Outsource Mastery: How To Earn More Money By Doing Less Work

Welcome to Outsource Mastery! In this introduction we talk about how outsourcing has positively affected our online business, to the point where we now have over 50 workers managing various aspects of our business!

Aidan Booth, co-owner of Online Marketing Classroom, talks about:

• A general overview of the course and how the modules and sections are laid out

• How you will go from knowing nothing about hiring freelancers to effectively managing an entire team of workers

What is outsourcing? In this overview, we discuss:

• How outsourcing allows you to gain services and skills you would find hard to develop yourself

• How it allows you to grow your business

We also talk in more detail of what is included in the training.

In this lecture, we talk about the advantages of outsourcing, and why you would consider hiring others to help run your business. We cover such advantages as:

• Getting things done FAST and true 24/7 operating hours

• Your ability to easily hire expert skills to get tasks done better and faster than you yourself could ever do.

• You can focus on core activities that grow your business and make you MONEY

• Automate certain portions of your business

• Time freedom

In this lecture, we talk about actual examples in our business that we have been able to develop because of outsourcing, hiring overseas and native workers, and using virtual assistants.

We detail the following projects in our business and how we used outsourced workers:

• A software tool to find ecommerce and affiliate marketing opportunities

• How we hired a quality assurance freelancer  to check the work of our software and website developments

• The packaging, design and product photos of our ecommerce brand

• The redesign of the custom member's area of Online Marketing Classroom

• Written content, customer support, accounting

In this lecture, we talk about any objections and dispel many myths about outsourcing. We cover:

• The costs associated with outsourcing, and how to compare this to the value of your own time and worth

• Not being in control, and how to let go of some parts of your business to help you grow

• Privacy and security worries, and how it's usually not a big deal ... a later lecture will discuss what NOT to outsource

• Communication issues, and how to avoid this through the vetting process of hiring them

In this short section, we introduce some digital marketing business models that lend themselves well to outsourcing:

• Amazon Whitelabel (sourcing your own products to sell on Amazon)

• Affiliate Marketing (building your own websites and selling products on commission)

• Wholesale (sourcing profitable products from wholesalers to sell on Amazon)

Outsourcing can be applied to ANY business model. We feel that, if you are a beginner, these are very easy income streams you can build and quickly scale using outsourcing.

In this lecture, we give an overview of what you can outsource, and a strategy of how to do this.

Working full time: The initial aim will be to outsource 10 hours of work that you normally do, so you can free up your time to do other things.

Working part time: The aim will be to create an additional 10 hours of work over and above what you do, to begin scaling up your business.

No matter if you are working part time or full time, you will have an extra 10 hours of work per week to grow your business.   

In this lecture, you will learn what aspects of your business you should outsource, such as:

• Written content

• Graphic design

• Social media management

• General marketing and promotion

• Software creation

Of course, you should not outsource everything in your business! In this lecture we talk about what you should not outsource, such as:

• Critical accounts and infrastructure

• Paypal and other financial accounts, email marketing platforms, domain name accounts, etc

However, check and see if you can give limited access to certain critical accounts. For instance, in Amazon Seller Central, you can add users but only allow access to certain areas of your account.

Now that you know what can potentially be outsourced, you need to plan exactly how to identify tasks in your business. Take a good look at yourself, your skills, and your business, and write down lists, such as:

• What do you spend the most time on?

• What are your skill sets?

• Which tasks lead directly to revenue?

• What do you enjoy doing?

• What do you dislike doing?

Once you have these lists, you will have a better idea of what you can outsource, and what tasks you can do yourself.

After you have drawn up your lists, the next step is to determine what tasks and items you could outsource that could save you 10 hours per week (if you are working full time), or what tasks you can outsource to gain an extra 10 hours of work a week (if you are doing this part time.)

Refer to the strategy mindmaps in the Resources of this lecture to begin planning this.

In this article, we discuss how to create your outsourcing budgeting plan. This lesson is also available as a PDF, with an example spreadsheet as well.

In this lecture, we introduce the key outsourcing platforms we use to find our best freelancers. They include:

• OnlineJobs.ph

• Upwork.com

• 99Designs.com

• Freelancer.com

Included are example template job postings in the Resources section.

We also mention some other platforms used for very specific tasks, such as freelancers for music.

In this lecture, we give you a tour of 99Designs.com, and for which outsourcing tasks. Specifically, we teach you how to:

• Set up a contest

• Tips on creating your contest

• Your project brief

• Pricing options

• Running a contest

• Choosing the winner

In this lecture, we talk about OnlineJobs.ph, one of the best places to find full-time outsourcers and VA's (virtual assistants) from the Philippines. We teach you how to use this platform and best practices, such as:

• How to post a job

• Job title and description

• Communication and interviewing

• Selecting people

• Salary negotiation

Freelancer.com is one of the most popular platforms to hire quality freelancers. In this lecture, we discuss:

• How to use this service

• Posting a job

• Pricing your job

Similar to Freelancer.com, Upwork is the other main outsourcing platform to hire quality freelancers. In this lecture, we cover:

• Writing a job title to attract the right people

• Job description

• Job settings

• Pricing your job

In this lecture, we teach you how to effectively analyze and hire the best freelancers for your outsourcing tasks. You will learn our process of hiring and how we evaluate potential freelancers to find the best person to do the task that furthers our business.

Specifically, you will learn:

• Individual freelancers vs. agencies vs. firms

• Country of origin vs. job type

• Language considerations

• Viewing previous feedback and filtering options

As with anything in business, there are red flags to watch out for. In this lecture, we uncover some of the common problems and red flags we have had to deal with, and how you can avoid them when hiring people for your projects.

Just as important as hiring the best person for the job is creating clear and detailed instructions after you hire your freelancer. In this lecture, we teach you:

• How to write proper and effective instructions

• Optionally, creating video snippet instructions

Included is a "welcome" template in the Resources you can use for your new hire.

In this lecture, we talk about a very simple but powerful and effective testing strategy we use with all our new hires. Using this method, we can find out how good the freelancer is at their job, and ways to reduce your financial risk and time if they turn out to be not what you expected.

In this lecture, we discuss the basics of managing freelancers. Specifically, we will cover:

• Communication

• Feedback

• Managing without micromanaging ... which would defeat the purpose of outsourcing if you are constantly checking their work!

In this lecture we run through the advantages of using management tools, and give you a tour of the important tools we use on a daily basis to manage the people who work for us.

Tools we cover include:

• Trello

• Basecamp

• Infogram.com

• Hubstaff

Sometimes, a freelancer doesn't do the job as you would like, or is low quality. In this lecture, we discuss common issues and problems, and ways you can solve them. We discuss:

• Low quality work and what to do

• Missing deadlines and the possible reasons

• What to do BEFORE terminating their contract

In this lecture, we teach you the basics of scaling your outsourcing with the growth of your business. We discuss best practices, pitfalls to avoid, as well as long-term business planning.

As your business grows, you don't want your workload to increase as well. We discuss the optimal time to scale your outsourcing, and how to structure your business so you become the "CEO" looking at the big picture.

In this lecture, we teach you how to scale properly, and how to structure your freelancers so the more experienced ones become your project managers.

In this final lecture, we discuss reasons and advantages as to why you would want to get freelancers off of platforms and work directly for you. We discuss when you should do this, and how to approach it properly.