As you may know, I gave my presentation for the Outsourcing Masters Telesummit yesterday (Sept. 25th) as one of 15 other experts in the field. The content was excellent, and was a smashing success!

I just received an e-mail from one of the co-founders of the event David Frey, which contained an e-mail exchange from an angry subscriber calling him unpatriotic for encouraging others to outsource.

In these economic times, I know there are many people have either lost their jobs or are living in fear of losing their jobs, and the term outsourcing has largely been associated with large companies moving offshore to save on labor expenses. There have been many who consider themselves “victims” of this trend.

I have alot of empathy for them. It can be a scary thing, losing your job, your income and even your home due to the current economic conditions.

Allow me to clear up a misconception of the term outsourcing as we practice this for our Internet marketing endeavors.

Outsourcing is not strictly “offshoring,” meaning that you can delegate tasks to local workers, or U.S. providers as well. That is still outsourcing. Much of the content creation part of my business is outsourced to U.S. writers, or other providers in Canada, the U.K., or Australia.

That said, I completely agree with David on the following points as quoted from his e-mail exchange with “Joe Parks”:

1. There are a LOT of solo entrepreneurs trying to reach their goals and dreams by starting their own home based business.

They can’t afford to hire US employees. And the burdens that the government are putting on small businesses is making it even hard to turn a profit.

Outsourcing gives them an opportunity to reach success.

2. The $4 an hour you pay to someone in countries like the Phillipines is enough to allow them to lift themselves out of poverty and gives them hope for a brighter future for themselves and their families.

You can read the complete exchange at David’s blog here:
http://marketingbestpractices.com

What do you think?

P.S. By the way, you can still get all the recordings and transcripts of the calls for the launch price before it goes up by $100. Check it out here:
Outsourcing Masters Telesummit

Tags: outsource, , online marketing, rentacoder, guru, directory submission, elance, Web design, autoresponder, Internet

I just read that in a popular guru’s handwritten sales letter (more on that later) that “outsourcing is dead”!

What! Is the “OutSourcerer” obsolete?!!

NOT!

See I’m not just outsourcing “people work” but also about AUTOMATION.

Software, macros, submitters - anything to make those grueling, repetitive tasks to build and promote our sites easier is OK in my book. Then I hire people to work the automation tools.

I came upon this very cool site via Ed Dale’s 30 Day Challenge, and it automates some very labor-intensive things. The Average Customer Is Saving “5 Hours of Precious Time Per Week.”

Click here to automate your outsourcing

Here’s some of what this software can do:

Social Bookmarking

• Traffic-Bug submits bookmarks to 43 of the top Social Bookmarking sites
• We build more bookmarks than any of our competitors – Over 200!
• We rotate IP’s and social bookmarking accounts for every single submission
• We automatically rotate titles and descriptions for every single post
• Unlike other programs, you don’t have to create any social bookmarking accounts - Traffic-Bug creates all of them!

Submitting to the RSS Directories, Search engines and Directories!

Click here to automate your outsourcing

I’ve signed up for the FREE TRIAL, and will report back soon with my results.

Check it out!

Tags: online marketing, Internet, outsourcing online, web graphics, online, article submission, software, rentacoder, make Money online, scripts

OK, we’re on Day 7 (the LAST DAY) of our outsourcing adventure, wrapping up our series on creating a template-based flash website on RentACoder.

Accepting and Paying your outsourcer

Just to recap, we’ve:

• gathered our content
• selected a template
• posted our project
• evaluated our bidders
• assigned the project
• created a project description
• and sent back revisions and corrections

Now it’s time to pay the piper!

See the final product, how we pay and leave feedback for our coder, and some final thoughts on the process.

There’s several gold nuggets in the final thoughts, you don’t want to miss this!
As always, feedback is appreciated and welcomed!

Tags: Internet marketing, make Money online, guru, outsource, outsourcing, web graphics, programming, scripts, , online marketing

In the home stretch, Day 6 of our outsourcing adventure, creating a template-based flash website on RentACoder.

Flash website revisions

Our flashmaster turned in a very good first draft, about 90% perfect on his first shot! This had a lot to do with a very detailed project description (see video five).

But, alas, the only constant in life is change…and that means revisions and corrections need to be made to get that last 10%.

I read on the NASA website that for 97% of their trip, the Apollo astronauts were continually course correcting and were literally off-course 97% of the time… and they still reached their destination!

Gives you a new perspective, huh? (Even some hope!)

First I have a go at it, and then send it along to my client for any revisions in content, as well as proofreading.

See how we handled our revisions…

Tags: software, elance, outsourcing, Internet, outsource, online, online marketing, programming, Internet marketing, make Money online

It’s time for Day 5 of our outsourcing adventure, creating a template-based flash website on RentACoder.

Having a clear project description will go a long way towards making your project goes a lot smoother, and a lot quicker.

The project description you send to your coder is significantly more detailed than the project post for the coders to bid on.

You want to gather all the content (text, audio, images and video) and provide a roadmap for the coder to follow in creating your website.

In this 6:14 video, you’ll learn:

• how to handle time zone differences between you and your coder
• how to minimize revisions and corrections, which can delay your project
• when to use a visual layout
• how to overcome the special challenges of a flash website template

Check out the special technique I use to layout the content pages of the website, and the detailed instructions that I give to the coder.

How close to perfection will Sriframes initial attempt be?

See for yourself…

P.S. I haven’t seen anyone else using this special site layout technique. We’ll see how effective it is…

As always, any comments and feedback are appreciated!

Tags: Web design, programming, directory submission, autoresponder, online marketing, article submission, outsourcing, ghostwriters, guru, web graphics

StomperNet Live 7 in Atlanta was a great event, and I learned alot about a subject I presumed to have a great deal of knowledge about, creating products. The presentation by Paul Lemberg (of Formula Five fame) [like the alliteration?] was crammed full of info, but also had many thought provoking moments.

You can get my mind map of his presentation here: Product Producer

If you don’t have Mindjet MindManager software, you can download a viewer here:
http://www.mindjet.com/resources/downloads/mm_viewer.aspx

Please leave comments if you found it valuable. Or didn’t!

Enjoy!

Tags: software, , autoresponder, web graphics, elance, Internet marketing, online marketing, ghostwriters, Web design, outsourcing

Wow, great call with Paul Hartunian! Great to have a chance to drill down into topics he didn’t have time to cover in depth on the marketers cruise presentation.

We covered things like:

• how to tie in national stories to your product or service
• why geo-targeting is opening up huge opportunities
• how press releases can establish you as a celebrity in your niche
• how to protect your privacy by creating personas
• four main ways to get publicity, and which is the best
• why OFF-LINE publicity presents another huge opportunity
• why you need TWO press rooms online
• how to make use of fax broadcast

… and other things I’m not at liberty to divulge!

You can download it here:
http://imoutsourcerer.com/Paul_Hartunian_Publicity.zip

…or listen online here:
http://imoutsourcerer.com/Paul_Hartunian_Publicity.mp3

Enjoy!
Howard

Tags: outsource, directory submission, , web graphics, outsourcing, autoresponder, software, outsourcing, online marketing, rentacoder

I get a lot of questions from people asking what software I use to manage my projects.  The answer is, quite frankly, it depends…

I am always trying out new platforms and software in the quest for the perfect solution, and also as a reporter to report back to you, my subscribers, as to what I’ve found, to make it easier on others.

One of my most useful applications is a simple project management software I call, the “OutSourcerer’s Project Pad,” which is a cool, simple project management “sketch pad” so to speak, for simple projects and tasks I need to get done.  This is NOT a collaborative tool, but something that will help you organize your daily projects and associated tasks.

Here is a screenshot of the main screen:

OutSourcerer's Project Manager, "Project Pad"

You can download it and put it to use for your own personal outsourcing, and to manage those day-to-day tasks!

This is a giveaway as a token of my appreciation to my readers and subscribers! Get it here: OutSourcerer’s Project Pad.

Please leave any comments or feedback on what you think of the software. Thanks!

Tags: article submission, outsourcing, Internet, software, ghostwriters, programming, online marketing, outsource, guru, scripts