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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.

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Page 1: Richard Geller’s Special Reportcfm03012010.s3.amazonaws.com/apartment/Pushbutton_Pro...How to hire a virtual assistant first, to instantly reduce the work you need to do. How to

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.

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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

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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!

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Special Report: Pushbutton Finder Profits - Advanced Outsourcing Techniques

© 2012 Financial Success Institute. All rights reserved. www.financialsuccessinstitute.net

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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.

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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

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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,

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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

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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?

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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Project Plan Template - Building Your Virtual Team

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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

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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

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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

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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

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Project Plan Template - Apartment Finder's Fee Deals

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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.