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February 29, 2016 By Francis Leave a Comment

Concluding The Outsourcing Interview From Stefan

This is the conclusion and last part of the outsourcing interview from Stefan from Germany, who lives the Four Hour Work Week lifestyle in Thailand.

Click here to read part 21 – How to keep your assistant motivated

Summary:

In this interview you can learn about hiring process, about the tools you need to communicate to your assistant like video instructions and online productivity tools.
We have also discussed about the different services that are out there like the Fiverr, Mechanical Turk, oDesk and other services in this outsourcing interview.
You would also learn how to train your virtual assistants with new skills and how to motivate them to build their inner confidence and initiative.

Start of the Interview:

Francis:

In this outsourcing interview, I could answer your questions or try to answer your questions directly. But the website has grown pretty big and there’s a lot of free information on it and in my humble opinion, I think there’s lots of lessons to be learned.

So if you do have free time, please take the time to check out different sites. Although it’s a lot of stuff to read, I think if you implement the lessons from my site; you might be able to save time on the long run.

Especially about the hiring process, about the tools you need to communicate to your assistant like video instructions and online productivity tools. And the different services that are out there like the Fiverr, Mechanical Turk, oDesk and other services.

So if you haven’t had time to take an overview about this, please look at it and see if you cannot increase the quality of your hiring strategy.

Stefan:

Yes.

Francis:

Promise?

Stefan

I have to change my hiring process because it’s not working yet.

Francis:

That’s right.

Stefan:

it’s not giving the results that I want to have. But I’m most likely would only go for long stuff in the future. There are two things that I will definitely change. One thing is a way bigger…how do you say this…

Francis:

So you’re looking forward to build a bigger team of people who will be working at your project at the same time.

Stefan:

In the beginning, for like the first 5 hours and then shave off 50% of the people. And then let the rest work another 5-10 hours. Shave again the half of them. And then, figure out one person. But all of that is not for an immediate project.

Because when I need the immediate results, they most likely won’t deliver that. So, it’s basically just dummy work to find someone who is able to improve himself and become my virtual assistant for the future.

Francis:

One word of warning to this, please don’t be too nearsighted. If you hire someone for 3 hours then fire them because the first 3 hours were not good. You might be losing out. Some people need some time and I’m not talking about several weeks but at least 1 or 2 weeks.

So if you decide to hire several people and keep only the best of them; I would always propose that you hire 2 people for 2 weeks. And after 2 weeks, you keep the winner. Do not work with more than 2 people at a time because you will lose the overview. Also, you will lose too much money in a short period of time.

And always by pairs of 2 against 2 weeks, check the performance objectively by the people. See how often they reply, how willing they are, how motivated they are and don’t let your time invested into 1 person be lost too easily. So always think about your second chance if makes it worth it in the long run.

Stefan:

Yup. But again, as I said, this is rather a long term thing. From my experience, I think I can conclude that if I need a job done right now like let’s say in 1 week or 2 weeks, 4 weeks or whatever…

I would have to train someone first. That doesn’t work out. So I’d rather do that on my own right now.

Francis:

Okay. So I think that’s a good bottom line for this outsourcing interview. For important short term projects, figure it out on your own first. But build the basic building blocks so that you can have 1 or, perhaps, several long term assistants in the future.

Stefan:

Yes. For the future project, if you already have someone who is able to do various things then okay. But if you don’t have anybody, don’t search for that person because most likely it won’t work. That’s my experience for short time.

Francis:

Yeah, for short time. For long term, you would…

Stefan:

But let’s say for 2 weeks the project has to be done or like in 4 weeks, it’s very unlikely that the person whom you hire right now will deliver those results.

Francis:

I think it’s very difficult. Yes, that’s true. I would like end this outsourcing interview from this part about the motivation of the virtual assistant unless you have a final question about this.

Stefan:

No. No further questions.

Francis:

Okay. So thanks for that.

February 29, 2016 By Francis Leave a Comment

Why Outsourcing Fails and How to Prevent It?

Why outsourcing fails is part-7 of the second interview from Stefan from Germany, who lives the Four Hour Work Week lifestyle in Thailand.

Click here to read part 6 – Asking your virtual assistant for his previous work samples

Summary:

In the initial phase of outsourcing, you might get a feeling that it’s rather not cost efficient and therefore often you decide to quit it.
For successful outsourcing results, it’s recommended that you hire one main virtual assistant who looks after most of your work.
Finding one perfect assistant is however not easy, you will have to invest a lot of time and money in training to make him perfect for your needs.

Start of the Interview:

Francis:

I want you to gain back the trust into the idea that outsourcing works.

Stefan:

I know this works but the problem is I experienced that it is on the verge of not being cost efficient anymore. When I put everything inside – my time, my nerves. You know, everything that I put inside, the money there that I put inside, everything.

If you combine all of that, it goes over this cliff where this is the safe border on the side where there’s good and productive and everything. There’s the cliff where those just says “Just do it on your own.” No?

Francis:

Okay. I think you are on a very delicate point here. In my opinion, if you pass this situation where it’s on the cliff even if you, for a few weeks, are not money efficient. It only goes up from there.

As long as you continuously learn from your failures and implement steps to eliminate the failures in your future. It can only go up. And after you pass the situation where you are, sort of, not cost efficient; you come in to the area of its being crazily time and cost efficient.

Stefan:

Okay.

Francis:

So I think coming to that point is worth it, at least for me personally. I think over the cost of the time, I might have mentioned this in the other interview already; I have invested a few thousand dollars in outsourcing. I have received quite some results.

I did many, many different projects and I learned tons of stuff. Most of all goes in to this website so that others don’t need to invest same money to learn the same lessons. But now that I have learned all of these, it’s really easy for me.

I have one assistant who is perfect and if some point in the future he decides to change his work situation; I am confident that I will be able to train and form a new person almost as perfect as the old assistant in a quite short amount of time.

So, this takes away the fear of the system not functioning anymore for me. And I think that’s priceless. Now that I know how to do this, I can be very confident in working a lot of different projects at the same time.

Stefan:

I didn’t know if I want it hand drawn because I knew also that this is time consuming.

Francis:

Yeah, yeah.

Stefan:

I agree that it’s definitely possible and definitely cost efficient at some point. But for small jobs and for just outsourcing occasionally, it’s a very delicate situation.

Francis:

Yes. If you don’t outsource on a regular basis, I wouldn’t recommend – how do I say this? – going into contract outsourcing. I propose that if you say, “Well, some weeks I don’t have anything to do and some weeks I have something to do.”

That you get one do-it-all assistant, train him for whatever comes up but tell him beforehand, “Well, on average, it will not be more than 10 hours a week” so that this assistant can also go out and get other jobs. This would be fair.

But then if you have something to do and if you have established a good working relationship; he knows that it’s fun working with you and he gets well paid then he will come back to you whenever you need him. But it’s not as efficient as having someone dedicated to you.

Stefan:

Yes.

Francis:

But that only works if you have a lot of work for him.

Stefan:

I assume that I would have a lot of work and give him that. What do you mean dedicated like 40 hours a week or 10 hours a week or whatever’s possible?

Francis:

At least 20 hours a week.

Stefan:

Okay. So that’s a full time assistant or a part time assistant.

Francis:

Exactly.

Stefan:

Okay.

Francis:

That’s the most efficient way to do it.

Stefan:

From myself, I would say that if I have someone who’s working for me 20 hours a week, I would definitely find enough work for him to do. Given that he could do it because the stuff that I would tell him to do would be such a wide range.

It could vary from graphic design to layout to web design to web formats to websites or to just somewhere and do some specific tasks. Very different things but actually someone who is web affinity, you know?

Francis:

Yes.

Stefan:

Has some web affinity and can grasp these things. And is basically a new pair of hands for me. Just do stuff while I don’t do stuff.

Francis:

Work while you sleep.

Stefan:

Yeah, exactly. That would be a lot when I don’t feel like working.

Francis:

Yes.

Stefan:

Then I have a motivation low, I can be at least reassured that stuff is done.

Francis:

Yes.

Stefan:

And I learned that if I would need a full time or a part time assistant or only a web designer or only the data entry guy.

Francis:

Yes. If you want to go this way, to have someone working much for you; there is no way around efficient communication in the first time.

So at the beginning, you let him only do one job and do it well until he understands how you think and how you want it. Then you expand to the next job. You cannot start with 10 jobs at same time. That’s not efficient. I don’t recommend it.

Stefan:

How do I find someone who can do potentially everything? Who is just an online nerd who learns and then loves stuff like that and can do so many things?

Francis:

By being very careful in the interviewing process and finding the person who for the right price for you has a lot of availability. So, does not work for 10 other projects but says okay I have 40 hours a week shows you in his portfolio and in his application that he’s very smart and very skilled; and shows you within the interview process in the first test task at the beginning that he’s a problem solver and a quick learner.

If you have such a person on your hand even if is he’s not very skillet yet then you have a winner. Because you can always train him, if he’s a quick learner and doing whatever he needs. If he has, for example, basics of graphics design down.

Stefan:

Yeah.

Francis:

I think that’s really the most difficult step where there’s a little bit of luck involved. But if you asked the right questions, if you’ve given the right test tasks, really closely consider how fast he’s learning and how fast he’s implementing stuff on his own.

If you really screen for such people, then earlier or later you find that person who is self motivated – self learner – and whom you can give lots of different tasks overtime.

But to find that out, if you need to be closely tuned in to your applicants and assistants. And here I would really want to go back to the sort of point where I talk about the communication.

Stefan:

Yes.

Francis:

If that’s okay with you…

Stefan:

Yeah, totally.

Continue reading part 8 – Establishing Effective Virtual Communication with Your Assistants

February 29, 2016 By Francis Leave a Comment

Outsourcing Cheap Jobs For 3$

My favorite outsourcing service discourages outsourcing cheap jobs out of fear of the employees underpricing each other. Specifically, posting jobs and hiring people for under $5 (for fixed price jobs) or 3$/hour is not possible anymore nowadays.

Bad method: Try not to get caught

You still can get your work done at a lower rate than 3$/hour by asking your providers to work more than what was agreed upon. You could do it and hope that you don’t get caught.

But if you repeat it often, it is possible that your account gets banned and then you will have to open a new account. For that, you will probably need another Visa or Master credit card. And if they find out that your real name is of the same guy that got banned, perhaps you cannot use Odesk ever again.

And since it has merged with Elance (as I discussed before their merger), then you lose access to the biggest outsourcing platform out there.

Outsourcing Cheap Jobs Done Right

The second possibility to do your work done in just $3 is to create an hourly job at the rate of $3 per hour and limit the work load per week to 1 hour. My virtual assistant himself has had a contract with a limit of 2 hrs/week with another employer.

If 1 hour/week limit is not available you can ask you provider:

“OK, I expect this job done in an hour. If you take longer, after 1 hours the work limit will be reached and I will assume that you are not successful and you I will provide you a bad feedback.”

In this case the provider will be motivated to do it in one hour. And it also is perfectly within Odesk’s terms of services.

If it is moral, is of course another question.

But if the task is really worth only $3, e.g. something really simple where you have to just

click 5 links,
download 5 links
and send us the results,

then perhaps it’s OK.

You should think about the ethical aspects of outsourcing cheap jobs. I did the “bad method” of outsourcing cheap fixed jobs for 1$ at that time myself (that was possible a few years ago), without knowing that the TOS of Odesk had changed. I got my warning, but also was worried if what I did was immoral.

I asked my VA for his personal opinion on this matter.

Opinion from my Virtual Assistant:

Sometimes there are more elements more important than money. I think you are sort of not satisfied with yourself for hiring a person at $1 because this money is very nominal, but in my opinion the work we got from these providers did not take over an hour or so.

Now here I have another question: is it ethical that you get a lot of work done by a provider which demands 10 hours or so for just $5? In this case you are paying according to Odesk TOS, but is it really ethical to pay such amount for a fairly long quantity work?

Here I would also like to quote my personal example:

I worked for around 2 days (More than 15 hours) and downloaded and converted around 3200 excel files into another format. The job was fairly simple but it took at least 15 hours to get completed and I did all this for $5.

Why?

As I said earlier: something is more important than money. For me my first feedback was more important than $5 because I know that employers even don’t consider a person without having any feedback.

Still, I don’t have any grudges to that employer. In fact, I have a lot of respect for him because he provided me with the very first opportunity, the base of my freelancing career and I regard him a lot. If today he asks me to do the same job at the same rate, I would work for him on a priority.

Another general example to support this discussion: A fresh graduate who just completed his graduation and looking for a job usually gets up to 3 months of internship program even if he is not getting any stipend.

Why he is doing this?

Just to build his profile!

February 25, 2016 By Francis Leave a Comment

Outsourcing Case Study 1 – Picture Research

Girl researching pictures on laptop This Outsourcing case study – Picture research – is part-19 of an interview from Stefan from Germany, who lives the Four Hour Work Week lifestyle in Thailand.

Click here to read part 18 – Mastering the art of having a self-motivated virtual assistant

Summary:

The biggest dream for every entrepreneur is to have one full time virtual assistant that says, “Yeah don’t worry about it. I’ll get it figured out. I’ll research it. I’ll figure it out, you don’t have to worry.”
Always start any outsourcing work with a very small amount of work, preferably in patches let your virtual assistant to work on that, provide feedback on his work and then ask him to resume the work.
Doing this will enable your virtual assistant to think more like you. As he will be receiving regular feedback from you, this will enable him to know what and how you think, how you want to get the work done and what’s in your mind.

Start of the Interview:

Francis:

Perhaps, for the last part with more outsourcing case studies on how to train your assistant to be more self motivated and self organized. Perhaps, let’s talk about some specific examples. What we can do.

What work example we can give an assistant so that they are more self motivated like we wanted -more of a problem solver.

Perhaps, the first step is really at the beginning of the working relationship, openly communicate that this is your dream. Tell your assistant “Well, we work together. I’ll train you.

But my big dream is that after some time, you will be a person that says, ‘Yeah don’t worry about it. I’ll get it figured out. I’ll research it. I’ll figure it out, you don’t have to worry.’” This will set up the expectation at the beginning.

But now to more specific outsourcing case study, let’s talk about picture research as an example.

Stefan:

Let me quickly ask you something.

Francis:

Yes, of course.

Stefan:

Would that be advised to write “This is my dream. I’m searching for a full time assistant who performs all my wishes that I ask him to do” in the job description at the end, for example?

Would that be advisable?

Francis:

No. I wouldn’t do it. I wouldn’t do it because it’s discourages the work at the beginning. At the beginning, your job is to find a person who is willing to work with good ethics and smart enough to learn new stuff.

Then as you get more and more trust, they know you pay them well then you can make your wishes bigger. And if you encounter a person who says “Yeah, I really want only to work on instructions and I’m not comfortable with opening myself up to a failure.” Then you can know that, perhaps, he’s still a good worker and then it becomes a tier 2 person but not your #1 assistant.

Examples of pictures research. You have the situation that you wanted illustration for your E-book. And for your assistant to know what sort of pictures you’re looking for. The best idea is to get through several training loops so that he learns to know how you think. So using video recordings a lot, you show him what you would like.

Do the basic research on one example and let him then do more researches on other examples. First, the easiest sorts would be Google images. All of that is, of course, copyrighted, you cannot use it. But it’s a good start for him to know what you want.

Stefan:

Yes?

Francis:

When he then knows what you want in principle then we can continue to the platforms where you actually can use the pictures – Flickr creative commons, Stock photo banks.

Stefan:

Maybe, we talked about this last time because my idea was to just research because of the picture and copyright problematic.

Francis:

Yeah.

Stefan:

Actually, I didn’t hire anyone but I got together with an applicant on oDesk wrote back and forth. With that, I did it differently because you said that the idea was I find picture that I find attractive and I hire an artist who just redraws them in their own style.

Francis:

Okay. Yeah, I remember that. This was just an example for “How to Train Someone to Think More like You”. Give him a basic task. Tell him how you like it and then he will understand how you’re thinking.

Stefan:

When I contacted instead of illustrators and layout people and graphic people, when I went to artists who are more into drawing and painting and stuff; they were way more susceptible. They could understand what I’m talking about way better than the other people – the graphic people or the Photoshop people.

So it seems also to depend on what the expertise of the person is whom you’re talking to.

Francis:

Yes, it is so true.

Stefan:

Because they could understand what I’m talking about, they were like people who draw Manga and stuff, you know? And who would draw with pencils and stuff. And who have no idea about Photoshop or anything but they can draw on paper and scanning.

So they understood what I was talking about. Whereas, the people who use Photoshop and graphic design and lay-outing, they didn’t get it. They use their Photoshop tricks and it didn’t work out the way of what I imagined.

Francis:

Yeah. In other words, the big investment was if you’re looking for recreation of pictures; it’s better to find actual artist who draw on paper than people who are experts on Photoshop and layout, editing, etc.

Stefan:

And even the bigger lesson would be change of skills or expertise or knowledge of the person changes how he understands what you’re talking about – what you want because they understand by the way that you want instead of the other people.

Francis:

I think this outsourcing case study a good lesson. Well, I didn’t know much about graphics design but I definitely learned something. Let’s take another another case study .

Continue reading part 20 – Outsourcing case study 2 – Traffic generation

February 25, 2016 By Francis Leave a Comment

Outsourcing Case Study 2 – Traffic Generation

This Case study ‘traffic generation via outsourcing’ is part-20 of the second interview from Stefan from Germany, who lives the Four Hour Work Week lifestyle in Thailand.

Click here to read Part 19, Outsourcing case study – picture research

Summary:

One very simple platform for traffic generation is StumbleUpon, if you want to generate some quick traffic to your website. It’s like liking or disliking on Facebook and shows great and quick results.
Ask your VA to research a few other social bookmarking sites. Explain to him that how to research best social bookmarking sites via Google, he will receive a lot of posts with lists of hundreds of bookmarking sites.
If he does it right, give him good feedback and tell him he was very good at finding out how it was. If he doesn’t do it right, show him to these resources he can read on his own to learn how to do it right like tutorials, YouTube videos, forums.

Start of the Interview:

Francis:

The previous example was pictures research. The next example is traffic generation.

A basic example for a very simple technique that might be interesting for scaling up depending on which traffic strategies you’re searching is Social Bookmarking.

There exists many social bookmarks and they have the reasons or not for traffic generation based on what your website is and what your strategy is.

One very simple platform for traffic generation is StumbleUpon. My proposition is if you want to generate traffic to your website which might be a content website, for example, you take your most popular site and edit to StumbleUpon. It’s like liking or disliking on Facebook.

If it’s new, it will get entered into the database and needs a little bit of description and a tagging. If it already exists in the database, in other words, if someone has already added it to StumbleUpon then it will just receive the “Like”.

Explain to your assistant how to do that – the description, the tagging and the liking. Then to prevent your profile from looking like a spammer, search a few other interesting sites in your niche and like or dislike them accordingly. Then and only then add the next very popular site from your website.

This way you will generate a few instant traffic surges. In general, if a good site is submitted to StumbleUpon for the first time, I always receive about 100 visits for 1 day. And then very, very little visits in the future.

So that’s only one traffic building step. Then, you can explain everything with this one platform to your assistant using video instructions, using text and voice explanations and then have him do it for the rest of your sites.

Then, let him research on his own a few other social bookmarking sites. Explain to him that if he Google the best social bookmarking sites, he will receive a lot of posts with lists of hundreds of bookmarking sites.

Then explain to him how he can find out the best of them – the highest PR, the highest traffic generation using web research.

And then, he should attack, for example, 2 other bookmarking sites Digg, Diigo, Reddit and others. As he does it, he should create a manual explaining how he does it. An alternative is he uses screen recording and you just watch him do it.

This reporting on how he does the task on his own is very, very important. We don’t want him to lose time by the doing the task inefficiently. When you watch the video, you will see immediately if he does it wrong. Then you can correct him.

If he does it right, give him good feedback and tell him he was very good at finding out how it was. If he doesn’t do it right, show him to these resources he can read on his own to learn how to do it right like tutorials, YouTube videos, forums.

And if he still cannot figure it out after a fixed amount of time which you tell him then he reports back to you and you decide if you want to give him close instructions or if you don’t want to use this system.

This would be positive in 2 ways: you generate traffic as you go for your site and you teach your assistant to think more on his own.

There’s not much attitude.

Stefan:

There’s not much to say about it. I would say that what could be a problem here is that you could lose time.

That’s a possibility because it would be only unless if you have someone who’s doing that job once. Instead of permanent assistant.

The problem resolve itself if it’s a permanent assistant because even if you would potentially lose a little bit of time, you would gain in the long term. So it shouldn’t be a too big of a problem.

Francis:

There is always the risk of you losing your assistant one way or the other. In cases like these, it’s very useful for your assistant to record what he’s doing anyways.

So that if you change your assistant, you have all the training materials you need to accelerate the training of the next assistant. It will not be a replacement immediately because all the communication cannot easily be replaced.

But at least the teaching can be fastened up by your assistant doing, writing down what he has learned in many words or videos for the next person in line and for important purposes.

Continue reading part 21 – How to keep your virtual assistant motivated

February 25, 2016 By Francis Leave a Comment

Make Your Online Home Based Business Ideas Come True

Every person has the potential to create his own online business. Not everyone uses the right tools to turn his potential online home based business ideas into real income.

Your ideas are a unique and hidden treasure

You are a walking fortune. Sounds cheezy? I know, sorry.

What I want to say to you is that you have a best-selling book or a super popular website stuck in your brain.

I don’t know what is your big passion. It may be hiking, yoga or collecting stamps. But there is something that you know LOTS about. And there ARE people that are looking to find this info on the net.

Believe me, there are so many people looking for so much different stuff, you won’t believe what crazy ideas you can make money with.

Where does the money come from?

If you are an expert in something – even if it is paper-ball-tossing! – you can present that information to others that are willing to bring value to the table in exchange.

That’s almost all the secret there is to make a business.

Start with the right tools

There are however, a multitude of wrong approaches you can take. Let me show you one example:

Is blogging the solution to making money online?

The answer: no.

For me personally, using Site Build It! is the way to success. The “downside”? You’ll have to invest a lot more work than what the easy promises on the internet might say.

The upside?

You won’t lose unnecessary time working without a working business plan and without training. This is all included in the system.

The secret of creating more free time

You’ll read much phony stuff out there on the internet when you start researching good info about how to actually build an online business on something you love.

Some people will promise you great riches over night if you just sign up here… Blabla!

Don’t trust those easy promises!

If it was that easy, don’t you think everyone would not be driving a Benz right now…?

So, what works if the easy way out is not true, in my opinion?

Long, hard work… works! Be it online or in the real life. You will need to invest some serious time and commit to your online biz.

But who has the time?

No one. I had taken a few months off after graduating before jumping into the world of work. And there still was not enough time.

The solution?

Get a trustworthy virtual helper. That’s what you will learn all over this site. What is a great challenge to you alone is much more doable with some (extremely affordable) help from outside.

(Click here if you want to know where I look for virtual assistants.)

—

On a side note:

The process of using this website building system is also doable alone. You can turn your online home based business ideas into reality, even alone. it will just take a lot of time.

However, it will take less time with a virtual assistant.

Why this system works so well with virtual assistants

It Worked For Me!

I started working with my virtual assistant on a website process using the same Site Build It! system.

He knew nothing about it at first. I handed him the training materials and he understood most of each step without me needing to train him much.

Of course, I needed to give him my input about what my personal preferences for my website were.

The great feature of this system is that it is described in simple followable steps that are understandable even for someone without any training.

That makes it perfect for using it together with a virtual assistant. What actually takes the most time before working with a VA really pays off big time, is the time you need to invest into your VA for training. But the training wheels of the SBI-system drastically reduce this time.

You’ll reach the point where you make your online home based business ideas reality much, much sooner with some help.

Believe me.

Blog Page

Summary:

Start of the Interview:

Summary:

Start of the Interview:

Bad method: Try not to get caught

Outsourcing Cheap Jobs Done Right

Opinion from my Virtual Assistant:

Summary:

Start of the Interview:

Summary:

Start of the Interview:

Your ideas are a unique and hidden treasure

Start with the right tools

The secret of creating more free time

Why this system works so well with virtual assistants

It Worked For Me!

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