richard geller’s special reportcfm03012010.s3.amazonaws.com/apartment/pushbutton_pro...how to hire...
TRANSCRIPT
Richard Geller’s
Special Report:
Pushbutton Finder Profits -Advanced Outsourcing
Techniques What You Will Take Away From This Report:
Step-by-step how to outsource almost all of the work inexpensively while you keep the big profits.
How to hire a virtual assistant first, to instantly reduce the work you need to do.
How to easily manage a virtual team by reviewing a project plan in ten minutes each week.
How to create a simple one-page project dashboard that at a glance tracks all the metrics for all of your projects.
12 secrets that make outsourcing the easiest way for you to run your business.
You Will See Results! You Will Succeed!
(Results are not guaranteed. Read disclaimer and use this information with care; laws
differ depending on state.)
Copyright © 2012 Calworth Glenford, LLC dba www.financialsuccessinstitute.net All rights reserved. Reproduction in any form without express written consent from
www.financialsuccessinstitute.net is prohibited. Any names used in this course are for illustration purposes and are not designed to refer to real people or real organizations.
Disclaimer – this limits our liability – Read it!
In plain English, I did my best to make this the best report I could make it, for someone wanting to start a businesses that will succeed in these tough economic times and those ready to move forward as the recession slowly fades into the past. But I am sure that I left stuff out, forgot some important stuff, and made some mistakes.
Plus, I can’t know the laws of your state, and the facts in your particular situation. And I’m not a lawyer nor do I play one on television. Some of this stuff MAY NOT WORK. Or it may be ILLEGAL. Who knows.
So…
You have to take responsibility for whatever you do or don’t do after going through my report. Don’t blame me!! I am not responsible for what you do!!
If I were you, I’d find a good attorney to advise me. And I’d check out whatever it is that anyone tells you to do – me, the attorney, your mother-in-law, whoever.
Then I’d take my chances. Life is full of risks. You could do great following my advice. Or you could fall on your face. Who knows, maybe some of the stuff I suggest is illegal in your state. I don’t know. But regardless, you can’t go after me for telling you to do something or not do it – because I am right now disclaiming any liability. You are on your own!!
And with that out of the way, read on…
While the publisher and author have used their best efforts in preparing this report, they make no representations or warranties with respect to the accuracy or completeness of the contents of this report and specifically disclaim any implied warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. No warranty may be created or extended. The advice and strategies contained herein may not be suitable for your situation. You should consult with a professional where appropriate. Neither the publisher nor
author shall be liable for any loss of profit or any other commercial damages, including but not limited to special, incidental, consequential or other damages.
And another important note – this one about ethics
The techniques I outline in this report – some of them anyway – may strike you as pretty outrageous. Unethical perhaps. You may find a few techniques that you can swear are illegal.
I don’t advocate anything illegal. And I don’t want you to do anything unethical. These techniques exist. People do them all the time. I don’t want you do be at a disadvantage by not knowing them. So I tell you about them, no holds barred.
I think it’s too easy to judge others when you haven’t been in their shoes. Some people are in frightful situations and they are frankly quite desperate. They need answers. I hope, if this is you or your clients’ circumstance, you find answers, some of them here.
That doesn’t mean I think you ought to do things that are unethical, or that things you choose to do are right for everyone. That is for you to decide. Okay?
And a final important note – this one about plagiarism!
You DO NOT have permission to resell this information. You DO NOT have permission to give it away to someone else. This information is sold under a license that lets you read it, use it FOR YOUR OWN USE, but not give it away, make copies, sell it, or resell it.
For another copy, contact me at: www.financialsuccessinstitute.net
Thank you!
Special Report: Pushbutton Finder Profits - Advanced Outsourcing Techniques
© 2012 Financial Success Institute. All rights reserved. www.financialsuccessinstitute.net
4
Table of Contents
You’re the Boss Not the Expert at Everything .............. 5
The Many Many Benefits of Outsourcing ............................... 6
Hire Yourself an Executive Assistant ....................... 10
Virtual Assistance for Real Results .................................... 10
Typical Tasks of a VA .................................................... 11
A Virtual Executive Assistant Success Story .......................... 12
Creating Your Virtual Team .................................. 16
Communication is Vital ................................................. 16
Building a Project Plan for Profits .................................... 18
Project Plan Template - Building Your Virtual Team .... 19
Keeping Track of Outsourcers – Metrics .............................. 20
Project Management Metrics ........................................... 21
Project Plan Template - Apartment Finder's Fee Deals 24
12 Things to Avoid ....................................................... 25
Special Report: Pushbutton Finder Profits - Advanced Outsourcing Techniques
© 2012 Financial Success Institute. All rights reserved. www.financialsuccessinstitute.net
5
Lead your team from a place of comfort. Photo courtesy of: www.flickr.com/photos/dani0010/3188819483
You’re the Boss Not the Expert at Everything
As a startup, you can't be expected to be the expert on every
single aspect or facet of the business. You just need to be fluent
in what the expert is doing. As the
boss, you need to explain your
business goals and strategy to your
team so that they are all working
towards the same thing as you are.
However, with Pushbutton Finder
Profits you do not need to the work.
For instance, you don't need to write
and post information and requests to
the LinkedIn group discussions. That's
a good task for a marketing person
once they understand you are looking
for three things at LinkedIn -
apartment building sellers, apartment
building buyers, and the off market apartment building itself.
But that is only one small example of what you can outsource.
There are freelancers and outsource businesses in many different
industries and when it comes to internet commerce, you'll find
specialists in many areas including: freelance web design, coding
and programming, search engine optimization, freelance writing,
virtual assistant services, and much more.
You can outsource
almost everything except your
strategy
Special Report: Pushbutton Finder Profits - Advanced Outsourcing Techniques
© 2012 Financial Success Institute. All rights reserved. www.financialsuccessinstitute.net
6
The Many Many Benefits of Outsourcing There are both tangible and intangible benefits to outsourcing your
business activities. Cost reduction is one of the most discussed.
However, hiring all experts creates a powerful team that you call
on only when needed and this important aspect shouldn’t be
overlooked.
Quality of work is just as important as controlling cost.
Outsourcing let’s you select an expert for every aspect of your
business. You’ll have a marketing expert. You’ll have an expert
to find the highest quality, lowest cost off market apartments
available. You may even hire one expert to manage your buyers'
list and another for your sellers' list. You can bring in a
commercial property expert to track the sales to closing and
solve problems that would otherwise prevent deals from closing
and you from earning a hefty finder's fee.
Reduce overhead costs, free up resources to work on critical
activities.
Eliminate investment in fixed infrastructure like large offices
and expensive equipment.
You can use the services of people you align with only when
you need them so you can buy via an a la carte menu. Want a
press release today? You can order it. Want a new website
designed tomorrow? You can find an expert or put it out to bid
and see what skills and prices people offer you.
This is the short version
of a very long list of outsourcing
benefits
Special Report: Pushbutton Finder Profits - Advanced Outsourcing Techniques
© 2012 Financial Success Institute. All rights reserved. www.financialsuccessinstitute.net
7
Photo courtesy of: www.flickr.com/photos/cisshadab/7144363453
Save money over hiring a traditional employee for your
company. You only pay for the services you want so you don't
have to lay anyone off if it gets slow, you don't have to supply
them with a desk, a computer, or coffee and you don't have to
pay vacation or sick time.
Allows you to direct your energy into the aspects of your
business that are most important to its success.
Frees your time to work on your business strategy instead of
solving mundane problems.
Improve efficiencies through economies of scale. Gain the
advantage of using experts that already have resources in
place that they will share at a fraction of the cost it would
cost you to acquire them.
A team can
simultaneously work
all aspects of a deal to
bring it together much
faster than you can
alone. One expert is
looking for an
apartment building
that a buyer has
clearly provided the
specifications for. Another is looking for a buyer for a
different building that you know will sell fast when the right
This is a huge
advantage that will set you apart from the
competition
Special Report: Pushbutton Finder Profits - Advanced Outsourcing Techniques
© 2012 Financial Success Institute. All rights reserved. www.financialsuccessinstitute.net
8
buyer is located. Another is working to grow your AWeber lists
so you reach the most commercial real estate professionals
possible. You will easily be able to close three deals a month
to earn $100,000 in finder's fees each month. If you pay each
of 5 team members $1,000, you keep the $95,000 Pushbutton
Finder Profits.
Your customers will perceive you as a much large business
than a lone entrepreneur trying to do every thing yourself.
Improve reliability. Get it done right the first time. You don’t
have to reinvent the wheel every time something new comes
along.
As you deliver superior services, your clients will spread the
word about the tremendous value you deliver to them. Your
business will grow exponentially.
When opportunity knocks, you won’t have to wait until you
finish something else before you can take advantage of it. You
can put your whole team to work on it and be first to market
the moment a new deal comes along.
Why hire your own full time technology expert when you only
need two hours of support each week?
Let others absorb the cost of constantly changing technology.
Don’t want to buy another specific software that costs
hundreds of dollars to do a single task on your website? Hire
an expert that already has the needed software and the skill
to run it.
Word of mouth
advertising is the best -
and it's free
Special Report: Pushbutton Finder Profits - Advanced Outsourcing Techniques
© 2012 Financial Success Institute. All rights reserved. www.financialsuccessinstitute.net
9
All of these are only the tip of the iceberg. As you grow your
business, you will find ongoing opportunities to outsource to
experts. Certainly being able to leapfrog the competition is
among the biggest benefits for the entrepreneur.
One of the best places to start you outsourcing is with a virtual
assistant.
Special Report: Pushbutton Profits - Advanced Outsourcing Techniques
© 2012 Financial Success Institute. All rights reserved. www.financialsuccessinstitute.net
10
Hire Yourself an Executive Assistant
Virtual assistants (VA) are the new way for entrepreneurs and
small businesses to get just the help they need at a reasonable
price, without the extra hassles involved in sustaining that help.
Hire an administrative assistant to handle paperwork, letter
writing, track closing dates, submitting your demand letter for
your fee to be on the HUD-1 form, and other routine chores.
Virtual Assistance for Real Results A VA can be just the lifeline that your business needs. Too often
small business owners are plagued with spending valuable time on
administrative tasks that should be outsourced to a VA.
Virtual assistants can improve your profit
margins by enabling you to spend your time on
higher value tasks. You can use a VA to do
client follow-up, project management, direct
mailings or even personal administrative tasks
such as sending out your holiday cards.
Virtual assistants can also perform more specialized tasks such as
legal assistance, accounting, or new business set up. While the
cost per hour for specialized tasks will be higher than that for
administrative tasks, it is much more cost effective than onsite
help or worse - doing it yourself.
Start-ups or small businesses often believe they cannot afford to
hire help. One of the advantages of using a VA is that you are not
committed to 40 hours per week or even 20 hours per week. You
A talented VA is worth
gold
Hire a specialized assistant
only when you need
that service
Special Report: Pushbutton Profits - Advanced Outsourcing Techniques
© 2012 Financial Success Institute. All rights reserved. www.financialsuccessinstitute.net
11
can hire a VA for a project, a fixed number of hours per week or
month, or you can choose to have them on a monthly retainer.
For example, a new business owner may choose to hire a VA for
20 hours per month or the equivalent of 1 hour per day. In this
way you can delegate the tasks you choose and use the VAs time
in the way that best suits your business.
The cost of hiring a virtual assistant is lower than hiring an onsite
assistant. When hiring an onsite assistant you incur the cost of
space for them to work, equipment charges, benefits and workers
compensation. By comparison, a VA is also a business owner and
you are only paying for work performed.
Virtual Assistants are organized and results driven. They are
accustomed to working with clients by phone and email and have
systems in place to ensure that tasks are completed on time. A
VA’s business depends on service and results so their objectives
are completely aligned with yours.
Most importantly, you will be able to spend more time on the
higher value tasks of developing new business and operating in
your area of expertise and that is good news for your bottom line.
Typical Tasks of a VA Secretarial / PA. Call minding, calendar management, email
management, manage Batchbook information, book appointments
and meetings, book meeting venues, book restaurants, organize
and co-ordinate events, liaise with your associates, suppliers and
clients, meeting agenda's, and papers prepared and circulated.
Take care of your travel arrangements booking train tickets,
Special Report: Pushbutton Profits - Advanced Outsourcing Techniques
© 2012 Financial Success Institute. All rights reserved. www.financialsuccessinstitute.net
12
flights, taxis, and executive cars, make hotel reservations and
much more.
Administration. Typing and creation of business correspondence,
reports, minutes, presentations, spreadsheets, newsletters,
mailing lists and databases. Mailshots, filing, transcription, proof
reading.
Accounts. Produce and mail out invoices, process supplier
invoices for payment, record your income and expenses, complete
your expense forms.
The Personal Things in Life. Birthday and anniversary reminders,
gift ordering, sending flowers to your loved ones, book
restaurants and theatre tickets, research your family vacation,
online shopping, and arrange standing orders to pay bills.
A Virtual Executive Assistant Success Story Here is the success story of entrepreneur Timothy F.
I write this from under the awning of a waterfront restaurant in
Athens, Greece.
Looking over calm
blue water dotted by
white sailboats, I
wonder about the
island of Los, where
I'm headed in two
hours. It's my first
The list goes on and on
and on
Money and time to
travel the world
Special Report: Pushbutton Profits - Advanced Outsourcing Techniques
© 2012 Financial Success Institute. All rights reserved. www.financialsuccessinstitute.net
13
time in the Aegean Sea, and I'm not carrying a cell phone. On
purpose.
Emergencies? There won't be any.
I have a virtual assistant in Vancouver who is clearing my inbox as I
type, converting the hundreds of e-mail messages I receive each
day into one daily 10-minute phone call, via Skype, for items to
which she can't respond with pre-set rules and templates.
My physical mail is being forwarded to a start-up that scans non-
junk mail and then emails time-sensitive documents to me as
PDFs.
Thirteen time zones away, Somya and his team of Indian MBAs are
managing my LinkedIn and other profile pages for $4 per hour. All
is well with the world. There are no manufactured emergencies, just
breathing room to focus on feta and wine before returning to San
Francisco in 10 days, refreshed and ready for new projects.
The science fiction writer who coined the term "cyberspace" in
1984, William Gibson, once said: "The future is already here. It's
just unevenly distributed."
In the 1990s, pulling out a brick-sized cell phone in front of friends
was sure to provoke smirks and questions like "Who are you, the
president?" In 2012, not having a cell phone will likely earn you
confused looks and references to the Amish.
The future of personal outsourcing is already here, but it's in rough
form. As one of my readers observed via Twitter: "In the old days, if
you wanted a house, you built it." Food? Harvest it. In 20 years,
Are you ready to
take advantage?
Special Report: Pushbutton Profits - Advanced Outsourcing Techniques
© 2012 Financial Success Institute. All rights reserved. www.financialsuccessinstitute.net
14
personal outsourcing will need no name, it will just be."
Based on the fast pace of technological change between 2002 and
2012, I don't think it will take 20 years.
Let's imagine one version of 2022.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics has issued an official statement
concerning the impact of Attention-Deficit Trait (ADT). When
over-stimulating workplaces reduces employees' efficiency and
productivity causing a declining GDP, and even the Big 4
accounting firms have established divisions for Certified
Information Managers (CIMs). Personal outsourcing has matured
and consolidated, adopting a new name in the process.
Recognized as adult-onset Attention Deficit Hyperactivity
Disorder, ADT has similar biochemical symptoms to bi-phasic
depression and has created a trillion-dollar market for the
pharmaceutical companies that helped label and publicize it.
Developers in India lead the pack with a third-generation
medication that combines features of the stimulant drug
Modafinil with serotonin reuptake inhibitors traditionally used to
treat depression. Its user base exceeds 250 million worldwide.
Hiring a CIM for e-mail filtering, scheduling, and related
information management is now as common as hiring a CPA for
your taxes, and the former comes complete with the standardized
certification, codified common practices and disbarment
procedures that consumers demand.
There is more good news.
CIM is the futuristic word for virtual
assistant
Special Report: Pushbutton Profits - Advanced Outsourcing Techniques
© 2012 Financial Success Institute. All rights reserved. www.financialsuccessinstitute.net
15
Despite a 40% drop in the value of the U.S. dollar against the euro
since 2012, U.S. unemployment rates have been dropping for
seven consecutive quarters.
Chinese private enterprise encompasses the largest non-native
population of fluent English speakers in the world. And they all
need virtual assistants.
Back to 2012, personal outsourcing is still considered cutting-
edge, but that doesn't make it ineffective. When planned
properly, personal outsourcing can deliver 10 to 20 hours of free
time per week with a simultaneous increase in work output.
Need someone on New York time? Find a team in Argentina
through Elance. Want to e-mail a 10-hour project at 5 p.m. and
have it completed in your inbox the next morning? Send it to
AskSunday in India and have them work on it while you sleep.
You don't have to wait for the future to enjoy the benefits of
outsourcing.
Get anything done, any time you need it
Special Report: Pushbutton Profits - Advanced Outsourcing Techniques
© 2012 Financial Success Institute. All rights reserved. www.financialsuccessinstitute.net
16
Creating Your Virtual Team
This is going to be much easier than you think. By first hiring a
virtual assistant, you immediately reduce the work you need to
do even putting the entire virtual team together.
Communication is Vital Another pre-outsourcing task to complete is setting up an
effective communication process for
your outsource team. This will apply
mainly to project development and
implementation when you are
assembling a small team. Something
like getting a website setup. You
might have a computer programmer,
a web designer, and a copywriter on your team. Obviously, you
want them all on the same webpage – so to speak.
A good way of doing this is by creating a standard form that each
team member completes based on a brief project description you
provide. The form needs to include this type of information.
Contact information that each team member can use
Work time and time zone
A detailed description of exactly what they will be doing on
the project – including what days they will be
accomplishing specific tasks
Share this information across your entire out
source team
Special Report: Pushbutton Profits - Advanced Outsourcing Techniques
© 2012 Financial Success Institute. All rights reserved. www.financialsuccessinstitute.net
17
Exactly what they will need from other team members and
on what day they will need it.
What we are talking about here is the information needed to put
together a project plan. Either you or a freelance project
manager can then build a project plan similar to the one shown
on page 19.
Once the plan is put together, you need to complete your
communications as a team. The best way to do this is to hold a
webinar.
In case you're not familiar with the term "webinar", it's an
abbreviation for "Web seminar," an online event for delivering
presentations between presenters and a remote audience via the
web. These meetings are interactive.
Here are a few webinar softwares that you can consider through
trial offers.
www.gotomeeting.com/fec
http://www.webex.com
www.ilinc.com
www.saba.com
www.citrixonline.com/collaboration/online_collaboration
www.conferenceplus.com
A webinar every couple of weeks will
make everyone feel as if
they are part of a team
Special Report: Pushbutton Profits - Advanced Outsourcing Techniques
© 2012 Financial Success Institute. All rights reserved. www.financialsuccessinstitute.net
18
Before you can hold the webinar you’ll need to hire your
freelancers and we’ll get into that momentarily.
The first part of the team communication plan will be to review
the project schedule and get everyone to commit to it.
At this point you should have the basics in place to begin
outsourcing.
Building a Project Plan for Profits A project plan is nothing more than a step-by-step plan that
shows what needs to be done, when each step needs to be
started and completed and who is responsible for completing it.
A project plan is a visual that allows you to see at a glance the
impact that will occur to your business if a deadline is missed.
You will probably have your virtual assistant manage your project
plan but ultimately this is one task that you need to remain
responsible for. That's as easy as a weekly teleconference with
your virtual assistant to review the current status.
We are going to go through two different project plan templates
that you need. The first one, on the next page is a project plan
that will quickly have your virtual team up and running.
The second project plan template shows you how to follow a
step-by-step plan to close an apartment building finder's fee
deal.
An important step in
building your virtual team
Special Report: Pushbutton Profits - Advanced Outsourcing Techniques
© 2012 Financial Success Institute. All rights reserved. www.financialsuccessinstitute.net
19
Project Plan Template - Building Your Virtual Team
Special Report: Pushbutton Profits - Advanced Outsourcing Techniques
© 2012 Financial Success Institute. All rights reserved. www.financialsuccessinstitute.net
20
Keeping Track of Outsourcers – Metrics When it comes to performance, you need to keep track of
metrics on your outsourced work.
As you outsource more and more work, this will become a bigger
part of your short workweek. You’ll find yourself assigning work
and keeping track of the results.
Time, money, and quality are your primary metrics. Anything
anyone is doing for you needs to come in on budget, on time, and
has to be of acceptable quality.
Small simple outsourced projects don’t need a lot of oversight by
you. Especially once you have faith and trust in a particular
freelancer or provider and have a virtual assistant keeping track
of the project. Your effort shouldn't be much more than a short
email each Friday from your assistant letting you know how much
progress has been made. Is the project still on schedule, within
budget, and have any problems come up? You’d only need to
know about cost if you are paying them by the hour for some
reason.
For your accountant it means getting your taxes paid on time and
not having the taxman auditing the results.
For an IT service provider it means your severs and other
computer needs are up and running 99.9% of the time.
As the boss, this is how you manage your team
Special Report: Pushbutton Profits - Advanced Outsourcing Techniques
© 2012 Financial Success Institute. All rights reserved. www.financialsuccessinstitute.net
21
For project management it means work getting finished on
schedule, on budget, and quality to your standard. You’ll know
you are having problems here if you make a suggestion to a
freelancer and they are constantly saying that it will cost more
because it is outside the scope of the project when you expected
it to be in scope.
Schedule performance is usually clear. If they said it would take
a week and it takes a month they clearly didn’t meet schedule.
However, what if they send it to you in exactly a week but there
are a few small problems with the quality? Maybe it’s a writing
assignment and you wanted an important concept included that
wasn’t. You ask that it be rewritten and that takes another day.
Is the project late or was it completed on time? Your contract or
agreement should spell this out.
Project Management Metrics Typically, professional project managers need a way to provide a
project management status report. As an analogy, think about
the criteria that a doctor might use to monitor health. He or she
checks pulse, temperature, blood pressure etc. Similarly, a
project needs to measure a mix of criteria.
If you distill down the methodologies and literature on Project
Management, there are six criteria that constantly emerge. They
are:
1. Time (How are you doing against schedule)
Someone else can
record the metrics but you need to review them
regularly
Special Report: Pushbutton Profits - Advanced Outsourcing Techniques
© 2012 Financial Success Institute. All rights reserved. www.financialsuccessinstitute.net
22
2. Cost (How are you doing against budget)
3. Resources (How much time is everyone spending on the
project)
4. Project size growth (Is actual growth in line with
expectations?)
5. Quality (Are you reviewing and fixing quality problems)
6. Actions (Do you have action items outstanding)
By looking at the performance against these six criteria as a
project dashboard, a view of the parts of the project that are OK
and the parts that are not OK can be seen.
A project
management
dashboard is a
simple but
effective tool for
keeping track of
more than one
project at a
time. It uses
green/yellow/red
indicators for
each criteria.
Another important metric when you outsource work is
responsiveness. Email is the most common form of
A simple way to track a lot
of information
Special Report: Pushbutton Profits - Advanced Outsourcing Techniques
© 2012 Financial Success Institute. All rights reserved. www.financialsuccessinstitute.net
23
communication with providers. It leaves a written record of
conversations so they can be referred back to.
How quick do your providers respond to your
inquiries? This mostly applies to new
freelancers until you get to know them a bit.
If you send out a request for a project bid or
just ask a simple question do they get back to
you in a timely manner? Professionals will get
back with you within two hours during normal working hours. It
might only be to say they are looking into it to tell you when
they will have an answer but they should get back to you quickly.
Anyone not getting back to you within 24 hours should not be
considered responsive.
In the end, your metrics should be simple to understand while
still giving you the right information to manage your outsourced
work.
On the next page is another project plan template this one is for
keeping track of your apartment finder's fee deals. Most likely
you'll need to make some changes for each deal but the general
format is here.
This is where the big money
comes from
Special Report: Pushbutton Profits - Advanced Outsourcing Techniques
© 2012 Financial Success Institute. All rights reserved. www.financialsuccessinstitute.net
24
Project Plan Template - Apartment Finder's Fee Deals
Special Report: Pushbutton Profits - Advanced Outsourcing Techniques
© 2012 Financial Success Institute. All rights reserved. www.financialsuccessinstitute.net
25
12 Things to Avoid When you begin outsourcing, the goal is to have a more
profitable company while simplifying your business processes and
not doing the work yourself. The objective here is to let you
have more time to do the more important strategy work and
have time for what's important in your life.
Outsourcing is not a difficult process but there are a few things
to avoid.
1. Have a reasonable budget for outsourced work. Outsourced
work rates should be given considerable thought. Some
individuals or companies will work on tasks on an hourly
basis (not recommended) while some will accept retainer
fees. Whatever business processes you outsource, always
have a budget that you can work with when negotiating
with contractors.
2. Choose your providers well. Make sure you see work
examples before making a decision to hire someone. Know
if you’re hiring a business with multiple employees or an
individual freelancer.
If it’s a business with several employees you want to know
which individual will be doing your work and to see
examples of their work before agreeing to hire them.
They should also
guarantee the work to meet your
expectation
Special Report: Pushbutton Profits - Advanced Outsourcing Techniques
© 2012 Financial Success Institute. All rights reserved. www.financialsuccessinstitute.net
26
One of the good things about matchup websites like Elance
is your ability to see what previous outsourcers thought of
their work. Pay particular attention to rating like the ones
shown below.
3. Don’t underutilize your freelancer and their resources.
You should gage the capacity of the contractor and the
available resources that they have. The objective is to have
them do the work and free up your time.
Many outsourcing “gurus” think you should provide
freelancers with in-depth detailed instructions. That’s a
waste of your time. A top-notch freelancer should be able
to create an outline of the work from a few sentences that
you provide. They’re supposed to be an expert in the field
and they should be able to expand on your original
thoughts. You take the outline and make changes that are
An expert should have no trouble doing this
Special Report: Pushbutton Profits - Advanced Outsourcing Techniques
© 2012 Financial Success Institute. All rights reserved. www.financialsuccessinstitute.net
27
appropriate to your business strategy. It’s much less work
for you while at the same time achieving superior results.
4. Don’t spread your work around unless you have to. There
will be times that you want several providers doing similar
work on the same project in order to get it done as fast as
possible. But that should be the exception, not the rule.
Most times, you want to find the best provider and have
them perform all of the work they specialize in. This gives
you continuity of work. Everything will be similar and they
will learn your business in-depth. They will be able to
connect the pieces so that everything flows together. This
is part of building your "Brand".
5. Don’t let communication with your providers break down.
Once you have established a project outline, you need to
set a timetable and deadlines for the project. You should
receive a weekly or more frequent status report from them
and on large projects you need to have them send a project
dashboard weekly.
Large projects should have sections of work submitted to
you periodically as well. You need to review their progress
and give them feedback. Let them know what is working
and what is not. That maximizes the quality of product or
service that you will receive in the end.
6. Don’t get locked into a long term contract even when
you’re outsourcing long term or even permanently. Build
Branding is an important
aspect of your
business
Special Report: Pushbutton Profits - Advanced Outsourcing Techniques
© 2012 Financial Success Institute. All rights reserved. www.financialsuccessinstitute.net
28
flexibility into your contract. Although you will identify
specific deliverables and timelines, you can still have
flexibility.
This can be in the form of contract reviews every six
months or as often as you see fit. The marketplace and
your strategic business plan will change over time, you
need to have the flexibility to change what freelancers and
others are providing you with.
7. Be aware of cultural
differences. Westerners,
especially Americans,
British, and Canadians,
conduct business very
differently than most
cultures.
Let’s take the Chinese for
an example.
First, cross-cultural business relies on a higher level of
politeness and formality, at least in the beginning. Many in
the west do not realize how informal our business
communication has become over the years. Take a minute
and think about how formal or informal your business
practices really are. What many westerners take to be
normal practices can seem brash to other cultures. In fact,
the Chinese come across this cultural difference constantly
You're the boss, they will adjust but it helps being aware
we are different
Special Report: Pushbutton Profits - Advanced Outsourcing Techniques
© 2012 Financial Success Institute. All rights reserved. www.financialsuccessinstitute.net
29
and are adapting. While you are not likely to have a
business deal come apart only because of cultural
differences, some sensitivity to the Chinese culture will be
rewarded in unexpected ways.
First and foremost, Chinese expect and give respect in the
business world. Long-term relationships mean more than
the deal at hand. Westerners tend to think only about the
business immediately at hand while the Chinese will be
thinking about how the immediate business will affect the
relationship years into the future.
8. Don’t over focus on the cost. Almost always, you will get
what you pay for. If you hire the cheapest provider then
you better expect low quality work. You can get good
quality for a good price but that doesn’t mean the lowest
cost.
When you put projects or processes out for bid, focus on
the bids that come in at the top half of the bid range. The
highest ones are probably over bid so look at those closer
to the middle. Then compare the work samples they
provided. Did they take the time to send samples that are
similar to the work you are requesting to be done? In other
words, if you’re asking to have a password protected
website built did some people send you examples of a
retail website instead? Use a combination of price and work
samples to find the best match for your needs.
Here is how to get good quality at a good price
Special Report: Pushbutton Profits - Advanced Outsourcing Techniques
© 2012 Financial Success Institute. All rights reserved. www.financialsuccessinstitute.net
30
9. Don’t give your business secrets away. Entrepreneurs
achieve success because they deliver something to the
marketplace that the big guys have neglected. Any
freelancer that has access to your off market apartment
data needs to sign a nondisclosure agreement. This
prevents them from sharing your business strategy with
others they are working with.
10. One common mistake is over-analyzing the situation and
being afraid to outsource. Some entrepreneurs think that
outsourcing is a very complicated process. They think too
hard about it but they don’t realize that they have actually
been doing it for years.
For example, if your car breaks down, you would simply
hire a mechanic to fix it for you. In the business world, the
concept is the same. You can hire other people who can do
some of the jobs that you can’t do, or don’t have the time
to do.
11. Don’t outsource core processes. You need to stay in control
of your overall business strategy. This includes selecting
and fully understanding your off market apartment deals.
You need to have the final say about which ones go forward
and which ones are left for others. It also includes
understanding your marketing strategy.
While you can get help accomplishing these tasks, you
cannot let others make key decisions. For instance, let’s
Special Report: Pushbutton Profits - Advanced Outsourcing Techniques
© 2012 Financial Success Institute. All rights reserved. www.financialsuccessinstitute.net
31
say you hire a market research guy to make
recommendations about how to present deals to buyers.
He comes back with a recommendation that you do a direct
mail campaign to grow your list of buyers.
While you can have this type of work done by others, the
result needs to be very detailed. You need to know
everything that was considered. You need to know what
ideas were dropped. You need to know what ideas were not
fully explored. You pretty much need to know every
decision that was made to arrive at the recommendation.
12. Don’t look at a single provider and make a
hiring decision. Even if they appear to be
the perfect match for you, continue to look
objectively at other providers to be sure
there’s not a better match for you.
For almost any project you come up with, there will be
hundreds of potential providers. Take the time to find a
best match and then hang on to them for the long term.
These are just some of the possible difficulties that you will
encounter when you outsource most of your tasks. Outsourcing is
a solution for many business owners and the benefits will always
outweigh the problems. Don’t be afraid to outsource tasks that
you believe can be done by others fast and accurately.