Today we’re going to take a look at another option for outsourcing your online tasks. We’ve covered outsourcing by hiring Independent contractors…which is the answer if you truly want to totally outsource your business. But, there are times when you need a project done.

If you have not already hired a full staff of contractors that can accomplish your task for you then you must entertain the idea of outsourcing the project to a project based/bidding site.

Although there are a few that deserve mention, there is one that is preferred by Filipinos…this site is oDesk. You can find good Filipino workers there that will work on your project for about the same rate as you would pay your permanent Independent contractor.

Check out these valuable tips on using oDesk:

10 Tips for Using oDesk to Scale Up Your Business

A friend of yours may have used oDesk to get their business scaled up, but it’s your first time using it and you want to get in gear. You know that oDesk can offer web developers, software designers and even content creators for your business. How do you get the most from your oDesk order?

Here’s some tips:

1. List your needs, precisely: oDesk provides coders who can create your website in at least 30 languages. They have designers who can create your logo. There are accounting personnel who are proficient in the latest software. If your company has an international presence, oDesk can provide translations for your site. What’s key, however, is that you decide exactly what you need before you start advertising for it.
2. Set your budget: At oDesk, you can decide whether your contractors will work by the hour or be paid a fixed price per project. There are advantages and disadvantages to both, so you have to choose which way you want to go. If you have a drawn out project, it might be best to select have a fixed limit. Being billed for the hour might work out for other tasks, like data entry.
3. Provide detailed project information: You want to give bidders a specific idea of what they’re bidding on. If you don’t know what programming languages are best for your website, state what you want it to do and the right provider will make a bid on your work. If they’re available, give samples of the type of work that you’d like to receive. Basically, give a direct summary of what you need.
4. Evaluate your bidders thoroughly: Check to see if your bidders have good feedback ratings for the type of work that you want to get done. Are you looking for individual one-off sort of work, or are you looking for something that only another company can provide? Examine their work history and see if your provider has done the type of work that you’re needing.
5. Provide even more information: Now that you’ve selected your providers or team members, you want to give them in-depth details of what you hope to accomplish. Try to give your contractors more of a feel for what you’re asking. The more information your team has, the better they can suit your needs.
6. Use the reports and work diary to monitor progress: Once they have all the information they need and have gotten to work, you can monitor their progress using the work diary and reports section. Often, people have no idea of the labor that goes into a specific project and are surprised at the bill. You can keep track of the time that your contractors are spending on your project to get a better concept of what the bill is going to be.
7. Take a look at the in-progress work: This is where you can see what your people are actually doing for you. You can get an idea of where they are in the project, and also guide them in the direction that you want them to go to. If you see that there is something going wrong, you can correct the course when the error is small.
8. Answer questions as quickly as possible: If your team members have questions about what they need to be doing, you want to answer them as quickly as possible so you can get the job completed. No question is silly or unreasonable. When you hire someone to work for you, that person needs to have guidelines and boundaries to work within.
9. Communicate with your team manager: There is a possibility that your service provider is a company in another country. The team leader should be the one who is most proficient in the language that you speak. That leader can properly convey your message to the others.
10. Give detailed, honest feedback: The feedback process is designed to help both parties grow. If you are pleased with the work that your service provider did, tell them in writing. If you have similar projects that are in the works, you can request them again.If you are not comfortable with hiring them again, tell them in a private venue.This provides closure to the job on both accounts and help everyone’s next job turn out better.

    Going to oDesk is a perfect way to get the tasks that you need. Keeping these tips in mind on your oDesk project will get it done faster, leaving you to focus more on your core business.

Thanks to our guest writer today…

James Adams, a staff writer at Cartridge Save where he reviews products such as this High Capacity Black Cartridge.

He also helps write posts about design and marketing on their blog.

enJOY the week-end coming up…

Kathy *

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It’s been nearly two months since I joined Tyrone’s Mass Outsource MasterMind so I thought I’d finally give you that update that I’ve promised for a couple of weeks now

First I’d like to say that I am really enjoying this class. It is well organized with videos to explain everything that is taught. In fact, Tyrone supplies us all with videos, pdf’s and mp3′s…so, no excuses for not learning.

There are 8 modules in this course starting with 1: A General Overview of Employing Virtual Staff and ending with Module 8: Setting Your Business In Automatic Mode.

The first area that Tyrone addresses is “Developing the Outsourcing Mindset.” Inside our first lesson, we learned about the 80/20 rule and what this rule has to do with us. Anyone who has read Tim Ferris’ book the “4 Hour Work Week” will be familiar with this rule.

Basically the 80/20 rule is that in your life, 80 percent of your outcomes come from 20 percent of your inputs. Or you can say that 20 percent of your activities produce 80 percent of your financial rewards.

According to Wikipedia: The 80/20 rule was named after the Italian economist Vilfredo Pareto. He observed that 80% of income in Italy was received by 20% of the Italian population. The assumption is that most of the results in any situation  are determined by a small number of causes.

In Tyrone’s case, these are the examples of the 20% activities that produce 80% percent of his income:

• Networking with others through Skype and email. this establishes relationships and eventually leads to doing business together in the form of partnerships or JV’s or gaining affiliates.
• Writing newsletters and sending them to customers…this continues to build that all important relationship.
• Creating video content to  provide value to readers. This also creates other business opportunities and markets the business brand.

So, this was our first real exercise, to write down what the 20% of activities are in our business that produce 80% of our income. The second question/part of the exercise was to list the remainder of the activities that don’t generate income but need to be completed. This helps to determine which activities need to be outsourced to staff to complete.

Another important idea that Tyrone pulled from Tim Ferris is the acronym called D-E-A-L.

• D is for definition: You need to define what you want out of this whole outsourcing course and also what you want to achieve within your own business. This idea is not new and any successful business starts with a vision. Imagine in your mind what it is that you are trying to achieve through this process.What is your dream?Are you like me, do you want to travel? Define it.

• E is for elimination: How you look at your day and split it up into the 80/20 principle. Apply that principle to eliminate the things that are not dollar productive and focus on things that will make money. This is where outsourcing comes in.You train your staff to do the activities that are not dollar productive such as all your admin duties that can be very time consuming. This frees you up to tend to those activities that are producing income.

• A for automation: Automating your business by having everything in place such as a project management system for your outsourcers to check into and the correct system to have in place to run and receive payments from customers so that your virtual staff can handle these things for you and make sure that it goes into the right account.

• L is for liberation: Now that one brings a smile to my face. Liberated! Free! Doesn’t just the idea of it excite you? Liberation is all about living your dream lifestyle, designing your whole life…free to live it has you see fit and not have to worry about anything dealing with your business because your virtual staff is managing the business for you. This will happen over time.

  This one is the long term strategy or goal. This is achieving your desired lifestyle.

World in your hands

Tyrone does an excellent job of supplying the education, the tools, advice and resources…but in the end, its up to us to take the action steps to make this all happen.

Module 1:  basically covers everything from why you should outsource, to how you should hire, how to pay, what work to give, and how to manage your virtual staff. There are 10 videos in this series.

Module 2: Developing the outsourcing mindset. Tyrone also introduces his Mass Outsource sytem in this module.

Next up in my series on Mass Outsource Mastermind is Module 3: Hiring Virtual Staff. In this module we’ll cover everything from finding the best virtual staff to suit your business, to how to screen them, what you can expect and the guidelines for managing them.

I really believe understanding and applying the 80/20 principle is the key to making all of this work. This is what brings clarity to us about our business and what our role should be.

For those of you stateside:

enJOY your families this Memorial Day Week-end…lots of barbecuing I am sure

Everyone else…just have a fabulous week-end filled with love and joy

Kathy *

“People often say that motivation doesn’t last. Well, neither
does bathing — that’s why we recommend it daily.”
— Zig Ziglar: Author and motivational speaker

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At the end of the last post I promised to update my journey into Tyrone’s Mass Outsource Mastermind course. And, I do promise that I will give a detailed progress report in just a few days. But, I recently ran into a website that I’ve been totally smitten with and there is a contest running there with a time frame that needs to be addressed.

This unique, educating and entertaining site is “Tropical MBA”…and it is the brainchild of Dan Andrew. Dan is a lifestyle designer and location independent entrepreneur…basically what that means is Dan is free to choose his own lifestyle and to pursue his passions independent of any location. He has freedom and mobility to live life as he sees fit.

Dan left the comforts of home in beautiful San Diego over just over 2 years ago, literally leaving everything behind…grabbed his backpack and headed to Asia . He does digital marketing services for his own company now…based in the Philippines and travels whenever he wants because he operates his whole business on the computer.

What would make a successful businessman leave everything behind for an uncertain future? Read the rest of this entry »

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Ok, so now its time to take a deep breath! After two huge Outsourcing course launches in a row, I can get back to providing  good quality content posting.  That’s what I really love doing

In previous posts I covered Onlinejobs.ph, which was created by John Jonas and Bestjobs.ph a Filipino based service.  These are both well established job services.

But, there’s a fairly new guy on the block that’s making waves and is another very viable option for finding that perfect full time or part time outsourced worker or VA…

This one called EasyOutsource.com was founded in 2009 and is the brain child of  Michael Eisenwasser and Matt O’Brien, two web developers from Chicago. Here’s what they had to say on their site: Read the rest of this entry »

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For those of you interested, John Reese has put video 3 and 4 up online leading up to the launch of “Outsource Force” and will be opening this course this afternoon at 4 p.m. EDT.

In video 3 he breaks down all the major ways to make money online and explains how easily all the components can be outsourced.

Go Watch This Crazy Video:

“Outsource Force”

Here’s what he reveals in this free video… Read the rest of this entry »

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