John Jonas Blog» Marketing

Philippines Outsourcing Case Study with Dean Soto

John — Mon, 27 Jun 2011 20:09:39 +0000

“I couldn’t believe ReplaceMyself. I know the trainings aren’t for me, but I was going through them and learning tons of stuff, and then it was like, “here you go, you guys do this stuff”!, and I didn’t have to do it!”
– Dean Soto

Dean has a full-time job in the Aerospace industry.

At the same time he is running a 6-figure side business by outsourcing all the work.

What’s he doing?

- Web development/design
- Local Business Marketing

In this case study there are so many things to learn about using a Filipino VA for doing either one of those businesses.

File Download: MP3 Audio, 19 MB — File Download: iPhone/iPod Version (145mb)

One MAJOR question this case-study answers is:
“Can Filipino’s do client facing work?”
The answer is YES!

Here’s a summary of the case study:

2:15 – they build wordpress websites for companies
3:30 – time spent and what he does as a “web development” company
5:00 – what they charge people to do websites
6:33 – how many people he has working for him in the Philippines
6:55 – how much he pays people
7:40 – paying bonuses to his Filipino employees
8:25 – NEVER tell other people your Filipino employee’s name
9:00 – Can Filipino’s do client facing work?
9:50 – What his Filipino workers are doing in his business
10:30 – His VA creates training videos for him for his customers
11:20 – Hiring a technical person and teaching them technical things
13:22 – What skills to look for when hiring a technical person
14:00 – Hiring for WordPress skills and for English skills
15:40 – Dean’s hiring process – mostly in writing
16:12 – Posting a job on OnlineJobs.ph
17:00 – How to tell how good their english is!!!
18:00 – Skills to look for: PHP, Mysql, AJAX
20:00 – Using Google Apps to give them emails from your company
21:30 – He uses Basecamp to manage projects because his customers find it easiest
23:00 – Doing what you’re good at THEN building niche sites
24:30 – Building a team with what you’re good at
25:25 – Being the CEO of your business
26:00 – Last words: Use ReplaceMyself.com
27:00 – Your VA’s will become your friends.

You can find Dean’s podcast on Small Business Ideas and Tips on iTunes.

If you have a Success Story, Please share it!. I want to hear about your success (and I’ll probably give you some free advice if you do).

Mobile Marketing Webinar with Dan Hollings

John — Wed, 25 May 2011 19:22:54 +0000

Dan does a great job of explaining how big the mobile space is,
As well as showing marketing opportunities in the mobile space.

His “local groupon” business model is brilliant.

Here’s the replay of the webinar we did.

File Download: MP4 Video 77.1MB

Local Business Marketing with Jim Cockrum

John — Fri, 03 Dec 2010 18:45:17 +0000

Marketing to local businesses, and helping them do their internet marketing, is what I would do if I had to start everything over.

It’s easy.
It’s profitable.
It’s easy to understand from beginning to end.
There’s almost no risk.
It’s easy to get started.
You don’t have to be technical.
You don’t have to know everything when you get started. You just have to know more than the small business owner does about marketing on the internet. Simple.

Yesterday I did an amazing interview with Jim Cockrum, owner of OfflineBiz.com.

Jim gave some amazing tips on how to be successful in doing online marketing work for offline businesses.

It’s 94 minutes long (it was so good that I didn’t want to stop it at an hour).

Get Flash to see this player.

Download the MP3 recording

Just so you know, there isn’t a sales pitch in this.
Jim does own OfflineBiz.com which has TONS of resources to help you succeed with this, but it’s $50 to join. Very reasonable.

Here are notes I took along with their timestamps for when Jim talked about these things:

12:00 – why this is a great market
12:43 – beginning of “How do you get a client”
13:14 – you need to talk to people
13:47 – no business card, no website, just being “a fellow business owner”
15:26 – 4 line letter – direct mail you can send to business owners
The conversation between 15:26 and 18:00 is amazing
18:15 – build websites then auction them off for a monthly amount (typically $500 – $2000/month)
19:09 – another way to get clients is to knock doors of the businesses you use in your community
21:25 – how to find local business addresses from their websites
23:00 – “Turn Tuesday night into the busies night of the week”
24:50 – using TrafficGeyser to get results for your clients
26:15 – partner with web design companies to get clients
30:50 – Top services to sell to people (really just ideas for services to sell)
- mobile websites (this conversation is amazing)
- testimonials
- google maps
- social media services
35:14 – what kinds of businesses to target
38:30 – finding businesses based on where people are already advertising on PPC
40:22 – why you don’t need a price sheet of services
41:40 – how to get on stage in front of an entire industry of small business owners
44:00 – Q&A
69:28 – how to collect money from clients
72:30 – Questions to ask local business owners
78:43 – What to outsource and what not to

Here’s my affiliate link to join OfflineBiz.com if you want to use it.

Last night a few hours after the call I had this IM sent to me.

Here’s an email I got with more feedback on the call:

What to focus on in your online business

John — Thu, 14 Oct 2010 14:50:31 +0000

I got this video question from a reader:

Here’s my answer:

I recorded this video in the foothills a few minutes from my house. (I have the ipad in my hands to look at my notes)
It’s beautiful here.

Here is the gist of what I say in the video:

Focus on understanding the business you’re going to implement. Understand the process and the steps. Don’t be the one to do the work (Outsource it)
Don’t worry about building a list, creating one-time-offers, upsells, downsells, or continuity. Focus on making the first sale. All the rest of the “you have to do this” stuff can come later. In the beginning, the money is NOT “in the list.”
Make your website have one purpose. (Hint: it’s not to get them to friend you on facebook or follow you on twitter) MAKE SALES on your website. That’s the only purpose.
Find out what your market wants to BUY, not just what they WANT.
Get traffic to your website (refer to this post about My
websites aren’t making money, what do I do for a traffic generation plan.
Follow a plan. You’ve already bought someone’s product for how to make money, now stick with it! Follow the steps…after you understand them.
Outsource it all. DON’T be the one doing all the work. Be the CEO of your business. Learn to outsource at ReplaceMyself.com

My Websites Aren’t Making Money – What Do I Do?

John — Thu, 30 Sep 2010 18:02:43 +0000

I get this question quite often:

“I have lots of websites and they’re not making me money. What do I do?”

I recorded this answer while I was in Paris.

Here are bullet points of what I suggest to do:

Pick one of them and focus on it.
Pick the one where you can see the end from the beginning, where
you understand everything that it needs.
Don’t try to convert random people to buying random things. Be Specific. Know who you’re trying to sell to.
Self Replicated MLM or Mortgage or Real Estate sites don’t work. (or…I’ve never seen it work)
Re-evaluate the effectiveness of the site you have. Study some
copywriting techniques and do things to increase conversions on your
site. Whatever you’re selling, give people a reason to buy it
(give incentives, tell them why it’s the best, it has a problem and I’ll solve it, …)
Make sure your site only has one purpose. It has one goal when someone
comes to the homepage. Get rid of widgets unless they serve a purpose.
Get traffic. Buy a little and see what happens. Don’t overspend. Don’t pretend to be macho with google adwords. Learn a little about it.
A quick plan for getting free traffic:
1. write an article and submit it to ezinearticles.com
2. create a squidoo lens. put 2 pieces of content, link it to your site
3. create a short video, submit it to tubemogul (and verify it worked)
If you built the sites following a blueprint or something, stick
with it for a bit before moving onto something else. Sometimes these
things just take time.
Don’t give up! You’re going to fail some. This is a business.

Things My Filipino Team Does For Me

John — Tue, 24 Aug 2010 18:41:06 +0000

I shot this video in the middle of Canyonlands National Park. It was an amazing 5 days canoeing down the Green River.

The audio is a bit quiet…sorry for that.

How I Plan, Design, Build, Market a website

John — Thu, 24 Jun 2010 19:09:09 +0000

Most people when they start a website, they have no plan for it.

“If you fail to plan, you plan to fail.”

Here’s MY website plan.

It consists of 13 “ToDo” lists that I have my GUYS implement for me. Some of this stuff won’t be relevant to your business, but my guess is that most of it is relevant.
These lists were designed to be used to build and market an online business that I don’t want to be involved in. This is supposed to get the site ranked well in SEO and bring traffic in from lots of different sources so that the site makes money.

Also, this list has some things that are specific to building “review” websites with wordpress. You might want to use some other plugins for wordpress than the ones I list here. Please think about it. Maybe some of the plugins listed here aren’t relevant to you, or maybe they’ve gone out of date by the time you get this. Nothing on this list is CRITICAL. Nothing on this list will make or break the process.

You DO NOT have to do everything I list here to be successful. These are just the things WE do.
Also, there are probably some things on this list that we don’t do anymore. Things change all the time. If something on this list doesn’t work for you, SKIP IT AND MOVE ON!

Most of the stuff on this plan was created with the idea of having someone else do the work.

Lists 10, 11, and 13 aren’t “todo” lists. They’re more for ideas of things you can/should do with your website.

If you have things to add to this, please post it in the comments.
If you find errors (I know there are quite a few), please post it in the comments.
I’ll monitor the comments and update the list as you add/correct things.

You can download the files here.

Blog Disclaimer As Per The New FTC Guidelines

John — Sun, 27 Dec 2009 00:13:32 +0000

First of all, there’s a LOT of misinformation about the new FTC guidelines about bloggers, affiliates, and testimonials.

I’m going to outline the main points (from the link above) and give a couple example disclaimers.

1. Clearly Disclose Typical Results

From the FTC page:

Under the revised Guides, advertisements that feature a consumer and convey his or her experience with a product or service as typical when that is not the case will be required to clearly disclose the results that consumers can generally expect.

Notice that you CAN use testimonials with results that aren’t typical. If you do, you just have to also disclose somewhere what the average user might expect.

2. Disclose Affiliate Relationships

From the FTC page:

The revised Guides also add new examples to illustrate the long standing principle that “material connections” (sometimes payments or free products) between advertisers and endorsers – connections that consumers would not expect – must be disclosed.

If you get paid or get free “stuff” from advertisers, disclose it.

3. Don’t Lie

From the FTC page:

the revised Guides reflect Commission case law and clearly state that both advertisers and endorsers may be liable for false or unsubstantiated claims made in an endorsement – or for failure to disclose material connections between the advertiser and endorsers

Don’t make false statements (fake testimonials, fake checks, fake results, …), don’t lie, and disclose your affiliate relationships.

Example

Here are a couple example disclaimers. Another great way to find your own disclaimers is to look at blogs or websites that are of the same nature as yours, and look at their disclaimer.

I would put this in the footer of every page on your site.

Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer. I suggest you consult your own attorney.

Simple:

Disclaimer: I may receive compensation from other websites I mention on my blog. You should probably assume I do. Sometimes (often) products I promote I receive for free.

Blog Disclaimer:

Disclosure: You should assume that the owner of this website is an affiliate for providers of goods and services mentioned on this website. The owner may be compensated when you purchase after clicking on a link. The owner may also have received the product for free. Perform due diligence before purchasing from this or any other website.

Money Making Disclaimer:

Income examples are representative of some of the most successful participants in the program. Some individuals purchasing the program may make little or NO MONEY AT ALL. These claims are not a guarantee of your income, nor are they typical of average participants. Individual results will vary greatly and in accordance to your input, determination, hard work, and ability to follow directions.
Results will vary by person.

Marketing Story Disclaimer:

Please also recognize that the story and comments depicted on this site and the person depicted in the story are not real. Rather, the story is based on what some people have achieved with these and other similar products.

If you have more insight on this, please post in the comments.
If you have more disclaimer info, please post it also.

If this was helpful please Digg it –>

How I Do Videos For My Blog

John — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 17:04:00 +0000

I’ve spent a lot of time figuring out how to do good videos on my blog.

If you look at some of my earlier videos you’ll see they’re not that good, and they took me 10x longer to do than the ones I do today.

This is how I currently create the videos for my blog (and for my other websites).

Here are the tools I use

**Update** – I don’t use the Nikon S70 now. I use the Kodak Zi8. It takes better video, and has an external mic input!
I use the Gorillapod Flexible Tripod
I use the Amazon S3 Firefox Organizer
I use the JW FLV Player
I use SUPER to convert videos – you have to really search their site to figure out how to download it…but it’s worth it.

Insights Into My Business

John — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 16:28:12 +0000

I had a comment on my blog that I thought was worthy of a full answer.

Get Flash to see this player.

As an addition to what I wanted to say in this video, outsourcing to the Philippines isn’t a fad. It’s not one of those “you have to get in at the beginning or it’s going to be bad” things. This isn’t going anywhere. It’s not something that changes very often.

Below are excerpts of the comment and my answers as videos below each excerpt.

I have a couple of question for you John. I know you talk about paying less to your guys versus the cost of contracting with companies like e-lance, or brickwork; and I appreciate your thinking. I tend to think that way too, if they can do it, I’ll bet I can do it better and for less money. You’ve found a way to do something better and cheaper and you’re attempting to help others do the same. I respect that. The thing is Timothy Feriss makes a good point in his book “The Four Hour Workweek”, (Which I read after your recommendation, Thank you!), about the extra cost of dealing with company vs. working with an individual being worth it. He points out the pitfalls to having “one guy” you’re dependent upon. If you contract with a company, you’re not completely dependent on just one person to get the job done should he “go down” or do a bad job. If (when) that happens where does that leave you? He’s sees the “one guy” approach as more of a headache then it’s worth.

Get Flash to see this player.

You always talk about your team in such glowing terms which is wonderful, but I’d like to know about how you began; about your time line and how long it took you to build your dream team. I know achieving that doesn’t happen overnight which is why I’m interested to know about your personal experiences. Please focus on how it was when you first started, as I imagine many of your campaigns are at a completely different point currently, and perhaps don’t require the work and attention they once did. I have seen you write about problems lasting for a short time, but what have your experiences been overall, and how did you solve the problems that occurred?

Get Flash to see this player.

Also, what method did you use and what are you currently doing to decide on which topics/products you will create content, and/or what markets you’ll pursue? How does your approach differ now with the changes taking place on the web? There is a lot of conflicting information available, and coupled with how things are quickly changing it’s very hard to decide which method is best. What’s your perspective on this? It seems SEO is changing and somewhat dependent upon the whims of Google, as I’m sure you’re well aware! It feels like SEO, etc., is in a state of flux and I’m anxious to hear what you think.

Get Flash to see this player.

http://www.jonasblog.com/2009/04/how-i-do-niche-research.html

John Jonas Blog» Marketing

Philippines Outsourcing Case Study with Dean Soto

Mobile Marketing Webinar with Dan Hollings

Local Business Marketing with Jim Cockrum

What to focus on in your online business

My Websites Aren’t Making Money – What Do I Do?

Things My Filipino Team Does For Me

How I Plan, Design, Build, Market a website

Website Building and Marketing Plan

Pre-Site Setup

Site Setup

Configure WordPress

Initial Site Work

Initial SEO

Initial Adwords Campaign

Long Term Linking Strategies

Testing

Adwords Campaign

Building Trust

Sales Copy Notes/Ideas

Long Term SEO

Landing Page Notes

Blog Disclaimer As Per The New FTC Guidelines

1. Clearly Disclose Typical Results

2. Disclose Affiliate Relationships

3. Don’t Lie

Example

How I Do Videos For My Blog

Here are the tools I use

Insights Into My Business