourcing and really getting stuff done properly is very appealing but I’ve got to say I’m wary. The idea of having an under performing team in another country doing stuff that might not be done right, that requires constant rework, close supervision and management, makes me break out in hives. Who would want that?

I went and viewed all of John's video tips over at his site and came away with the impression that pretty much all of his internet business is run by his offshore team. He’s very convincing and I want to be a true believer ‘cause I can really do with the help.

Can it work like that for real?

There is so much work to do on the sites that are in the development program as it is, that it’s exhausting just thinking about it. I feel like I'm getting a bit burnt out with it all as it's been a very long three months.

To get through all I need to get done, I think I’d need a small team, most likely more than one person, but I’m just not sure how productive these people can be or what is reasonable to expect of them.

Before committing to John’s $95 recurring program, as I have already racked up a few of these elsewhere, I’m wondering if anyone can share their direct experience of outsourcing to the Philippines beyond the initial recruitment phase?

[Tim Buchalka]

Moved this to a more appropriate Category to help others find the post.

Answers below Jeff.

Thanks for the outsourcing info Tim.

I’ll post my question here as I know this post is on the very long side for a forum post.

Here’s my question:

Before committing to John’s $95 recurring program, as I have already racked up a few of these elsewhere, I’m wondering if anyone can tell me what it’s like to manage a small group of average to good workers from the Philippines who might be given tasks like WP setup, content creation (articles and eBooks) , SEO/link building, directory submission, video editing/submission etc.

John makes a convincing case and I have to say, I’m very keen to give to give it a shot, but have others had good or not so good experiences they feel able to share?

Here’s a bit of my back story

I wish I'd seen Tim’s outsourcing video earlier, like back on January 7, 2010. But then again, I wouldn't have known then what I now know, or think I know now. (Geez, sounding like former Secretary of Defence, Donald Rumsfeld there for a moment).

I also wish something like this had been available when I was starting out !

Here's why ...

On January 7 just past, I started my internet learning as a complete newbie. I know I’m late for dinner, but at least i made it to the table, right?

Sure, better late than never as they say.

I've learnt this stuff from scratch over the past few months and don't think I have any particular aptitude for it so I know it can be taught and learnt as John Jonas suggests.

Back in January, I committed myself to seeing how far I could get with this project during the period up to 31 March. I've covered a lot of ground, put in lots of hours but have had to place just about everything else on hold to do it.

Pretty tedious work

But here's the thing ... without sounding like a compete wanker, I’ve got to say that I find a lot of this set up work really tedious, repetitive, time consuming and not something that I think I can do myself as a sustainable strategy over time.

I’ve done it so far because I’ve had to. I haven’t the resources available to employ others here in Australia.

And, the whole reason for starting this caper was so that I could be location independent after being tied to one city for many years in property project related activity. I’m so over that scene and yearn for the day when this ship can leave the harbour.

But the idea of being location independent yet spending an unhealthy amount of time glued to a screen of one size or another, riveted to them until my eyeballs bleed (as Gary V seems fond of saying), is not my idea of a fun life. Just sayin’

Can outsourcing really work? I sure hope so.

Absolutely it can, no doubts about it, we outsource our business daily.

So, the prospect of outsourcing and really getting stuff done properly is very appealing but I’ve got to say I’m wary. The idea of having an under performing team in another country doing stuff that might not be done right, that requires constant rework, close supervision and management, makes me break out in hives. Who would want that?

I went and viewed all of John's video tips over at his site and came away with the impression that pretty much all of his internet business is run by his offshore team. He’s very convincing and I want to be a true believer ‘cause I can really do with the help.

Can it work like that for real?

There is so much work to do on the sites that are in the development program as it is, that it’s exhausting just thinking about it. I feel like I'm getting a bit burnt out with it all as it's been a very long three months.

To get through all I need to get done, I think I’d need a small team, most likely more than one person, but I’m just not sure how productive these people can be or what is reasonable to expect of them.

Before committing to John’s $95 recurring program, as I have already racked up a few of these elsewhere, I’m wondering if anyone can share their direct experience of outsourcing to the Philippines beyond the initial recruitment phase?

Anthony and myself have ten (10) full time philippine workers, so yes it can work, and we have certain had some issues getting things sorted and I cannot say it's perfect but after the initial period of time getting them trained in exactly what we want done, I can say we are getting good results from them each day.

If you are expecting them to magically understand your business from day 1, then you will will be in for a shock, you do have to put a little work in.

But it's such a liberating feeling saying "setup a link campaign for xyz now please, here are the keywords, and here are the articles".

The keywords and articles have come from different people. so you end up as sort of a project manager.

Anthony and myself know we need to get a project manager in to do this task and we will be good to go!

But if you are just starting out, absolutely you will get good results. BUT (and it's a big BUT).. Make sure you do some little tests for them as I posted earlier in this thread to weed out the "tire kickers".

Good luck!

Cheers


Tim

[Hollandia]

Hi All

Listened to the audio and had a look at the site and it looks fantastic. It will certainly be a big help to outsource the mundane tasks as you say Tim, totally agree and you will get much more done (other more important things that is) I have some questions re the outsourcing though...

1) Using software for various SEO tasks like backlink building, web2.0 sites creation (for backlink building too) etcetera

I presume that is a good idea so the outsourcer gets even more done for you / works more efficiently!

Traffic Bug seems the preferred choice by Tim and Anthony, does this comes with a second license so you don't have to pay twice for it (especially those softwares you have to pay a monthly fee for - yikes!) The software looks good and like that it continues to post links on auto-pilot (set and forget) Although it doesn't do web2.0 building, shame... (maybe future version)

Anybody good experiences with particular softwares for backlink building that has a second license for free (keeping initial costs down)

>> for RSS, social bookmarking, web2.0 building, directories, search engines etcetera!!


If the person you outsource to doesn't work out how easy would it be to de-activate the software on their computer. Anybody bad experiences with that?!

Thanks in advance
Arjen

[Tim Buchalka]

Hi Arjen,

Hi All
Listened to the audio and had a look at the site and it looks fantastic. It will certainly be a big help to outsource the mundane tasks as you say Tim, totally agree and you will get much more done (other more important things that is) I have some questions re the outsourcing though...

1) Using software for various SEO tasks like backlink building, web2.0 sites creation (for backlink building too) etcetera

I presume that is a good idea so the outsourcer gets even more done for you / works more efficiently!

Absolutely, these are core "mundane" tasks perfectly suited to outsourcing.

Traffic Bug seems the preferred choice by Tim and Anthony, does this comes with a second license so you don't have to pay twice for it (especially those softwares you have to pay a monthly fee for - yikes!) The software looks good and like that it continues to post links on auto-pilot (set and forget) Although it doesn't do web2.0 building, shame... (maybe future version)

Traffic bug is a web based application, so the outsourcer can just login and use it.

If the person you outsource to doesn't work out how easy would it be to de-activate the software on their computer. Anybody bad experiences with that?!

Thanks in advance
Arjen

In this case just change the password. Generally you are able to deactivate software, etc that you have purchased in this situation.

For example I contacted Market Samurai about this, because they supply 2 licences with ever copy of their software, and in this situation (an outsourcer leaving) they would issue a new "license" for you.

Most of the stuff we get them to do is web based, so only a password is required, but I would think most software places would be open to helping you out in this situation.

Cheers


Tim

[Chris Thompson]

Hi guys,

I just found this form because I have "John Jonas" flagged as a Google Alert and I came across this thread. I wanted to point out something about John's program that you might not realize. You will be presented with a one-time upsell when you join, and you can actually sign up so that you never pay a monthly fee. It's not cheap ... I paid $697 up, but I never pay another recurring fee. I personally think it's worth while because I'm the type of person to keep doing new things until I MAKE it work.

but it's not for everyone.

Anyway I blog about outsourcing here:
Doing Business Online

Yes, my blog does contain aff links (not this post, obviously).

My take on hiring Filipinos in short:
- Some are good, some are not. Simply DO it and keep someone good when you find him or her.
- Hire for a specific SINGLE task, and focus on people who can write English first. Add new tasks later.
- Always use Skype to interview them

I have a lot of "lessons learned" on my blog.

[Steve1943]

I agree 100% with Chris Thompson's comments above.
I've tried other sources of labour but found the Filipinos clearly superior - do not be seduced by lower rates elsewhere - it's productivity and reliability that counts.

I hire several self-employed contractors via an agency on a test task, and then retain the better performing rcandidates for production work.
Thereafter just progressively refine the team by knocking off the weakest performer until I have GREAT worker(s).
Build in productivity metrics and manage by them.

You cannot expect multi-skilled workers on day one - you have to invest the management time to coordinate various specialists.
You need to invest significant time in procedures, training and supervision. (Guess what - it's just like building a real-world business !)
And you need proven systems in place before you even think about recruiting supervisors.
Yes, it is work, but once done you have a robust business system that is replicatable but hard to knock off.

[Tim Buchalka]

Chris, I appreciate you taking the time to reply here and for sharing your blog info. Yes you are right about the one time offer, that's what we did as well, and it means no monthly payments!

Fully agree about the one task (at least initially) and good english and interviewing them over skype.

Hi guys,

I just found this form because I have "John Jonas" flagged as a Google Alert and I came across this thread. I wanted to point out something about John's program that you might not realize. You will be presented with a one-time upsell when you join, and you can actually sign up so that you never pay a monthly fee. It's not cheap ... I paid $697 up, but I never pay another recurring fee. I personally think it's worth while because I'm the type of person to keep doing new things until I MAKE it work.

but it's not for everyone.

Anyway I blog about outsourcing here:
Doing Business Online

Yes, my blog does contain aff links (not this post, obviously).

My take on hiring Filipinos in short:
- Some are good, some are not. Simply DO it and keep someone good when you find him or her.
- Hire for a specific SINGLE task, and focus on people who can write English first. Add new tasks later.
- Always use Skype to interview them

I have a lot of "lessons learned" on my blog.

I agree 100% with Chris Thompson's comments above.
I've tried other sources of labour but found the Filipinos clearly superior - do not be seduced by lower rates elsewhere - it's productivity and reliability that counts.

I hire several self-employed contractors via an agency on a test task, and then retain the better performing rcandidates for production work.
Thereafter just progressively refine the team by knocking off the weakest performer until I have GREAT worker(s).
Build in productivity metrics and manage by them.

You cannot expect multi-skilled workers on day one - you have to invest the management time to coordinate various specialists.
You need to invest significant time in procedures, training and supervision. (Guess what - it's just like building a real-world business !)
And you need proven systems in place before you even think about recruiting supervisors.
Yes, it is work, but once done you have a robust business system that is replicatable but hard to knock off.

Well when you say "lower rates" elsewhere I find the rates great for filipinos in general

We dont do things they way you are doing, we tend to find an individual for a task and make it work with them, based on what Chris mentioned above. But we do the "test" task as that is vital.

Once you have it setup, it's on autopilot and you have a great member of your team you can rely on for great work.

Thanks again guys

Cheers


Tim

[Steve1943]

Tim -

I found guys in India and Pakistan for half the price of Filipinos. They looked good on paper but communications, productivity, reliability, and training/supervisory workload all proved unsatisfactory in varying degrees.

I don't flatter myself to be a great interviewer - the chances of predicting competence are fairly random in my personal experience!
So, as long as the CV, language skills and rates look OK, I just let natural selection replace extended interviewing.

But that's the only real difference from you, because once I zero in to a preferred employee, I then try to retain them half-time or full-time, for as long as I can justify.
I just never graduated from contractors to permanent staff (yet) because I couldn't guarantee regular work (yet).

In addition to the strong Filipino work ethic, I rate their very high general standard or written and spoken English. Often with superior grammar to native UK or USA.
Cannot speak re Antipodean schooling standards - never yet found an Aussie who wanted work! (Just sledging.....!)