I have hired a few people in the past to do the occasional task i couldn’t do or didn’t want to do.

However up to now I’ve been an idiot!

I should have been using outsourcing for so much more, backlink building, Article submissions etc in fact everything I hate doing and avoid doing because it’s so mind numbingly boring. But because of some horror stories I’ve heard about I have avoided hiring people. This is about to change.

I am about to take on 3 or 4 staff maybe even more depending on how it goes.

I have looked at elance and Getafreelancer and also companies like Agentsofvalue who will hire you staff on a full time or part time basis but I rejected them all for different reasons. I have decided to use Odesk.com.

Odesk allows me to monitor exactly what work the provider has done for me and I only pay for an hours work if they have worked for an hour. It also has various tests which providers can take which gives an indication of their abilities.

Because this is my first foray into hiring multiple workers for multiple tasks I am creating videos and documenting my progress , the videos are available as part of Augusts step by step project in the Wordpress Goldmine forum. (previous documentated steps by steps include, Article marketing, Niche reseach and site Building and site reviews. All this and much more is available for a one time payment at Wordpres Goldmine…end of advert!!)

So what have I learned so far.

Well the first thing I learned is to break the job offers down into small tasks. I initially posted a job offer for a Virtual assistant, backlink builder and Article submitter. This got me 24 applicants in 24 hours, but many were over qualified.

I created a new ad for someone just to post backlinks and mentioned that people with previous experience would be preferred. The advert made it perfectly clear to them what would be involved and anyone who had done this particular type of backlinking before would immediately know the process. I’ve had 50 applicants in the past 5 hours. Most have done this before and know exactly what I want.

The difference In hourly rates are also noticeably lower.

It’s very possible that I’ll hire 2 people to do the work, I’ve had bids from people with good rankings for similar tasks charging less than $2 an hour. At prices like that I am happy to give them a days work just to test them out. I am more than happy to give a pay rise or a bonus to keep a good reliable worker once they have proved themselves.

By outsourcing all the stuff I try to avoid doing for very little cost I can concentrate on what I do best.

I’ll keep you informed as to how my outsourcing experiment is going. So check back or better still subscribe to the RSS feed email notification at the top of the site…(a retweet using the Tweet button at the start of the article wouldn’t go amiss either!!)

Outsourcing experiment Costs/Progress/income

August 6th:
Costs so Far $0
Backlinks submitted 0
Ranking Improvement N/a
Page Rank Improvement N/a
Additional Traffic over July.. N/a
Additional Income Over July N/a

I read today that Google are going to release their own operating system next year. Judging from the excellent Google Chrome browser I suspect that it will be an excellent OS. Google seem to have a policy of stripping things back to basics then adding the essentials and leaving out the non essential parts.

If you have ever used Google Chrome you’ll know that it is fast and stable, exactly what we want from a browser. I predict that the OS will be the same. This is also not a bad thing to do with your sites.

Look at your sites and review exactly what do you need to make money..If it’s essential use it if not get rid of it. Your site should be “lean and mean”. I constantly try to refine my sites removing items that are surplus to requirements this is why you’ll rarely see sign up boxes, or rss feeds displaying news etc.

What I consider essential is good unique content, affiliate links , and product reviews. One benefit of removing non essential items is that the sites will load quicker ensuring more visitors get to see them.

Find it Hard To Concentrate on Your Sites?

I have yet to meet anyone who hasn’t had times when the last thing they want to do is to work on their sites it happens to me quite often and I need to force myself to focus on the job I need to do. I’ve written many times in the past about creating a working environment that is conducive to working effectively without interruptions. If you would like some more helpful advice please feel free to download the book I wrote a while ago on the Focussed Achievemnet Called “I Can ” there is no sign up required or no up sell… enjoy

http://mjthompson.net/giveaway/I_Can.pdf

One of the best ways to stay focused and productive is to surround yourself with people who are actually making things happen. One such place is to join forums where people are helpful and positive (avoid the ones where people are negative and have nothing positive to say, they can sap your will to live!!)

Finally today a big shout out to two guys who are active members of the Wordpress Goldmine Forum (A very very positive forum!!). These guys have taken action and are actually building themselves long-term businesses.

First up we have Jeff who followed the Product creation course we created a few months back and has released his first product on clickbank, this is in a great niche so please consider promoting it. You can check out his great work at http://www.learnguitarquick.com/

Also a big shout out for Marl who has set up an excellent social bookmarking service, which starts at $5 superb value!! you can read more at. http://wraptnotes.com/sitepromotion/

That’s it…. stay Focused!

I am always on the look out for what might be the next big thing in affiliate marketing or article marketing. There is one technology I’ve been monitoring for a while and I really do think that this could be big..actually really big.

There is a company in Santa Barbara called Ring Revenue who have recently received $3.5million of financing. Ring Revenue provide an affiliate Platform like no other. The platform they have developed and patented allows affiliate networks like CJ to track phone calls just like they track clicks. In fact the call tracking is much more accurate than the clicks.

The potential here is amazing. First off I means that I as an affiliate can advertise on radio, TV, Newspapers and magazines all i need to give is a toll free number and the network will track my calls and pay me commissions on sales.

As a Product owner I can employ an online sales team which generally convert at much higher levels than sales letters , sales letters generally convert at 1-3% sales teams at 30-50%. I can target specific demographics and collect real time data via the calls.

Just imagine how cool it would be for Clickbank to take on this technology and add a call center , each affiliate has a phone number that goes to a specialised team… I’d be happy to pay extra for this service as not only could I sell digital versions of my own products but hard copy versions as well.

I’ll be watching this very closely and I suggest that you do too. You can read More at www.ringrevenue.com

Meanwhile here is a graphic of how it works.

RingRevenue How it Works

Yesterday I watched a little kid trying to walk..he stood up wobbled for a bit then fell down. He then stood up again wobbled for a bit longer then fell down again. This happened 4 or 5 times each time he got up and tried again. About an hour later he could manage a couple of faltering steps before he fell down.

Looking at that kid I realised that we are naturally programmed not to give up and to keep on trying until we master the problem facing us. Why then do so many people give up Internet marketing after a few weeks?? I actually asked someone who once asked for a refund why they were giving up after only 4 days. They said “Internet marketing is too difficult, I want an easy way to make money”.

What can be easier than looking at whats working for other people, pressing a few buttons to create a site and then spending a few hours in front of the computer driving traffic to the site you’ve built. Once you master it, it is possible to spend 4 or 5 hours working on a site and have that site earn you hundreds of dollars every month.

Internet marketing might be a lot of things but it’s not hard.

I lost count at the number of times I built sites that failed when I fist started. I would built a site then sit back and watch as it made about 5cents a day.. So i’d look at what I did wrong, once I’d found the problem I’d make sure that I didn’t make the same mistake again. Soon I was like that little kid,  instead of being able to walk two steps I could create sites that would make 50 cents a day.  After that it was just a matter of time until I worked out how to make sites that made me $10 a day.

If I’d listened to the part of me saying  ”give up it’s too hard”, I would still be struggling to make an income I could live on and I would probably be working for someone else doing a job I hated. Instead I have a great lifestyle I work on my terms and I am doing something I love.

Start to look at Internet marketing in a realistic way and be prepared to fail, and you will succeed it may take time but you will be a success.  Failure is a powerful tool, embrace it and learn from it.

Of course if you want to learn from my previous failures and reduce the time it takes to be successful then be sure to check out Wordpress Goldmine. Next month I am going to be reviewing peoples sites and suggesting improvements.

Straight on the tails of The Clickbank Code comes another over hyped over priced Clickbank Product.

This is a warning you are about to get inundated with emails for yet another Clickbank product. Yes in a week or two CB Quantum will go live. The pre-written emails are ready to go along with the bits of video ready to get you warmed up. You’ll get pre written emails and bonus offers  all in an effort to get you to buy the product and earn the affiliate a very healthy commission.

I’m not even going to mention my views about the 3 guys producing this product. It would probably get me landed with a writ for defamation of character, lets just say I loathe the methods they use, and believe that the whole area of Internet marketing would be better off without people like them.

My issue with this is that this is yet another product about how to make money using clickbank. The thing that gets me is that these guys have been producing Clickbank guides for several years now …If I am not mistaken Clickbank hasn’t changed , the methods are still the same. Why are the methods that they once sold for $47 or $97 now worth $1000? If you get emails promoting this before you unsubscribe ask them why the other clickbank books they promoted are no longer valid!

Don’t be taken in by their slick sales letters, they make most of their money by selling crap like this to their lists of subscribers and then creating another book about how they made a million dollars and now own a Ferrari and yacht…then sell that to their lists.

Making money with clickbank is easy and you don’t need to spend $1000 to find out how to do it.

Here is how i do it…

Disclaimer… I don’t own a Ferrari or a Yacht so if that’s how you judge success then don’t follow the guide below. I do however get a nice payment from Clickbank every week.

1. Find a Product, Cbengine.com or CBsnooper.com are great for doing this.

2. Set up a landing page or a blog with a review of the product. I prefer the review method.

3. Find a series of keywords that people interested in that niche would use when searching for information.

4. Use the keywords to drive visitors to your site either by Article marketing Or PPC (I prefer Article marketing It’s cheaper and 1 article can get thousands of views!)

Thats it for this latest rant I’ll be unsubscribing from anyone who sends me emails about CB Quantum. It really is time we told marketers who really don’t care about their subscribers that enough is enough.