7 Ways To Fail When Outsourcing To The Philippines

When it comes to outsourcing your business (or yourself!) to the Philippines, there’s definitely a learning curve.
Here are 7 ways you can guarantee failure for yourself :
(Hint: Don’t do these things!)

1. Try To Hire Someone To Do Everything

Here’s an actual email I got this week

So wait…you want a programmer, graphic designer, webmaster, who is fluent in english and likes to write, who can write sales copy, autoresponders, forum posts, ebooks, and reports.
Oh yeah, sure, let me help you find that person!
Oh wait, that person doesn’t exist.
Hire someone to do a specific task! Then train them to be able to do everything.

2. Hire A Project Manager

Filipinos don’t know how to run your business for you.
Don’t try to hire a project manager first along with 6 others, and expect that “project manager” to manage those other 6 and get things done. They don’t know how.
YES! They’re very capable of being project managers, but very rarely will you find someone who has been involved in enough internet business that you can just turn a project over to them and have them manage other people for you.
Eventually…yes! After you’ve trained them and they’ve seen how the business is supposed to work.

3. Hire Someone And Ignore Them

You have to train the person you hire. They don’t know how to run your super-niche internet marketing business. Don’t expect to hire someone and just let them go do everything themselves. Expect to spend some time working with them.

4. Ask Someone To Do Work Before You Offer Them A Job

This is my favorite.
I get an email that says

Can you please tell me why I can’t successfully hire someone, they all keep disappearing.
Here’s the email I send them:
I want you to start by doing a trial task.
Write 20 articles, submit them to article directories, do a bunch of directory submissions for me, build me a website and write all the content for it.
Then, I’ll evaluate your work and see if it’s going to work out.

hahahahaha.
Yeah right!
They’re not going to do work until AFTER they know they have a full-time job working for you.
Don’t give them a test task. Give them a job. Tell them the first month is a probationary period.

5. Expect Immediate Results

This is a long-term proposal here. I’ve been doing it for 4 years. You’re not going to see the same results in 4 days.
Don’t expect it.

6. Search and Search and Search For The Right Person, Then Email Them

Hey John,
I searched for 3 days and I found the perfect candidate. They can do everything you said wasn’t possible back up in #1 on this blog post. Why won’t they respond to me?

Why?
Because they already have a job and they’re loyal to their current employer.
Instead of trying to find the perfect person up front, try contacting 20 potential fits, see who responds, then sort through them.

7. Set The Wrong Expectations

When you hire them, don’t tell them you expect them to be totally self-directed and to work without supervision and to be able to figure everything out on their own.
If you do, you’ll never hear from them again.
Try telling them

I expect you to try to figure things out, but I understand that I’m going to give you tasks that you won’t know how to do, and sometimes there won’t be any way to figure it out. In these cases, please know that I’m here to answer your questions. I’m here to help you. Please don’t hesitate to ask me when you get stuck.

Otherwise, when they don’t know how to do something they get embarrassed and will never talk to you again.
If you set the right expectation with them about asking for help, they’ll ask, you’ll help, and all will be happy and good.

These aren’t hard things to avoid…you just have to know about them to avoid them.
There’s more good stuff like this as a member of ReplaceMyself.com.

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Blog Disclaimer As Per The New FTC Guidelines

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 –>

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The System I Use On My Websites

I haven’t been this excited about a product coming out in a long time.

This is a special interview I did with Peter, the creator of a product to be released tomorrow.

What Peter is teaching is EXACTLY what I do on my websites in terms of the layout and design. It’s exactly what I have my GUYS do for me to make me money each month.

Where it’s different is in his promotion strategy, which is BETTER than what I’ve been doing.

Just listen to this:

Download the mp3
My post about making sales

Get NanoBloggers Here

(when you do, notice the sales process…it’s part of nanoblogging)
(here’s my guarantee)
After buying, listen to the bonus audio (it’s friggin’ amazing!)

 

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How I Do Videos For My Blog

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

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Insights Into My Business

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

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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.

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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?

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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.

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

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Going from “1 sale a week” to “1 sale a day”

Devin made me this nice video the other day asking for some advice.
I think the question is pretty relevant to most IMers.

Here’s my response

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The one thing I forgot to talk about on my video is that I would probably install http://www.crazyegg.com on the site to see what people are currently doing when they come to your site.

Good luck!

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My First Trip To The Philippines

I’ve had GUYS in the Philippines for about 4 years now.

This was my FIRST trip!

You don’t have to go there to make it work. That’s one of the great things about the Philippines.

While I was there for 2.5 days I recorded quite a bit of video of my observations and experience.

I then sent all the (HD) video to one of my GUYS (whom I hired because he spoke english) and he edited it and put this video together (he really didn’t have other skills except english when I hired him 4 years ago…now he can do anything!).

16 minutes of learning, treachery, kidnapping, disaster, running out of gas, and just good fun!

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If (WHEN!) you get a chance to go and meet your GUYS, please take it. You’ll have a blast, and your relationship with them will change for the better forever.

Filed under Life, lifestyle, outsourcing by

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Disclaimer: According to the new FTC guidelines, I have to tell you that sometimes I get paid for recommending certain products on my blog. Not all the time, but often. Sometimes I get products for free (ok...fine...most of the time I get stuff for free).

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