I talked earlier about how outsourcing tasks to places like “GetAFreeLancer” and “ELance” was a benefit to your business. I’ve since come to realize that, while it has it’s place, it’s not really the best solution. In fact, it might even be detrimental to your business. Especially if you’re pursuing the goal of the four hour workweek.

Why is that?

It’s time consuming. You have to list the project. Then you have to take the time to describe the project explicitly or take the chance of it being done wrong…even then the chances are good it won’t be done to your expectations. You have to peruse all the bids and then hope you choose the right person for the job. You’ve spent hours just reaching this point….and now you have to wait for the project to be finished.

The bidders main interest, more times then not, is completing the project as fast as they can so they can be paid. Quality control is not really in their vocabulary.

They are expensive…yes, I stated earlier that it’s a cheap form of getting work done but I’ll be showing you a better, cheaper way shortly.

Any effort you may have put into teaching them aspects of your business is lost as soon as the project is finished. You’ll have to repeat it all over again should you ever do something similar in the future.

If the project’s not done to your expectations you can start the process all over again…and lose all those precious hours once more.

Hardly the way to achieve the four hour workweek.

What if I could show you a cheaper more effective way?

What if you could hire someone full time for what it would cost you for one project through “GetAFreeLancer”? Someone far more suited to the task at hand.

Let me introduce you to Replace Myself…a membership site that has sent me on to the next level in my marketing. There’s two main elements to it. Hiring full-time outsourced workers and providing training for these workers. There is a wide selection of workers available complete with the skills you’re looking for but the training provides for a more well rounded employee and can enhance the skills they already possess. The training modules cover a whole gamut of skills from Adwords, Video Marketing, WordPress, SEO and more. There’s eleven modules advertised but I received fifteen. Three were tagged as bonuses so it would seem there’s one that’s not mentioned in the sales page. In any case, by the time your employee completes all of the modules there’s not much that they won’t have at least a basic knowledge of…and it’s done with minimal involvement on your part.

Is that not the key to a four hour workweek?

The employees available through Replace Myself are all from the Philippines and that’s a major advantage. They are all schooled in English. They are hard workers and very loyal. They all have college educations…it’s part of their culture.

And they can be hired for as little as $100 per month although the average is closer to $200 per month.

For a full time employee capable of doing most any task you need done.

That will free you up to work on the important stuff.

Like product creation…or golfing.

There’s been two major turning points in my Internet Marketing business.

Getting Alex Jeffreys for a mentor…he taught me the basics and so much more, got me motivated and continues to do so…and joining Replace Myself. Doing so is going to take me to the next level and beyond.

CLICK HERE NOW to view a video that will start you on your way to the next level in your business…and to the four hour workweek.

The bonus videos available in the Quick Start package are worth thousands of dollars on their own…they totally blew me away.

If you have any questions about Replace Myself…mention them in the comments or email me through the contact page. If I can’t answer it, I’ll pass it on to the owners…they are very, very quick with their replies.

I truly believe that Replace Myself is a valuable resource and it would be greatly appreciated if you would “Sphinn” this article to help let others know of it.

There’s been some questions on the procedure in choosing and hiring people so I made a video that hopefully covers it.  As you can probably tell videos aren’t my forte.

There’s no false hopes here, I don’t expect great things to happen but it’s a start. I’ve now gone through the process and surpassed the hurdles. Well, almost. Still not 100% yet but what’s left is stuff I’ve done hundreds of times before. Now that I’ve gone through the process once the second time around should be much easier.

I’ve reached the point where I need to start earning some money doing this…the wolf isn’t at the door yet but I hear him out in the woods. This won’t, I’m sure, be bringing in any large amounts of revenue but even a trickle at this stage would be nice.

My first baby step…very exciting!

“Remember there’s no such thing as a small act of kindness. Every act creates a ripple with no logical end.” Scott Adams

A project I`ve been working on is coming to completion. At least I hope so. I was hoping to have it out some time ago but ran into some hurdles. It`s become even more important as the benefits I`ve been receiving for my bad shoulder are about to run out so an income stream from all this is becoming much more important. I haven`t mentioned my shoulder, and how it`s largely behind me entering the Internet Marketing field, as it was going to be brought up in my “About” page which I have yet to get around to doing. (see above about planning going out the window ) Anyways, I’m an electrician by trade, have been for over thirty years, and I’m no longer able to raise my right arm above my shoulder for extended periods of times. This is due to a combination of chronic bursitis and a small tendon tear. Needless to say, I’m not of much use as an electrician with that kind of a limitation so here I am trying to do this Internet Marketing thing.

Being that I’ve fallen behind in my posting and things have kind of got out of sync in terms of what Alex has taught us, and when, I’ll be trying to do a post on each module in the near future. I’m going to give each one another listen then post on it. They may become a little spread out as there’s other things I want to post on also and projects that need my attention but I hope to get caught up fairly quickly.

I think this quote is appropriate for how things have gone in the past couple of weeks.

“The best plans of men and mice often go awry” Robert Burns

So why did I balk at using it in the online world until seeing it discussed by Alex Jeffreys when I was used to using it in the offline world? I suppose it was largely because I felt I could do the tasks cheaper myself but, as I have learned, I was fooling myself to a large extent. The biggest mistake was not viewing my online business the same as I did my offline one even though the same principles apply. Every business, be it online or not, requires a certain amount of investment both in time and money. The trick is knowing when your time is better spent doing something else.

What do you feel your time is worth? Do you feel you’re worth $10 an hour? $20? I found that to be a hard number to determine initially as I was basing it to a large extent on what I made as an electrician, more accurately, what the going rate was for one. That, of course, wasn’t going about it right as Internet Marketing is not Electrical Contracting. What I finally did was figure out my monthly expenses and base what my time is worth on that.

Once I arrived at that figure it was far easier to see where I could use outsourcing to my benefit. While outsourcing copywriting and graphics work was pretty apparent to me from the start I had a little lesson in how Web Hosting could also be something to consider. I’m pretty good at the techie stuff. I can set-up a blog in no time and am comfortable digging around in the code to make changes but is it cost beneficial for me to be doing so? I’ve come to find that putting up my own blogs makes sense but digging around in the code maybe not so much. This became apparent when I noticed that the link text was being hidden on my comments page due to the colour of my headers. After mucking around for an hour or so and not finding a solution I sent an email off to Sheryl at ProHost Management asking her if she could fix it for me. This was at midnight or so and the following morning I woke up to find that she’d found a solution and the text was now visible. Needles to say, Sheryl will be hearing from in the future should stuff like that crop up and I’ll be spending my time doing something more beneficial…or fun.

The reason I brought the trouble with my links up is to illustrate that sometimes you have to look a little deeper into where outsourcing can prove to be more beneficial. I also have hosting with Hostmonster who have provided me with quality hosting for some time, and still do. They are cheaper then ProHost but don’t provide the same level of support and there’s where I started to look at Web Hosting as a form of outsourcing. While I initially opened up an account with ProHost for their Social Traffic Hosting package I’ve come to realize that the extra support…outsourcing…will also be of great benefit to me.

So look a little deeper at the tasks you’re doing. You may find that you’re far better off to have someone else do them while you concentrate on doing things you’re more proficient at. Also look past the price and more at the services and features offered. Don’t just concentrate on the present, look to the future. While some features may not be beneficial to you at this time they may in the future. Changing services later can prove to be costly and/or inconvenient.

“Winners never quit and quitters never win.” Vince Lombardi

Then my outsourcing didn’t pan out as expected. Some of it is taking longer then I’d hoped, which is fine. I’d sooner see the time being spent to put out a good finished product then rush it and get something that’s second rate. The results from the three outsourcing sites I used, ELance, GetaFreelancer and oDesk Outsourcing, for one project have left a bit to be desired. Interestingly enough, eLance has provided the smallest response of the three. Several providers have asked for a deposit and I was wondering what you folks reading this think of that. It’s nothing major, rewriting existing copywriting, so I personally feel that a deposit is unwarranted but I’m new to all this and could use the views of others.

It’s not all doom and gloom though. I’ve learned lots, and that in itself makes for a successful week, and I did get a few smaller items out of the way. One super thing that happened is I got a personal taste of the awesome support that Alex Jeffreys students are providing for everyone. I was wondering what a fair price would be for the outsourcing of a project and figured I’d see if Twitter would provide an answer. To no surprise it didn’t but one of my fellow students shot me a direct message and he is now having a look at it. I’m not going to mention his name as it involves something he’s really not interested in doing any longer but to say I appreciate this is a huge understatement. It’s kind of getting down to crunch time with me and getting this product out is pretty important. So having someone offering to help, and especially with something they’d prefer not to be doing, out of the blue like this is really awesome and so greatly appreciated.

I’ve expressed a couple of times in the forums how I think we have such a great community already but this really brings it home. While Alex Jeffreys course in itself is providing great value I really feel that the community that’s been built around the course and him may very well prove to be the biggest thing of it all. The future looks bright.

“We don’t accomplish anything in this world alone … and whatever happens is the result of the whole tapestry of one’s life and all the weavings of individual threads from one to another that creates something.” Sandra Day O’Connor