I’ve tried outsourcing with Odesk, and that was an OK experience.  I’ve outsourced with TheContentAuthority.com, which is actually a good operation – I recommend them for content.  I’ve also had a sales letter outsourced (thanks Shaun) and some great looking graphics at good prices from getminisite.com.  So you could say that I am not exactly new to outsourcing.

But none of that solved my main problem…..  Which is that I don’t like copying and pasting content.  In fact I hate it!  Even as I am typing this post, I am doing it inside this wordpress blog control panel, so that I don’t have to copy and paste.  Sad, I know.  Also, unless you have a relationship with your freelancer you may find yourself teaching the same thing over and over again.  Because the freelancer doesn’t know your business.

So about two weeks ago I made a decision that I believe will revolutionize my business – and let me focus on the things I like to do.  You see what I really like is developing new ideas and finding opportunities.  Of course when you are working in your business instead of on your business that leaves you little time for those functions.   So to take over some of the day to day work, I hired someone using one of the international outsourcing services, replacemyself.com.

Now before I go and tell you that I have found the holy grail of marketing and that I will now be able to work a 4 hour work week after just two weeks of developing and training, let me just say loud and clear, anyone who feeds you that line is full of bull.  Eventually do I see myself working less because I have a staff? – YES.  But that is not what is going to happen right now, because training people takes work and a time investment.

In my eyes though, hiring full time people (and this is more possible than you may think) has several big benefits over hiring freelancers.  Although this is silly, for me, a big thing is that I don’t have to copy and paste. -Cue the angels singing-   My guy, Richard, can post directly to web 2.0 sites and my private blog network sites for me.  I don’t have to do it myself.   Also, as I develop a relationship with him, he becomes invested in my business.  Which is great because Richard has really good ideas allready.

But hiring people is not for wimps and not for everyone…  If you are considering outsourcing then here are some things you should know.  This is based on both my experiences so far with Richard through replacemyself.com, and from my experience of hiring hundreds of people over my career as a retail manager.  By the way I asked Richard’s permission before I posted his name – see third bullet point.

• Don’t hire people if you don’t know how to make money online yet, because they won’t know either.
• Don’t hire people if you don’t like to teach.  The beginning part of training someone is pretty intense.
• Do treat the people you hire with respect.
• Do expect to give vacation time and holidays.
• Do give the people you hire increasing responsibilities.
• Do ask your people for their opinion and then listen.
• Think about how you like to be treated in a job, and treat people that way.
• Do realize that managing people is a unique skill and something you need to be willing to learn if you haven’t done it before.

I also asked Richard, what advice he would give to Americans hiring from the Philippines and he said that  ”Phillipinos enjoy working for a boss with a sense of humor.”  Personally I think that is great advice all around – whether you manage people offline or online.

So, do I think everyone should go out and hire a full time worker?  No, absolutely not.  BUT, if your business is at a point where you want to focus more on the idea side of your business and less on the link building, content creating, site building side, it may be the right move for you to go with one of the international  outsourcing  services.  Be careful though, some of these places are just fronts for management groups.  You want a service that allows you to hire real people.   I personally really like replacemyself.com as they are very thorough in what to expect from your people and how to treat them (VERY important to me).    In addition they answered all of my support emails very promptly, and I had someone hired within three days of using their resources.  So a good experience all around.

If you aren’t ready to take that step yet, but are interested in outsourcing, I highly recommend the In House Writer’s Forum and Services For Sale Section at WordPress Goldmine.  They are exclusive offers to the WordPress Goldmine community and there are some excellent deals in there.  You do have to join the membership, but it’s only $1 to start right now, so you have nothing to lose.

Share this:

That is exciting news in and of itself, but what I find to be even more exciting is that I made $100 for the month as of today.  This is 3 days earlier than last month!  I set myself a goal a while back to move that $100 for the month up every day with methods that I learned at WordPress Goldmine and Keyword Academy on making money with adsense.   I figured that by the time I got to the 1st of the month I would have a $3000 a month income in adsense alone, and since I usually use multiple monetization methods on my sites, I knew I would (and do) have other income coming in as well.

So I am now 1 step closer to my goal, which is VERY, VERY exciting… I must say.   To me that is one of the biggest benefits of setting achievable goals when it comes to internet marketing, especially if they are monetary.    If you are just starting out, or have been at this for a while and are not seeing much progress than a goal of making a certain dollar amount one day earlier every month may help you to know that you are making progress.  I have only missed one month since starting this process, and things have moved forward MUCH faster than I had anticipated – which is great.

So the question that people ask is “Heather, How are you doing it?”

The first thing I have to tell you is that if I in all my ADD glory can make this work than you can too.  The one big thing I have going in my benefit is that I have made some money for the past two years every single month, all I had to do was figure out how to scale it up, and since I am so darn stubborn (but not particularly brilliant) I just pushed through until I started to get it.  So the number one trait I think that is important in figuring out how to make money with adsense is the ability to push through until you get it.  I have seen many, many people quit before they make it and this is a big mistake.

The second thing is to learn from the good guys.  I am no expert, but what I am really good at is copying systems that work.  In my previous life I won more top sales and top production awards than I can remember because of this principle.  If you want to learn solid skills for Search Engine Optimization than you need to learn from the experts.  For small niche blogs, including how to set up a wordpress blog that converts well and gets ranked I recommend WordPress Goldmine.  If you want to create a long term sustainable adsense income and learn some advanced techniques for traffic generation than I recommend The Keyword Academy.  Right now both have dollar trials, so they are certainly worth checking out.   I would recommend joining one or the other and mastering one set of techniques first.  Otherwise you will just confuse yourself.

I personally use techniques I have learned from both places and have gotten results – I am happy to say.

Making money with adsense recap…

1.  Learn from people who know what they are doing.

2. Stick with it till you get it.

3. Set obtainable goals.

That is my whole plan in a nutshell!

Happy Money Making!

Heather

Share this:

First, I built a new site and launched it into the world of the internet.  Next, I built a tracking sheet that makes sense for me.  This time I need to stay focused with it, as that always seems to be my issue.  I used Peter’s 120 day plan (Thanks Peter) available for free at the wp goldmine forum and modified it to fit my personality.  He is just way more structured than I am, so I gave it a little more flex, but I think it will still keep me on track on my promotion and building efforts.

Next, I identified a specific site that is doing OK, but has the potential to do GREAT.  This is a hybrid site of Amazon products and adsense and makes me regular money both ways.  My aim with this site is to add targeted keyword content based both from the searches I am getting and some keyword research that I have done.  I will work on this site for at least two weeks to see what happens with it.  Currently I am fighting with wordpress to get my upgrade to look like my preupgrade, and I am not sure what I did wrong.  The constant upgrades is one of the reasons that wordpress drives me crazy – as powerful as it is.

Anyhow I am super sleepy and it is time to go to bed….

Good night world!

Heather

Edit: It’s an hour later and I now have 1 new blog post plus some new adverts I am testing on a site that gets 100 visitors a day, but stinks in conversion…. so we will see how that goes… Oh, and I committed the cardinal sin of blogging and did not tag this post at all… so I am doing that now.

Share this: