Insights Into My Business

Thanks John! Yes, you were very helpful, and I appreciate your short videos here.

Hey John,

Thanks for the videos! I admit I have had some similar questions in my own mind.

I am a member of Replacemyself and am just finishing off my first month with my first employee. Your third video gives a good “crystal ball” view of what one should expect when hiring someone overseas. This was similar to what I have experienced so far as well. What I mean and what I think you allude to in the video is;

YOU, as the employer, must be versatile and adaptive to successfully develop a productive employee, it doesn’t generally “just happen”. Be prepared to experiment with different types of tasks until you start to understand your new guys strengths and weaknesses. Give them time to “shine” as they are generally keen to do. But understand that “you are driving” and therefore are responsible for guiding productivity and successful development of your guy (and your business). These folks are real people, they want to succeed, but it is your business, they are relying on you to lead them there.

My experience so far with my new guy has been quite a learning curve. We have had challenges, primarily related to communication (time zone). Initially I swamped the poor guy, not realizing his technical limitation. Thankfully I didn’t scare him away, I figured out where he was having trouble, I helped him through, I taught him how, I redeveloped projects/tasks to better utilize his current skill level (and help him advance).

While the long term goal is to take considerable workload off of me, currently I am working a lot, because I need to “hands on” show my guy how I do it before I can step back. Your training modules are very helpful to expedite this process. However, one should not expect these training modules to “do it all”. As you have stated a number of times, you must know your own business. Building relationships, being realistic, taking the time, putting in the effort and being adaptable are key to successful outsourcing.

Thanks John,

JeromyS
http://twitter.com/JeromyS

Keep them coming John. Great Stuff. My Filipino worker is doing a superb job and you’ve been a great inspiration.

Ken Kurtz
Successbios.com

John,

Keep this up, the short videos are easier than reading and easier to act upon.

Cheers,

Steve Bell
http://www.strategic2successful.com

Good to hear that you also had some problems in the beginning.

I am currently on my second writer. In general I have found a lot of people that have experiences with article writing, but not many that can write ebooks, so the causing me some headaches at the moment.

Why haven’t you done that second video sooner John. Great stuff. I’ve had about 5 content writers work for me and I was continually shocked when I saw their “advance” level in English. Being “Fluent” must mean something very different in the Philippines.

I think the reason I though otherwise was due to your previous comments about them “speaking and writing great English”. I hear you saying something a bit different now and that is great because now I can work on finding a way to use their abilities instead of focusing on what they can’t do.

Thank you for your insights.

Mikael

I’ve been able to build a fantastic team thanks in no small part to what I’ve learned from you.

One technical roadblock I keep bumping into is video – which you make reference to here. The raw videos files are SO enormous transferring them takes up so much time (esp with slower internet speeds in the philippines) that it seems faster just to do that myself. However I do spend a decent amount of time editing video. What’s your process for sharing these huge files?

Hi John,

Everyone who wants to start outsourcing or wants to improve their results from it needs to listen closely to the third video from the top on this post. Your answer to the question about how you began and your time line.

It is so important to remember this and follow the method you laid out so clearly. You made many excellent points but there was one idea you mentioned that I need to start implementing that I think will improve my results even more.

Warmest regards,

Ellery

Hi John,
I am more interested in your webcam set-up.
It’s an amazing picture and great sound!
Can you please tell me what your set-up involves?
Thanks

Awesome John! Always very inspiring!

I have to say John, that of the couple dozen or so experts that I follow regularly, you a by far the one that has an attitude of “always serving first.” Having just started an offline company, I soon will be a paying customer/student of your processes. I personally credit you with waking me up to reality of scaling my business to be really successful.

Thank you.

I do $1 million+ online sales every year and have done for years. Your blog is the ONLY blog I read. You’re the only “instructor” I listen from, learn from and hang off every word from…

And although it’s a slow process I have no doubt the things I’ve learned from you and this blog are going to change my life.

Thanks again!

P.s. I’m glad you’ve started going content mad on here and in your newsletter again, was feeling a little burned out with pitches and then BAM! It’s like you knew and now I find myself waiting for your every word again great work!

Well I AM a paying customer of replacemyself.com and I had two guys start within 3 days – the process really does work.

I have since dropped one of them for poor work and unwillingness to be honest with me, so I would recommend being very straight down the line about your needs (this guy definitely had two jobs – and his resume is still online and updated so he is constantly touting for work).

This is in exception to the other guy, who I am following John’s tactics pretty much as he has outlined above – at one point I was frustrated, then I realized that the time I’m putting in training is worthwhile.

Tip: Use plenty of short Jing videos to explain what you want done (in addition to John’s standard training of course) and you will get very accurate results.

@Laura – yes I have this exact issue – I think we’re looking at having my team member remote login to my pc and ftp up from there ie using my connection/ftp software managed remotely. It can be done while I’m asleep too …

Thanks for keeping this stuff coming John – would you please share some more of your “secret stuff” in the replacemyself member’s area too – maybe the things you don’t want out there publicly!

Tnx.

@Laura Roeder – Yes, it is time consuming to upload/download the video files (especially with Philippines internet speeds), but that’s just computer time. That’s not even human time being spent (either yours OR theirs), so it’s basically free time.

Yes, it does take time (this video took 2 weeks to get done…the final product is 2GB!, I probably sent him 5GB of videos.), but it’s not my time it takes to get it done.

Another option is to give them access to your computer and let them do the editing on your computer. I do that plenty. I use LogMeIn.com to give them access and then they just login to my computer, edit/render/convert/upload the videos as necessary, and I don’t have to be involved.
Sometimes it’s just easier for them to download the videos to their computer and work on it locally (again, bandwidth and connection speeds limit the ability to edit remotely…but we still do it all the time).

John

One long time web guy hires disabled people locally in his own time zone. He says the benefits out-way any perceived cost savings overseas.

Great Video’s John

I was interested to hear your not the firing type guy and I think I was the same but in the end I have ended up firing 1 person due to just plain not doing hardly any work…..

I think this is fairly rare as my other guys have been great

I now have a new writer/seo and a good webdesigner

Both are going pretty good but I have to remind myself to slow down and not expect too much from them so soon…..

I think though that at the end of the day you need to hire slow and fire fast…..ie If someone is obviously not producing the output you require after 4 weeks (good or bad) they will likely never work at the right pace.

Those that hand in work quickly and daily are keepers and should be developed and trained.

Cheers

Manny

Thanks again for sharing John.

Here’s my personal experience:

From the 3 I hired 2 months ago for a generalist role, only one is still around. I fired the first one because she just did not do any work. She didn’t last 3 weeks. I was nice enough to pay her a bit though. The second one was fired because she seemed to have done the bare minimum amount of work, with gobs of mistakes, and hardly communicated to me. I’m pretty sure I was her second job.

The one girl who is still around is so because she is just awesome and continues to impress me. I gave her a 50% raise from what was initially offered. She is that good.

While it would have been really great if all three of them worked out, I hired 3 with the expectation that not all (or any) would even be around in a month. This is from my previous experience as a hiring managing in another lifetime and my high expectations for quality.

From this one keeper, I was introduced to a graphic/web designer and a content writer (who previously worked for an english-ph newspaper), both of whom I’ll hire next week. She’s already primed them on how she works with me and how I am so I am hoping that they’ll have a good idea of what to expect and step up their game.

I think John’s been a bit luckier than most of us when he started hiring. Some of us will have an easier time hiring, some will have a very difficult time, most of us will have experiences somewhere in between. Its a trial and error process, so just keep trying.

I started last February and now have 13 working for me. I just keep hiring them.

I’ve had a few that did not work well but overall I found a few extraordinary people.

I have started a second business because of them.

I am VERY happy with my team. I tend to go toward specializing them into 2-3 tasks and stick with that.

- SEO / Link-building / Social Bookmarketing
- Social Networking
- Content writer (articles, ebooks)
- Customer Service
- Video editing and marketing
- Graphic Design
- Copywriting & article marketing
- Bookkeeping
- Project management
- Programming / Web Design
- Etc.

Hi John,

Just received your email with the links to this page (and videos).

After watching and listening in to the videos, I started to read the comments (all good stuff by the way) and I noticed that there is a common thread (pun intended) throughout a number of the post made, and it was for this very reason I decided to post this message myself.

There’s a really useful resource that I’m using myself at the moment which helps me enormously when putting projects together with any number contributors whom all have different roles to fulfill within any one of my given projects.

It’s the better way to get projects done. Trusted by millions, and is the leading web-based project collaboration tool. You can share files (paid version), meet deadlines, assign tasks, centralize feedback, and much more in the FREE version. Yes there is a free version to test run this awesome product.

Maybe some of your readers (and maybe yourself John) may find this very same tool/resource very useful too in your lines of business.

So, without further ado, here’s the link:

http://basecamphq.com/

Good luck to everyone!

Wishing you all a healthy, happy, and prosperous new year.

Alan H
(U K resident)

John
Great info,as always!!
I am a new guy but I can tell you this! It is the only way to operate a business,I have done the 18 hour days in the corporate world, and had a heart attack at 46 yrs old !! 3 years ago now. So people listen to the man. Train your team, use a good teacher and the process will pay Long Term Health/Money.

geat videos!
I am having problem hiring people from the Philipine due to the philipino job websites bestjobs.ph block users from Europe and probably from the US.
Do you know any other sites or how to get around this?
thanks

Yup, I get this problems too and I'm wondering even if my third one will stay long. Been MIA now for 5 days….

Try http://www.OnlineJobs.ph

Hi John,
Great videos. I know for a fact that one day I will be outsourcing. I tried one Philippine article writer and the articles were not good at all. Maybe I should have taken your approach and rather than fire her, I could have submitted the articles to other companies besides ezinearticles.

Thanks,

Steve

I can't believe I have read all the posts despite of my busy time.

Thanks a lot John, you are truly one-of-a-kind!

Magiclouie

john, Is it possible for you to let me contact Mark, the guy who gave comment above. He said that he is building a team for networking, customer service etc..(I hope Mark can read this) I want to know if his people in the philippines are looking for applicants to fill up the team of networkers and customer service staff. Can I apply ..what is the name of that company???? Thanks!

John,

Let me tell you, I had a very rocky start trying to outsource. It took two months and going through 6 employees before finding a jewel. I was ready to give up since I felt I had wasted a whole lot of time and money and achieved nothing.

But, each time I hired someone (and subsequently fired them) I learned something. I learned to fine tune my questions and establish better hiring practices.

The best thing I can say to others is: The self-ratings on abilities are very subjective. Develop some questions and a simple task that will allow you to evaluate a candidates abilities for yourself. Don't waste your time setting them up and starting their training until you have done this.

Here is what I ended up doing to evaluate applicants and to drill down to a couple to choose from: I sent them to review a very bad blog (just happened to be one that was created by my 4th hire) and tell me what needed to be done for SEO and monetization. It was very revealing as to their interests, abilities and knowledge. The ones that keyed into the fact that it had very poor structure that would have to be fixed first were the ones I looked at seriously.

Hang in there, you too can find a jewel.

Hi John,

Thanks for the very insightful post- I like the way you are open and honest about how you run your business…It's very helpful to see the approach you've taken to be successful with outsourcing most of your web business!

G'day John from Australia

Much appreciate your honest approach here. You certainly have helped to change my thoughts on just where I need to go from here. I currently am with Brian Johnson's ACC program and through that (and Alex Goad) sort of 'Discovered' you and your methods which simply smacked me across the head.

My wife asked what I was doing and I told her I was looking at the future.

I WILL be joining your 'Replacemyself'' program – just not quite ready yet.

But I still need to figure a few things out about my OLD business model.

Kind regards, David

I have hired from oDesk and eLance in India and the Philippines. I had lots of challenges in India and the challenge I had on oDesk was that these people were working for multiple employers, they weren't devoted to me. I could not give them anything sensitive, sometimes they would become unavailable for long periods. When the swine flu swept through India last year my whole development team was out of commission for weeks.

I recently (two weeks ago) hired someone from onlinejobs.ph on a full time basis for the purpose of article writing submissions etc. I had a lot of applications but one guy, Gene, had superior English to the rest… by far. I don't think he has lots of other skills and it just doesn't matter. He was able to write 10 keyword specific articles last week after I was 2 days late in getting him instructions. The articles are well written, keyword targeted, and in perfect English, better than I would do. I have tools to assist his keyword targeting and we've put some checks in place to prevent launching anything prematurely. I'm not saying we haven't had our little hiccups so far but the whole experience has been FAR superior to that on eLance and less expensive and more flexible than oDesk.

I currently also have a development team in the Philippines hired privately.

I can heartily recommend onlinejobs.ph, and the Philippines generally, for this sort of work I'd say that anyone who is saying that outsourcing to there is passe or too expensive or whatever has not done any significant level of hiring or managing contractors abroad.

My guy is working on this little side project put up about 2 weeks ago while we test each other out.http://www.promembersites.com

I wanted to get an opinion of this from others who training in the Philippines. This is my first go around over sea's with two people. I need to run another business and be at the office 9:00 -5:00.
At my resident in the middle of the sticks all that is available is dial up connection. Not much working at home. Is uncommon to have the new trainees to work hours that fit to my office hours?
It would also help control to an degree the 40 hour work week that I'm paying them for.
Whats your thoughts
Thanks

Hi John,

It is very interesting stuff you’ve done here.

The moment I read about you, I’m suprise to see how my neighbouring country is better option than India.

But I don’t think your course is for beginner. We still need to make some money and from there we scale up the business to take it to the next level.