Replace Myself Review

Replace Myself is an Effective Outsourcing System

By Chris Thompson (actual customer)

I’ve posted this review of Replace Myself to explain why I’m promoting this product. I want to be very upfront here and point out that I am an affiliate for John’s system. I’ve put together a comprehensive bonus for anyone who orders through my link. Warning: This system might not be for everyone. I’ll explain more towards the end of my review.

How I got started

I was on a short business trip last fall. I woke up in my hotel room in San Diego very early because I was 3 hours off from my normal time zone. I decided to check Twitter and I noticed I was being followed by this guy “John Jonas”. Since I had set my account to auto-follow people who follow me, I got a direct message from him telling me how to get a free hour-long audio presentation about outsourcing. I had been using Elance in the past with good results, but his message made me curious. So I went over to his website and signed up for his audio. I never imagined that this would lead to me writing this replace myself review. But let’s continue …

Within a minute I had confirmed my subscription to his list, and had the audio lesson playing on my Macbook. I just sat there listening to it, intently. He still gives away this audio for free, and what he teaches will shock you. It changes the way you think about outsourcing.

John struck me as someone who had two important attributes. First, he seemed genuine and honest. Second, he seemed to be able to cut through all of the usual garbage and just provide SOLID content. In that one hour in my hotel room, listening to him speak, I was shifted entirely into a different mindset about outsourcing.

John got me to think about having full time employees, not one-off “task doers”. He got me to realize that by having my own employees I could train them to get better, and add more value to my business. He explained why the Philippines is an ideal place to hire from (primarily excellent English skills and a great culture for doing online work).

A few things struck me as obvious after I closed the lid on my Macbook:

  • Outsourcing is 100% necessary. There is no choice here. If I want to grow my business significantly I need full time people working in my business so that I can spend my time working ON my business.
  • The fees involved in hiring someone full time are very small. We’re talking $300 per month. If you can’t make a good return on investment with this salary level then you are not working effectively, or you are working on the wrong things. John teaches this at length.
  • I absolutely HAD to move forward and get my own employees. Most people running an online business try to do everything themselves. If I simply take the step to start outsourcing then I’ll be far ahead of most others.

I knew that John was selling a system of outsourcing that had a monthly fee attached to it. $97 per month to be exact. I realized that if I was going to hire even one person (which would cost me $300 per month), that this fee was pretty small. I knew there was no recurring commitment involved because I could cancel anytime I wanted. I started doing some reading on Warrior Forum and realized that a lot of people liked the training John provided. I thought to myself, “Well, I can just sign up and after a month I’ll cancel if I’m not getting any new value each month”.

When you sign up you get the following:

  • As part of your first month, you get instant access to more training materials. Unlike most of the modules, this material is meant for YOU. It teaches you more about how to go about hiring someone and to start making use of them in your business. This material is very good, and is probably why most people sign up.
  • You get an account at a project management website called MyProjectPlans.com – you don’t have to use this service, but it is incredibly good and it’s where the training modules will go that you can give to your employees.
  • Every month you get a new training module – these modules are intended for your workers, NOT FOR YOU. John has put together a very good set of training audios, PDFs and videos to teach your employees how to do all of the important tasks related to Internet Marketing. I went through these training modules myself because I wanted to be familiar with what he was teaching. I learned a lot of new stuff including a great article marketing strategy.
  • You get access to BestJobs.ph and OnlineJobs.ph, where you can post jobs, review resumes, and get contact information for the Filipino candidates who post their resumes online. Normally it costs $49 per month to access OnlineJobs.ph and you can’t access BestJobs.ph unless you live in the Philippines.
  • Most important – as part of the training in the first month you will learn much more about the mindset that you need to be successful with outsourcing. At minimum, this is worth giving the program a shot for at least one month.

I knew this before I signed up, and I figured that my first $97 would educate me, allow me to hire someone, and allow me enough time to know if I wanted to continue. I often hesitate to pay for things and I honestly thought that I’d sign up and end up canceling after one or two months. But that’s now what happened …

That’s when I found out about the “Pro Outsourcer” Up Sell.

An online friend pointed out to me that John offers an up sell as you go through the checkout process. Basically, you pay for your membership and are then presented with an opportunity to upgrade to the pro package. When you do this you become a permanent member with no recurring fees.

Yes – perpetual access to all of the benefits offered by Replace Myself and instant access to ALL of the training modules that John has created. The only “catch” was that this fee is $697, a lot more than the $97 “test money” I planned to spend. I believe John has added even more training modules since the time I originally wrote this Replace Myself Review.

I ended up going with the pro package.

I actually planned to sign up right away to the basic monthly plan, but held back for a couple of days while I considered the one time up sell that I knew I’d be offered. As I said, I ended up dishing out $697 to get perpetual access to John’s system.

Here’s why: I strongly believe that you need to put your money where your mouth is. I had been planning, talking about and masterminding my success in various niche markets but I had not yet outsourced in a “big” way yet. I KNEW I needed to do this. I figured that I could either pay monthly for 1 or 2 months, and spend up to $200, or I could just spend the entire $697 up front and know that I’d always be able to go back to OnlineJobs.ph to post jobs, always have access to project management software, and always have access to the training modules.

I also considered that $697 is about two months salary for an employee. If I was really going to make a serious step towards outsourcing then this amount of money would translate into literally peanuts. I knew that if I plunked down the cash right away, I’d be totally committed to making this “outsourcing thing” a success.

So that’s what led me to become a Replace Myself member.

The Guts of my Replace Myself Review – My Overall Findings and Impressions

When you login to ReplaceMyself.com you will find all of the bonus stuff that John provides to you along with the training modules for you and your employees. The first thing I did was to go through all of the Module 1 stuff, intended for me. This is the stuff that teaches you how to hire, how to pay employees, and generally answers a LOT of questions. It’s a super education in outsourcing.

Module 1 also contains a lot of other general business training that will help you out, and can be given to your employees for their use also. While writing this replace myself review, I logged into my account so I could give you a proper account of what’s in that first module. There’s a LOT. John even added new stuff since I joined. I see a new training section for Twitter, and for LinkedIn (social media). Those didn’t exist when i joined. You get a report on the top 15 activities to give your outsourcer for best return on investment. You get awesome keyword training research (again, useful not only for you but for your outsourcer.) Remember that all of this stuff is geared towards saving you time by training your employee for you. That, along with resume access, are the two biggest reasons to join.

The other training modules (2-11) are for giving to your employee. They cover topics such as Adwords, Building link networks, Video marketing, Article Marketing, Web 2.0 marketing, Getting links to your site, Myspace/Facebook/Squidoo marketing, The MSN Loophole strategy, script installation and SEO training.

John’s training modules are a combination of PDF documents (not too many), audio recordings (several) and video presentations (most often). Your employees will actually access these trainings from a sister site called MyProjectPlans.com rather than going into ReplaceMyself. This just makes good sense. John presents things very clearly and doesn’t spend a lot of time blabbing. He has really done a great job of building these modules.

My Hiring Experiences

  • OnlineJobs.ph is the best place to hire right now. I get a lot of responses from people when I use that site, and the salary expectations are very reasonable. My bonus package offers you a lot of extra training on how I go about hiring people.
  • The Philippines is very friendly towards outsourcing. The people who post resumes on this site have their own computer and Internet access a lot of the time. There are lots of students looking for part time work, which can be helpful if you don’t want a full time person. But I would caution against part time students because I have found they are generally less reliable. They might work for a few weeks and disappear due to exams or assignments. You really would be better off hiring full time employees.
  • Some people will try to work two jobs. They may not admit to you that they have another job. This is certainly not the norm, but I would suggest that you think about how you’ll evaluate the performance of your employees in some way other than measuring hours. What matters is actual output, not hours invested. Set realistic task performance expectations and hold employees accountable.
  • Treat people with respect. A lot of times I’ve noticed that employees are surprised how nice I am and how supportive I am. Too many people seem to treat them like low-cost robots, which they are not. They are real people. They have feelings, dreams, and needs.
  • Monthly payments are definitely the normal expectation. I’ve had people ask to be paid weekly but I simply refuse. For the first month I will pay people bi-weekly so they know they’ll get paid, but never weekly, and always monthly after the first month. It works well.
  • I used to use Xoom.com to pay people but Xoom changed they way they do business. They won’t except non-US payments anymore, and they won’t allow PayPal as a funding source. So what I have done (as have many others) is switch to PayPal. In the Philippines PayPal is extremely common now, and it’s easy for people to get a cyber bank account at a place like UnionBank. If I hire someone I make it clear they need to setup PayPal, and I cover the cost of getting them a UnionBank EON card ($7 or so). I pay them Western Union for the first month and make it clear that I expect them to have PayPal setup for the 2nd month. No problems so far.

Support: I need to say that the support is awesome. John’s partner is a guy named Dan. If you email the support email address you are probably going to get a reply within an hour during regular working hours. Dan is amazing. He operates the way I operate when I deal with my customers. I love that.

Who Should NOT Join Replace Myself: If you don’t know anything about Internet Marketing yet, don’t join. Spend 6 months learning this stuff first. Learn to walk before you run. If you know lots about IM but you are not making any money yet, then again, don’t join. You need to fix what you’re doing first, and prove that you can make money. Outsourcing is just a way to amplify what you get done. If what you are doing is not working then you’ll only amplify your losses. That said, if you can afford to spend some money while you learn, feel free to join. But make sure you are committed to learning. Finally, if you are looking for magic robots to do your work, don’t join. These are real people who will be working for you and you should not treat them like “cheap labor”. Act like you are building a real company. Treat your people well. Train them. Nurture them. Appreciate them. You’ll be glad you did.

Concluding thoughts: I definitely feel I got WAY more than my money’s worth with ReplaceMyself. That is why I’m promoting it. Outsourcing is the ONLY way to grow your business to achieve the dreams that we all have. My bonus package is available to anyone who signs up to ReplaceMyself using my affiliate link.

Ask Questions in the Comment Section Below. I’ll come back as often as I can and either reply via comments, or I’ll update this review with more information.

Make sure you check out the bonus package I’m offering if you order Replace Myself using my link


IMPORTANT UPDATE: Since I launched this bonus package I’ve worked really hard to make it as valuable as possible to people. I setup a “customer only” email list that has grown into a small army of Replace Myself buyers. People absolutely LOVE the content I deliver to them. I’ve had several people tell me that the best part of Replace Myself is my bonus – no, I’m not kidding. It’s because I have gone out of my way to create a fantastic series of autoresponder messages for customers. They are informative, and give you real-world ACTIONABLE ideas – the same ideas I use to make money in my markets.