When you are running a business, there will be times when you need to hire a few extra hands to complete a project. However, hiring employees permanently might not be possible since you may not have any long-term projects to support paying their salaries. This is where the importance of short-term contract workers comes into the picture. They allow you…
Category: Outsourcing
How to Find the Best Contractors on oDesk
Ok, so you posted a job on oDesk. And you’re now seeing a bunch of cookie-cutter applications come in from overseas. Maybe they didn’t even read your job posting. Maybe they don’t even have the skills that are required. Maybe their English is so horrendous you can’t even get through the 1st sentence in their cover letter. Either way, it’s…
Outsourcing Myself – Article Submissions
My VA, Gerlyn, next worked on submitting an article I emailed her to around 30 different article directory sites. Here’s the report she gave me afterward (the white box is just covering up personal info). Since I’ve never used SENuke myself, I’m not sure how easy or fast it is to use. However, I’m a bit suspicious that I’m not…
Outsourcing Myself – First Task Complete
My 2nd VA, Gerlyn, spent her first day (4 hours…since I only have her half-time) doing Web 2.0 profile backlinks using SENuke. She then emailed me a report (spreadsheet) listing the pages and keywords she targeted, as well as the 100 or so URLs that were created. Not bad for the first day and < $8 out of my pocket!…
Outsourcing Myself – Language Barrier
I emailed my new VA, Jemelo, to ask him a few questions and here’s his response: I’m sure you already know my name, the following are the answers to youre questions sir. 1. i am available through email and chat only. 2. i can’t do phone calls to someone in north america. 3. The SEO software that we have is…
Outsourcing Myself – Took The Plunge!
After much deliberation, I decided to hire my first Virtual Assistant (VA) from First Page Web Search. As the site says to do, I emailed “admin(at)firstpagewebsearch(dot)com” to request a part-time SEO VA, which costs a super-affordable $37.50 for 20 hours a week. The company owner/manager, Jake, replied: Right now, we do need one week confirmation payment. This covers the two days…
Outsourcing Myself – Decisions
Time Tracking & Analysis So I’ve religiously logged my time for a couple weeks now (using a desktop widget from Paymo.biz), and come to the following conclusions – I waste too much time switching between tasks. I need to focus more on completing things before moving onto something else I waste too much time with social media. I need to outsource…
Outsourcing Myself – Intro
I’m determined to become more efficient and effective with my time. I’ve come to the realization that I waste WAY too much time on things like: Checking email (hundreds of times a day) Customer support Internet window shopping (doing tons of research before deciding what to buy) Forum reading Social networking (Facebook, Twitter, other Ping.FM sites) Blog posts for niche…