The trick will be to make sure you’re committed to LEARNING about online marketing and then using your VA to carry out assignments that you don’t have time to do yourself. Niche research, competitor research, whatever it is you want to do.

Then you have to make a decision QUICKLY about what business you’re going to go after and just do it. Learn as you go. Keep your VA busy with implementation tasks as you learn more about your goals.

Worst case, you spend some money on launching a site and it doesn’t work out. But you’ll learn a lot about outsourcing + site construction.

I’ve watched a webinar with John Jonas and am going to buy the lifetime programme. I did some research and really like what you have to offer.

I know it sounds ridiculous but I know I need to get a VA (because I need to continue working full-time) but am not sure what I want them to do initially. Is this an area you can help with?

I’m just starting up my internet business and consequently have limited internet marketing knowledge. This being the case, it feels like the blind leading the blind somewhat with respect to my ability to lead the VAs in the right direction. However, I know that I need to take the leap and just get going with this.

I’d appreciate any advice you can give and should I purchase via your site or do you want to send me payment link

Cheers
Steve (UK)

Example: I have a writer who built up one of my amazon sites in a niche market related to an item parents buy. She was a parent herself. So she felt that writing reviews on products would be relatively straight forward. And it was. But I had to teach her how to use WordPress, how to post pictures and make them into affiliate links, how to add tags and categories, how to add headlines, and calls to action.

It took her the entire first month to build the site. But I had her do EVERYTHING. I recorded Jing videos to help her along, but I made her fix anything that needed fixing. That’s the best way to train people. She knows how to do this stuff like clockwork now.

Yeah, you can do a one month trial to see how it goes and then buy the big package later if you like. Worst case, you just pay the full price if they won’t let you apply your first month to the pro package. But you can always ask and my bet is they’ll let you upgrade. No promises though, since I don’t control this.

1) You can hire someone who can write for more than one niche, but remember that any writer would need to learn a bit about the niche to become effective. If you hired me to write about basket weaving, I’d be largely useless without some time to understand the market. You need to train your guys to understand what people are looking for and then to research / write content that helps them.

I do this in a few niche markets. It helps to understand the main niche first, and then hire someone who seems like a good fit. If you’re in the baby parenting market, hire a mother who’s been there and understands the market. If you’re in the fitness niche, hire someone who is into health, nutrition, fitness, etc.

2) Spinning – many of the writers I’ve hired have familiarity with tools like The Best Spinner. This stuff is super easy to teach. Usually you can just give them your login ID to access training material, or make a Jing video to show how to use the tool. NEVER tell someone to robotically spin an article. It will read like complete crap. If you spin, have it all done manually so that the output will be 100% correct English.

As to your example of paying $400/month to get 18-20 spun articles, that’s basically one per day. You should be able to hire a full time writer / VA who can write one of these articles for you every day (and spin it) and still have half a day free to do other tasks for you. Just remember NOBODY really works an 8 hour day, so don’t go overboard on expectations. But yeah, you can do better if you cut out the middleman.

Pat Flynn at SmartPasiveIncome.com has some good advice on spinning, BTW. Read it. He’s genuinely honest and smart.

I’m slowly getting into outsourcing and might make the plunge very soon with Pro Outsourcing Package at Replacemyself.com.

Based on your experiences of using this system doing it, could you help me answer a few questions?

1. If I hire a Philippine worker to create articles and website content, would I have to teach them how to write content for certain niches? Do you have a module for this? Or, would I have to get a different writer for every niche – one for the health niche, another for travel, another for fitness, etc.?

My other thought is to teach them how to use certain software, or to show them places where they could do their own research and be able to write articles on any niche. What are your thoughts on doing this, since you obviously have a lot of experience?

2. How good are the Philippine people with article spinning?

I am currently paying premium for spinning with a provider who outsources to the Philippines himself. I have no idea what his commission is, but am currently paying $0.045 cents per word to spin a 500-word article’s sentences 3 times. That works to about $400/month to get 18-20 articles spun. Would I get a better rate by cutting out the middleman in my scenario?

Looking forward to hearing from you!

Thanks,

Daniel

Can I hire someone through this service to build a site from scratch, including SEO and everything?

At this point, I’m interested in buying a one month subscription to see if I like the site, and then if I do, paying for the lifetime package to save money in the long run. I saw in one of your responses to someone else that this may be possible, but you don’t know for sure. Is there any way to find out?

Thanks.

Based on what you describe, you need someone who can do things that you do not know how to do. Therefore, how do you measure their work? I think that you need to develop enough knowledge to go hire the right person yourself, OR find someone you trust, who has already done this before, and get their help in recruiting someone.

What you need is probably a programmer who knows web languages, scripts, etc. That is not my forte either, BTW. We use wordpress for pretty much all of our sites and we don’t do programming. I have a freelancer that I use when I need special stuff done, but not enough to justify a full time or even part time position.

That said, I’m not entirely sure what the technical parts of your particular business will be. Maybe they are easily solved in the same way I’ve solved mine? Or maybe they can easily be solved via freelance contracts on elance, etc.

If I were you I would go map out all of the details that need to be done to your business including site construction, content creation and promotion. Then decide how much of the work is technical, and how much is simply mechanical. It’s always easiest to start outsourcing the mechanical stuff, or the stuff that is easily trained. But if you have special requirements, John Jonas’ training might not line up with your needs. That said, I still think OnlineJobs.ph will be a great resource for you to find people to do graphics, wordpress, promotion, link building, and programming.

I am new to IM, spent 18 years in the mortgage business including 9 owning my own mortgage company. I know how to sell and how to build a business.

I have a number of ideas for internet based businesses and I am ready to move forward. I have capital to invest. But I do not know the nuts and bolts of how to do the technical parts of the businesses I want to launch…. nor do I honestly want to know. I do not want to do the grunt work of building websites, developing content, building backlinks or the rest of all the backend technical stuff. I want to outsource this… whether that be on project by project basis through elance or odesk or through hiring a full time person from the Phillipines.

I have always looked to hire people who have skills I lack. To a large degree, thats the whole point. I need to deploy certain skills in my business that I do not have and do not have the time to personally acquire so I hire someone with those skills. But, that means I am hiring someone to do things I am not personally capable of doing. In offline business this not typically a big deal as I judge an employee based on results not hours worked or such. But looking at hiring someone in the Phillipines to do things I do not know how to do and expecting the to take directions and actions based on specified results I outline for them…. is this realistic?

I hope this question makes sense. I am to the point of looking to sign up for replacemyself but need to figure out if this will work for my parameters.

Terry

Yeah, it would be nice if they offered a way to upgrade along the way. Maybe they will let you if you ask nicely to pay the difference? I bet it’s worth a shot. Also, you could try the first month and use that to de-risk it. If you like it, then simply tell them you want to upgrade and maybe it still costs the full price, maybe not. Worst case you spend and extra month worth of membership to test drive it.

Sounds like you have a business model and you’re ready to roll, and given that’s where you are yes it makes sense to start building a team. Even if the team is you plus a full time employee it gives you a LOT of leverage to grow.

Coupon code: They must be hard to find! I also looked when I joined a while back. No luck.

Chris

Like so many others here, I too have been considering ReplaceMyself for a new business venture for some time. I’ve been learning IM for 3 years, tried bit and pieces but never really took the plunge until now. I have my niche, business model, business plan all worked out, I’m doing all the work and its just going too slow. Its truly time to out source.

Ideally I would prefer to buy the upgrade package’s, but its too big of an investment right now. But the never ending monthly package is definitely not appealing. Dont you think a in between package would be more enticing….say 9mths @ $97 = $873.. then thats it. your in for life just like the upgrade package.

What do you think of the project management tool MyProjectPlans. What actually does this tool do, it hard to access its value if you dont know what it does. I have been looking at Hive Desk as a management tool it has some amazing features but it too also has a $15 monthly subscription. Got to keep an eye on those monthly subscriptions, they can quickly get out of control.

For now I am in the wings contemplating my choices, which does not include the endless monthly subscription of $97. Unless I new exactly what order the modules were going to be drip feed and I could still upgrade at a later date.

When I do I will purchase via your affiliate link.

Cheers

PS. On the purchase page their a spot for a coupon code…!! I have looked high and low and I cant find a coupon code anywhere. Do you know what it could be or where I can get one..