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Archive for the ‘Outsourcing’ Category

Four Minute Money – Review

07 Oct

Last week we had the plan for setting up an online business in just 48 hours.

This week, it’s only going to take you four minutes!

Can you see a trend developing here? Perhaps next week we’ll have a training course that teaches how you to get your online business up and running yesterday.

Now THAT would be a neat trick.

Nevertheless with an immense effort I reeled my cynicism back in and sat down to study the Four Minute Money course by Harris Fellman and Brian Kosobucki. Read the rest of this entry »

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The Uncanny Valley of Internet Marketing

26 Aug

That internet marketing has a steep learning curve is not a position with which many people would argue.  To a novice, the range of skills that are needed to run a successful online business can appear incredibly daunting.

So why is it that so many who attempt to break into this field, give up; not near the beginning of their journey when the mountain of knowledge that must be climbed seems insurmountable, but months or even years later when their abilities and experience in internet marketing has never been greater?

Could it be, that the internet marketing niche has its very own “Uncanny Valley”?

If you’re not familiar with the term, the Uncanny Valley is
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Outsourcing: The Reality (Part Three)

29 May

Continued from Outsourcing: The Reality (Part Two)

Company #4…

offered to install the WordPress blog and add a comprehensive range of the most popular plug-ins. The service was provided free if you opened a hosting account through one of their affiliate links. I wasn’t too keen on that idea as I wanted it to be installed on my dedicated server but, after scouring the FAQs, I discovered that it was also possible to pay a one-off fee of $65.

I submitted my order straight away and – finally – I was able to take part in a competent exchange of money for services. The WordPress blog and plug-ins were installed quickly, with no fuss.

The company was ninjaBlog Setup and I can recommend their blog installation service without reservation.

Finally, the project was underway, but I still needed some more detailed customisation. Not to mention an original template design.

I asked ninjaBlog if they were available to do more intensive work and I received a prompt reply explaining that they didn’t offer additional services, but they were happy to recommend someone who did – Joel Williams, the Blog Tech Guy

I emailed Joel and explained what I was looking for – making particularly detailed reference to the feature that I had been previously advised was not possible with WordPress.

The response was swift and comprehensive.

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Outsourcing: The Reality (Part Two)

29 May

Continued from Outsourcing: The Reality (Part One)

Payroll-HR-Jobs.com

This website was built using the very flexible MemberSpeed script. Although the script is very easy to install and customise, owing to time constraints, I decided to outsource the work to someone else.

Elance.com and Guru.com are the traditional places to go for outsourcing work, but on this occasion, I didn’t go near them. The reason being, I decided to act on a tip I heard at a seminar from John Reese (I hear he’s pretty good at this IM stuff).

When you’re looking to outsource some work and you want to find the REAL experts, Reese recommended, rather than going to an auction site, to find a forum in the corresponding niche.

If you want to find someone to create a fancy PDF, look for a forum about Adobe Acrobat.

If you want to find someone to manage your dedicated server, look for a forum about web hosting.

And so on…

In this instance, I wanted someone to install and customise the MemberSpeed script, so I looked for a forum about MemberSpeed.

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Outsourcing: The Reality (Part One)

29 May

Making the switch from Do-It-Yourself to paying someone else to do it, can be a difficult switch for a home business owner.

The first hurdle is having enough money to outsource, the second is the reluctance to relinquish 100% control over everything you create, and the third is the logistical difficulties that come with finding and managing the right people to work for you.

Whole books and courses have been written on the subject and, while they can give a healthy does of confidence and strategy, the one thing they can never supply you with is experience.

When you finally begin to outsource your work, it’s not uncommon to experience problems that you never even envisaged to begin with.

This article is not intended to compete with a comprehensive training product and it certainly isn’t going to claim to be a definitive voice on the topic. What it will do is let you inside the TRUE story of a number of successfully outsourced tasks that I carried out over the last 12 months.

Hopefully, by the time you finish reading this article, you’ll feel more inclined to start or increase outsourcing your work, you’ll have learned some important lessons from my mistakes, and maybe some handy tips along the away.

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