SeoBlackhat.co.uk

Growing your business means hiring employees. It is part of the game. I was a big supporter for outsourcing for many years. I ran into an issue with many of the outsourced staff lying, padding their hours, working on other projects when they were supposed to be working on mine, etc. So I fired nearly my entire outsourced staff and hired everyone locally. My reason? Having people in the same office would allow for synergy to take place and more would get accomplished in less time.

I was wrong again.

Watching movies at work, IMing friends all day or working on a personal MySpace page wasnt exactly in the job description I laid out. So Im back to outsourcing with the lessons that I have learned. Let me show you how Im doing this as after 8 years, I think I have it all figured out.

Key Point: The whole purpose of outsourcing/hiring employees is to move your stress onto someone else. When it becomes a stressful situation, youre doing it wrong and you need to make an immediate change.

Problem: Where do I go to find people to outsource to?

Testing: I have tried nearly every single major outsourcing option. Heres who Ive tried:

• Craigs List It to a good place to find good local people, but only in major cities. I live an hour away from a major city and all I get are Spam replies from wannabe SEOs in India.
• RentaCoder Ive had good success with RentaCoder, but their interface is so horrible that Im dumping it.
• Agents of Value My experience was good at first, but then productivity fell off and I had no real way to measure what they were doing. I suspected my dedicated team was working on other projects as I started getting completed projects that werent mine. Oh, that was a mistake, my computer wasnt working so I was using someone elses. Yeah, sure you were.
• Guru.com Lets just say I had to do a major repair in my office because of my experience here.
• Traffic Assistants We had a major problem outsourcing with them last year, and tried them again under a pen name and the experience was just as bad. Poor communication, poor work, and it was frustrating.

Solution: oDesk.com Out of all the options I tested, only oDesk allowed me to see exactly what my team was working on at any given moment (randomized screen captures). They also have certification tests for applicants to take so you can measure their skills BEFORE you waste time interviewing them.

Okay, so we have our solution to find good workers, now what? First things first. Howies mantra is Hire Fast, but Fire Faster. Remember this and live by it. If you dont, you will regret it and your business will suffer. Your first and foremost loyalty is to yourself and your business. No one else. While that may seem selfish, it isnt. Because if your focus is there, you and your business will thrive and thus, your employees and family will be well taken care of.

Let me get a question out of the way that is probably on your mind right now:

Question: What if the work is not being completed to the quality you expect?

Answer: Thats your problem, not your employees problem. If you are unable to keep your staff doing exactly what they are suppose to do then it is entirely your fault. You MUST take responsibility.

But I dont have time to baby sit. Thats right you dont, and you shouldnt do that job anyway. You also cant go out there and hire a project manager either. It doesnt work. You have to promote to that position. Someone who has proven themselves as a loyal and dedicated worker. Lets continue the process.

Lets say we have an affiliate website which has been built, but its not getting any traffic or sales. Its important, but you have so many other things pressing your time, it always is at the bottom of your list. Lets hire a team to get the site into shape. Remember that since you are paying hourly, this doesnt mean each person is going to work 40 hours a week.

Lets say your budget is 200 hours per week for outsourcing. Instead of hiring five full timers (405=200), you could hire specialists and you can quadruple your staff size, while keeping your budget (1020=200). Because if you hired a full-time SEO and suddenly they stop showing up to work, you have to start the entire process all over, however, if you have three part-timers and one doesnt show, the project can keep moving along.

Once I started treating my outsourcing like I do affiliate marketing, things became less stressful (testing the market before fully committing to it). Here is how I hire:

STEP ONE: What do I need?

• an admin to take care of any server issues, logins, database setups, blog installs, etc.
• a researcher (keywords, articles, competition, etc.)
• a writer (articles, copy, blog, etc.)
• an editor (to ensure the copy is correct)
• an SEO (driving traffic)
• an SEM (manage the PPC)
• a programmer (if needed)

Okay, thats seven positions. Lets just take one of them for our example, the SEO.