Francis

November 8, 2012 By Francis Leave a Comment

Getting a High Quality 400 Word Blog Post Written for 80 Cents

by Francis
(November 08, 2012)

Screenshot from the work diary of my transcriptionist

You won’t find a writer doing high quality blog post writing for this amount of money.

Guaranteed.

How did I do this?

I hired a transcriptionist. In fact I hired several transcriptionists and continued to work with the best of them. Then I took a few minutes of thinking and about 5 minutes of recording an audio file.

My transcriptionist from the Philippines swiftly transcribed the blog post, formatted it and proofread it.
Then she sent it back to my main virtual assistant who set it up on the website.

I quickly had a last proofreading glance at the article but found nothing to change on it. So, I went ahead and posted it.

Total cost?

It’s about eighty cents for the transcriptionist.

Do you think this would come handy in your blogging efforts?

If you are serious about blogging regularly but you are hard pressed on your time, try this little magical trick of mine and hire a transcriptionist. This additional help alone will help you produce much more high quality content than any outsourced writer could ever dream of giving you.

After all, whatever you are recording for the transcripts are your very original high quality thoughts as a blogger. And the best thing of all, you will save much time in the process.

Don’t believe me?

This very post you’re reading was recorded in less than 4 minutes and the rest was set up by my team of virtual assistants.

Comments for Getting a High Quality 400 Word Blog Post Written For 80 Cents

Nov 08, 2012

Keyword optimizing would have made this post even better
by: FrancisThis post is an example of quick-and-dirty outsourcing efforts to leverage your money into time. If I would have keyword-optimized this article with the help of my virtual assistant even further, then the blog post would even be a traffic generator.I’m also not saying that this process is as easy as hiring a guy, paying him a few bucks and then your blogging works on autopilot.That’s NOT how it works. You need to invest some time initially to train and get to know your virtual assistant.

But when everything is set up, your cooperation will give you some great results.

Sep 29, 2014

No Small is Small
by: AnonymousA great deal you got there.. Yes, it’s not that easy in getting someone online to do the job for you. I did freelancing job before and that is one of my problems because I don’t agree with exploitation.I noticed that many freelancers would agree to a pay less than a dollar and I find myself in a deep situation because there’s no way I can control them and tell them “Hey, do you understand what’s exploitation?”But, oh well, who am I to stop on what they are doing—we have different viewpoints in life and I don’t know what they are going through.So, I’ll just have to adjust to the freelancing world—bid and bid because no small is small.

Nov 18, 2014

Missing the Point
by: FrancisThanks for taking the time to leave your opinion here. However, I think the point I wanted to make with this blog post didn’t come across well.I did not outsource the writing of a blog post for 80cents. I outsourced the transcription of my own thoughts into a blog post which was then formatted by my virtual assistant team.

In other words, all the thoughts behind the writing of the blog post you just read was from me. The only thing I didn’t do was write it.

In my opinion, transcribing thoughts is one of the fastest, most efficient and probably also most affordable ways to create written content. And the written content is, from the quality, very high because it comes straight from your thoughts.

November 8, 2012 By Francis Leave a Comment

Fiverr Is Useless for Internet Marketing or List Building Purposes

by Francis
(November 08, 2012)

I have come to this conclusion not so long ago. A few discussions with internet savvy marketing friends confirmed this suspicion. Using Fiverr for internet marketing, traffic generation or lead generation is pretty much useless.

If you’re reading this and have no idea what I’m talking about, this is essential for some technical details that website owners have to deal with. Fiverr actually can be useful for fun stuff like unusual gigs that make you laugh. Check out the sections of fun or bizarre or creative sections in Fiverr to get good stuff for your money.

Back to the website owners. The last few days I’ve intensely read up and informed myself about lead generations and solo ads. I really needed to put down this blog post to warn every internet marketing newbie to try out Fiverr to use lead generation.

Of course I could also say: “just try it out, what’s the harm, it only costs $5”.

The problem is: those people offering these gigs on Fiverr are working with exactly this mindset of all the newbies and make money out of those people who do not know better.

If you really want to be successful with internet marketing especially via email, my personal advice would be to hire a specialized Email Marketing Assistant.

This move alone will indeed save you lots of time and, therefore, money and you won’t need to stress yourself out over getting your hopes up with internet marketing on Fiverr.

I hope this one warning posts will help at least a few readers. If it does then it will have served its purpose.

November 6, 2012 By Francis Leave a Comment

An Emotional Experiment – Renting Out My Virtual Assistant – It Wasn’t As Easy As I Thought

by Francis
(November 06, 2012)

xyoung-employer-thinking-seriously.jpg.pagespeed.ic.Ow6RKSLHyt A few days ago, I made a fun experiment. My girlfriend needed some pictures researched for an online publication. Stock photos would have been needed instead of free photos in order to make sure that the copyright stays on her end.

As it is almost my reflex now, I persuaded her to rent out so to speak my virtual assistant for this task. I was excited about showing her the ropes of working with a virtual assistant on a trial basis.

Unfortunately, I had underestimated that I have worked with my virtual assistant for 2 years now.

Although I can proudly say that the way of working of my virtual assistant is pretty awesome, there were some communication problems on both sides.

The moment I was aware of those problems, it was already too late. The project got cancelled.

How it all began

Let me take a step back here, I sent my virtual assistant a screen recording message informing him about a new project where the instructions would come from my girlfriend.

As a next step, I provided my girlfriend with access information to my virtual assistant. What was already not clear at that point is that any work my virtual assistant would do would automatically be billed to my account. This was not a problem actually because my VA did not do much work until the project got cancelled.

But let’s see what happened next.

The actual project: how it should have worked out

The task was pretty simple, actually. We had already researched 10 photos from a stock photo bank that seemed too expensive for us at that time. But more about this little twist later.

Since I saw the potential to save a lot of money, I saw the opportunity of outsourcing the picture research to my virtual assistant. He has done similar work before and I knew it would be a piece of cake for him.

One day later, my VA already sent the results to both my girlfriend and me. Unfortunately, the pictures he found were not ideal. So he went ahead and took the good decision to choose alternate pictures.
He then sent an Excel sheet with all the links to those pictures choices to my girlfriend for her to choose from.

Now, another big understanding came into place.

My girlfriend only saw that some or all of the stock photos my virtual assistant proposed had price tags that surpassed the initial budget.

The misunderstanding was that my virtual assistant would be buying those out of his own budget.

So she decided it wasn’t worth the time and money anymore and cancelled the project.

I needed to dig deeper into the whole discussion in order to find out where problems were.

Why we “the double team of employers” was stupid in the first place

The misunderstanding that started the whole project was so simple that I’m almost ashamed to admit it.

The problem with the stock photo bank where we discovered the original pictures we wanted called Fotolia seemed to have a rule that you need to purchase a package of credits in order to download pictures.

It’s only after this whole project was over that we understood it was easy to simply buy the amount of pictures needed from that stock photo bank without going over your budget.

It was a real “duh!” moment.

The other misunderstanding: Where does my virtual assistant get the stock photos from?

Unfortunately, I did not share this crucial detail with my girlfriend as I got accustomed to my virtual assistant smartly researching pictures from all sorts of temporarily free places.

What my virtual assistant did is he researched promotion actions of stock photo banks.

For a short time, many stock photo banks – and you won’t believe how many they are out there in the internet – give out coupons or action codes for temporarily free credits that you can change into downloadable stock photos.

In other words, my virtual assistant gets the stock photos for free in exchange for doing some research. It is a well thought out leveraging of his time and the money I pay to him.

Just because I am accustomed to his strategy does not mean my girlfriend knows about this.

The solution: Communicate better with each party and the power of a deep breath

If I had taken care more of the project by communicating clearer – what the background of the ability of my virtual assistant was on how he can get stock photos – many misunderstandings would have been avoided.

If my girlfriend and me would have seen at the very beginning of the project that it was not even necessary to invest more than the required amount into Fotolia; then this whole misunderstood project would have not been started in the first place.

So this case study of outsourcing will have to be put to the files as a temporarily failure. This is not a bad thing.

As long as everyone involved learns from this. 🙂

Actually, the whole discussions, the back and forth of emails and the changing of the project went about pretty intense and many discussions were going on.

But the bottom line is:

If something goes wrong, nothing beats a deep breath of air.

Ahh…

That’s calming down – and it doesn’t cost anyone anything.

Hope you enjoyed this case study. Feel free to chime in down in the comments.

Comments for An Emotional Experiment – Renting Out My Virtual Assistant – It Wasn’t As Easy As I Thought

Nov 06, 2012

In all fairness
by: Francis

The thing with the credit packets at Fotolia were really confusing.

And for the record, you need to get 10 credits at least, so if you only need 3 stock photos, then my strategy of outsourcing the research for free coupons for stock photo companies is still good. 🙂

Nov 06, 2012

moh
by: Kittycat

moooh, Francis… 😛

But kinda thx for making a story of it. :*

Aug 26, 2014

“failure” can also be a teacher
by: John

I think we all do need that “failure” sometimes to learn and write your experience out of it for some people inclined to this kind of job also or just for some random people.

If it wasn’t for that experience/experiment, it’s possible that most of us will never know this trick..

November 3, 2012 By Francis Leave a Comment

Use a Time Tracking Software to Determine the Best Virtual Assistant Out Of a Team Competing Against Each Other

by Francis
(November 03, 2012)

Do you need to find the perfect virtual assistant for your online business quickly?

The standard method is to work with one assistant at a time and over time you will find the perfect fit.

This can take years. That’s how long it took me. I’m very happy with the members of my team right now. But, probably, you won’t have years to spend.

If you quickly want to find the perfect team member for your business, do the following;

Hire several virtual assistants at once. In this phase, you will need a lot of time managing everyone. Ask everyone to install a productivity tracking software like RescueTime.
Let them work on a comparable project or even at the same project for several days.
Then, sit down for the weekend and analyze their productivity recorded by the RescueTime productivity software.

These will give you, quickly, an estimate of which team members to keep and which to get rid of. Of course oDesk also has its own tracking system. The trick is to use both tracking systems at the same time.

While oDesk takes screenshots every 10 minutes at a random point in time; RescueTime measures the overall productivity – how much time is lost on unrelated projects or websites.

If you use this sort of healthy competition, you will quickly find who is more likely to be your optimal virtual worker than if you spend time testing one assistant after the other in a linear way.

Comments for Use a Time Tracking Software to Determine the Best Virtual Assistant Out Of a Team Competing Against Each Other

Jul 28, 2014

Modern Virtual Manager
by: Jomvie

I think this strategy would be beneficial to the employer searching for an exceptional and skilled virtual assistant.

For me, as a VA, I find time-tracking software intimidating when it comes to tracking the hours of my work.

It often pushes me to my limit. Although it helps me not to procrastinate and be productive, often it is bothersome 😀

Aug 08, 2014

Testing VA’s without their awareness vs openly
by: Francis

Keep in mind that a situation of “competition” leads to considerable stress for your VA candidates.

Either test them by comparing their abilities without their knowledge and choose the best fit for you.

Or, openly have them “compete” against each other – but in this case, the task must be comparable (ideally the same), the conditions transparent and the testing time frame very limited.

November 2, 2012 By Francis Leave a Comment

Look out when Using the Dropbox with a Big Number of Collaborators

by Francis
(November 02, 2012)

The Dropbox is not the best tool for multiple, simultaneous cooperation on the same file

The Dropbox is a must have tool; hands down, no discussion.

However, in some cases, it can be more of a bother than a help. That is when you have a group of people collaborate on the same documents, files and folders; only to create a big, huge mess.

I see that from time to time when I work at the same files as my virtual assistant in a Dropbox and then a duplicate file is saved.

I can only imagine the horrors of what would happen if 10 people, at the same time, would edit this document. But to be honest, the Dropbox is not created to work simultaneously with big groups of people.

There is a much better free tool if you need to only do that.

Just use Google Documents or Google Drive, as it is now called.

It is free.

The only thing you need is a Google account and you can actually work in real time at the same document. It works extremely well.

If you are very ‘techy’, then you might remember another product from Google called Google Wave. As of now it has been discontinued but it was the first major tool that really was used for real time cooperation of multiple people within the same document.

Google Docs has this functionality and it works wonders. After you are done with your document, it is a question of two clicks of saving the finalized document again into the Dropbox.

This is what I would suggest if you regularly have teams of people working on a document in the Dropbox;

Export the file into Google Document.
Work like crazy with hundred people at the same time on the same document. Well, I never said a hundred. Please don’t get angry at me if it doesn’t work with a hundred. But get three people working at the same time in Google Documents and it will be fine.
After you’re finished and everyone has agreed with the changes, one person takes the file and saves it back into the Dropbox which will then sync the data with everyone else.

This is the best solution I can think of.

If you have had this problem and know more about this challenge, feel free to chip in in the comments.

Comments for Look Out When Using the Dropbox with a Big Number of Collaborators

Mar 11, 2013

ARGH
by: KittycatI like drobpox as well and keep recommending it to everyone. =) But I experienced the annoying problems with duplicate files there as well – argh! I spend half an hour comparing the files and sorting out which changes to copy in which document!!Maybe I’ll give Google docs a try…

Mar 11, 2013

Stay calm… 😉
by: FrancisDon’t get too heated up ;)If things get too ugly, ask the collaborators in your dropbox to help clean up. Just don’t delete all versions of one document by mistake!

Dropbox is great for exchanges with one person. Or to distribute to many.

But if many people exchange, edit etc. a lot, then you should use Google Drive.

Feb 10, 2014

Google Docs — Two Thumbs Up!
by: DeniseWhen I first started out with online jobs years ago, I was introduced to Dropbox. I must admit, it bowled me over. Imagine getting to share documents, pictures, files simply by uploading them to a folder on your computer’s desktop — all without the hassle of emailing them. I was so amazed with it that I even used it when sharing files with my friends and cousins. Some of them weren’t patient enough to install it, but oh well, that’s their loss.However, it indeed came with a disadvantage. As mentioned here in this article, when a lot of people collaborate on a single file, a lot of copies appear on the Dropbox folder you’re all sharing. Actually, I thought it was a glitch when I first experienced it because the file names appeared with something that said ‘conflicted copy’. I just ignored it and simply went on editing the document I personally uploaded. Eventually, the files on the Dropbox folder I was sharing with my workmates back then became too many and we all got confused. We had to revert to emailing again because back then, none of us knew about Google Docs. What a hassle!

Years after that, I got introduced to Google Docs. If Dropbox fascinated me, Google Docs impressed me even more. And all you needed was a Google account! It couldn’t be any simpler! I think the great thing about Google Docs is that the changes all of you made were are instantaneous and you can see who made the last edit and all that.

However, I think we shouldn’t only be careful when collaborating with a lot of people on Dropbox but in Google Docs as well. I believe it is really important to be careful with whom we share our Dropbox folders and Google Docs drives.

Moreover, I also think it is imperative that we make back-ups of whatever we do — online and offline — so that none of our work will go to waste and we won’t end up having to redo anything at all if things get deleted or corrupted after they get uploaded.

Feb 21, 2014

Conflicting copies and confused cooperation partners = big time loss 😉
by: FrancisDenise, thanks for sharing your experience! Luckily, now when you have a gmail account – and who doesn’t – you get access to Google drive automatically.But that doesn’t replace the Dropbox, with its ability to synchronize your work across several computers, including program files or temporary files. It also has a function to retrieve past versions. That’s something I don’t think GDrive has.

But it’s best to just have both tools and use each when it’s best. 🙂

Jul 09, 2014

Eye sore
by: JomvieI encountered the same problem for a couple of times.. And I was so worried because it is somewhat a big project handed to me. Although the changes is not too much big of a difference but it’s just annoying and sore to the eyes comparing one file to the other. I just hope that Dropbox will address this kind of problem.

Feb 20, 2015

Word Compare Function
by: FrancisI thought the Microsoft Word comes with a function that can compare differences between two documents. I guess that would have been really helpful in that case. But I agree that with all other file formats, if you have different Word versions due to conflicting copies due to the Dropbox, this can be very annoying.

November 2, 2012 By Francis Leave a Comment

What Can You Outsource that Has Nothing to Do with Building Websites?

by Francis
(November 02, 2012)

Young virtual assistant assigned many tasks at the same time

From time to time when I talk with my friends, they ask me what they could outsource if they’re not an online business owner.

The answer is, of course, everything as long as your fantasy and imagination can handle it.

Just think of any tasks you do at the computer that is repetitive and takes a lot of time.

Are you researching something repeatedly?

Are you clicking the same links again and again?

Are you, perhaps, even playing an online game which needs something boring to do in order to proceed?

Although the last example is a little bit extreme, you could outsource all those things.

In fact, I have prepared some transcripts for a brand new case study and page section about real life outsourcing in action.

I had to do something repeatedly the last days. I won’t tell you what it is. It’s still a surprise.

But then, something clicked in my head and I decided now’s the time to outsource it. It will take less time to explain this task and have someone else do it repeatedly hundreds of time than for me to do all of these on my own.

So stay tuned. It might take a week or so until everything is ready. Until you can read about my next super-secret outsourcing project, but it will be worth the wait. Promised!

Comments for What Can You Outsource That Has Nothing To Do With Building Websites?

Oct 09, 2014

A variety of outsourcing
by: JomvieActually, you can outsource games. I do that for quite some time, especially over the weekends.I am having fun and at the same time I can get rare and expensive equipments for my own characters as well :DOutsourcing comes in many different ways and it’s not just contained in the online world.

Feb 20, 2015

Outsourcing Games? Now that’s a Confusing Concept
by: FrancisGreat addition, Jomvie. I was actually wondering if working on websites is the only thing one can effectively outsource to virtual assistants. I have heard about outsourcing games.For example, to receive bigger magical items or something of the like but I didn’t investigate on that very much. So it’s very interesting to me that you have some hands on experience on such a hard sounding work.I personally believe you were pretty lucky to land such a job that’s funny and paying at the same time especially if you are playing the game. Would you mind sharing more details about this?

If you have some screenshots from the time or could recreate something like that, I would love to read a case study of your experience in outsourcing games.

Keeping In Touch With Past Employers Is What Sets Apart Awesome Providers from Normal Virtual Assistants

by Francis
(November 05, 2012)

I just got a nice surprise as I received a chat from Shailesh, a virtual assistant whom I have worked with in the past. He’s was one of the top three excellent contractors that I had the chance to work with, that also without any reasons took that time to drop a line and say hello even if there’s nothing new.

It may be the politeness of Indian people or it may be that this person genuinely cares about my well-being. The only thing I know is that this does make a huge difference.

If you have a virtual assistant that takes the time to write back to you even years after your last cooperation and keeps on doing so regularly even if you don’t respond; then this should give you a hint.

The next time you open a project; consider hiring the same person again. He won’t disappoint you.

Making Money with Socks: This Has To Be One of the Most Creative Fiverr Gigs Ever!

by Francis
(November 06, 2012)

I just came across a funny Fiverr Gig. You can make money as a freelancer either by doing quality work or by surprising the heck out of the reader with just fun and bizarre ideas.

This guy will explain to you how he got your missing sock in a crazy as a thousand words letter for only $5.

If you have seen his video in his crazy bearded glasses look, then you will be chuckling already.

I have to hold myself back from not ordering this gig immediately. Who doesn’t miss some socks?

Outsourcing your time with your girlfriend – a funny Big Bang Theory Clip

by Francis
(November 07, 2012)

One of my favorite series is the Big Bang Theory. When they made a joke about outsourcing, I just had to share this with you 😀

Check out this clip from the series:

Raj, being an Indian, often has to deal with stereotypical humour. But who knows what the future will bring?

If you hate to use the phone or are simply too lazy to use it, will you outsource spending time connecting to your friends?

(Anyone who knows the time before Facebook can see how very possible this extreme scenario could be!)

I’m all for unusual outsourcing experiments. The more fun, the better.

But you, dear reader, will have to find the line where you cannot send the task overseas to your assistant in India or anywhere else, and have to buckle down and do it yourself.

That’s why I have the section about productivity on this site. Be sure to check it out to learn more about being the most productive self you can be!