The past week I have recently hired a filipino in the Philippines to help with my marketing efforts online. I want to expand into SEO more and I really don't have the time to get into all that backlinking, commenting, article writing, social footprint, etc. So I hired someone full time to do it for me.
I first started with oDesk and it provided no good results for me, so I asked my network of people and they recommended me to someone who recommended me to a person who was available to work. So I took him on and started showing him the ropes, man it is hard getting things setup for your new outsource assistant.
I have had many things outsourced because its easier for me to get someone to do it than me actually doing it. Having a full time person working with me, actually working while I sleep, helps a lot with what I need to get done.
These are somethings I learned and what you may want to look into when you are thinking about outsourcing a good portion of your work.
- Replace Myself - Now this is impressive because they provide you with all the internet marketing training so you don't have to train your new outsourcer <- is that even a word? With Replace Myself every month there is new content for your outsourcer to learn. I strictly hired my outsourcer to specifically start new sites and SEO the hell out of them. But it is also good to have as a reference for your assistant.
- Collaboration Tool - I personally have my own but there a lot of open source ones out there. It is up to you how complicated and easy you want it to be. But this is definitely essential to have because email can get lost and the communication and tracking of project and time can also be lost. With a project management system in hand, you can have some control of the work and provide time scheduled tasks etc.This is also important when sharing site logins, ftp access, documents, etc. I can have all the site logins in one note and it allows access and a reference to my Filipino buddy. This way there is no consistent resetting of passwords or trying to find lost notes in emails.
- Mind Mapping - Important when coming up with new projects and new game plans to your sites. This allows a good collaboration and idea generation between parties especially since we are both overseas and both in different time zones. Though you have the main control of your idea, you can give a visual perspective to your outsource buddy and this definitely helps them see the bigger picture and goals.
- DropBox - With new site installs, certain plugins that I have bought needs to be installed on all the new sites I setup. So certain themes, plugins, are uploaded to a central cloud - DropBox. I specifically share a specific folder or a series of folders so we both can be in consistent communication and share files that need to be shared. Any documents can be shared with Google Docs but if my outsourcer needs to share a direct PDF with me then he can easily upload it to DropBox and I get to see it the next morning.
- TeamViewer - This is a great tool which is free to use, especially if you are familiar with LogMeIn. It allows users to share desktop and allows users to interact with what needs to be done. For example, I can show a person my desktop and he can see the steps I do and how I market. Or vice versa, he can show me what he create and I can easily critique what he has. It is important to have since we never see face to face, but atleast we can talk via skype and I can show him what I expect.
So far my new buddy has proven to be quite beneficial. He has written articles and done his research and keeps me posted on what he thinks should be done and any suggestions he has. I also have been reading some new blogs about outsourcing and more SEO post via Affiliit.com.
What tools do you use when you are outsourcing work? I know I have a couple things to learn but the most important part is finding a person you can trust to do the work you don't want to do.
