Associate Programs Newsletter #326
Outsourcing and delegating tasks to other people has been hugely important to my affiliate business. I started delegating tasks to others back in 1999. It would have been impossible for me to have the success I've had online without hiring other people to help.
Today I give you a few examples of things I outsource and delegate and examine two products that will help you do the same.
CONTENTS:
1. Are you outsourcing and delegating?
2. Outsourcing instruction manual
3. How a cool Kiwi discovered smarter affiliate links
4. Questions about tracking affiliate clicks and sales
5. Gems from the affiliate forum
6. Thought for today: the best executive
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1. Are you outsourcing and delegating?
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I've been outsourcing and delegating for years, ever since I hired my first contractor and then my first employee in 1999. It's one of the really important factors in ramping up my affiliate business and giving me a very nice lifestyle.
Many Internet marketers think they have a business, but if you analyze their "business" you'll find that they're really hardly better than well-paid wage slaves.
You can build a team of helpers who have skills you don't have and they can do tasks you don't enjoy or tasks you don't know how to do.
For example, Glennys, among other things, is wonderful at writing chatty, friendly emails - she's much better than I am because my emails tend to sound abrupt and rude when I'm in a hurry.
Wally is doggedly persistent - he'd have to be to moderate our affiliate forum seven days a week for eight years.
Jay loves tracking and testing and tweaking - stuff I can't be bothered with. It just doesn't suit my personality. He also has all sorts of skills I don't have, and he hires people with skills he doesn't have. Life's too short. You don't have time to learn everything yourself.
Also, what happens when you get sick or want a vacation? In times like that, you'll be really glad you've hired people to share the workload.
Here are some ways I outsource and delegate tasks:
* Glennys answers emails, writes newsletters, processes submissions to directories, manages websites.
* Jay creates websites, does keyword research, does PPC advertising and experimenting, creates reports, writes newsletters, hires programmers.
* Wally moderates our affiliate forum seven days a week at all sorts of hours.
* Gus hires writers, maintains websites.
* Cameron (starting next week) does programming.
* Tony enters commissions, expenses, etc. into QuickBooks.
* Joanna does "bookwork", banking, proof-reading, editing,
accompanies me on brainstorming walks on the beach, as well as
generally running things and keeping me healthy so that I can
concentrate on the business. (Joanna wrote this paragraph.)
* John and Joe look after our investments.
* We also hire gardeners and house cleaners.
Our system isn't perfect by any means. It wasn't carefully planned. It just grew. We're still not outsourcing as many things as we should be.
We've improved our system in the past year or so, but if you know a bit about outsourcing and delegating, you'll be able to see big flaws in it. For example, you probably don't want any one person to play too important a role, because if that person gets hit by a bus, they'll leave a huge hole which you'll have to scramble to fill.
I started off mainly hiring employees - intelligent people who knew nothing about marketing - and trained them. I've gradually switched to outsourcing. So I now tend to pay for tasks done, not time spent.
I'm not brilliant at delegating. I've discovered by trial and error that sometimes my instructions aren't specific enough and sometimes I forget to follow up to make sure a task has been done.
However, for all its faults, our system helps maintain sanity in my life because it enables me to avoid tasks I don't like doing and tasks I'm not good at.
If you're NOT outsourcing and delegating, think about the benefits. Think about the ways it can change your lifestyle. You really shouldn't be working those crazy hours seven days a week - unless you still want to.
Think about applying leverage by getting other people to do tasks for you. Think about taking time off - about owning a business YOU run, instead of a business which runs you.
Sure, the tasks won't be done exactly the way you would have done them. Depending on the people you hire and depending on how good you are at delegating, the tasks may be done better or worse. Most important, though, is the fact that through outsourcing and delegating you can achieve things you could never achieve alone.
There are all sorts of things you need to know, such as how to find good people, how to train them, how to delegate effectively and especially how to make sure they stay working for you.
Someone who knows a lot more about this than I do is multi-millionaire marketer Dan Lok, who's just written a series of audio files and interviews called "Outsource and Delegate - how to work less and make a lot more money".
This week I've been listening to Dan's audio files and taking notes. The audio files are split up into very convenient small bites - only a few minutes each - so it's easy to find the one you want to listen to and replay it.
You'll want to listen to these tapes more than once. For me, a really important one is his advice on how retain good people.
As you listen, ask yourself, "How can I apply these ideas and concepts to my business?" and "How can I do things differently and get better results?"
Outsourcing really can be life-changing. It has been for us.
Get Outsource and Delegate" here...
http://www.AssociatePrograms.com/outsource
But hang on, you may prefer this...
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2. Outsourcing instruction manual
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I'd nearly finished writing this when I found a new book, "The Internet Marketer's Guide to Outsourcing" by Brandon Tanner, so I quickly bought it.
It's HUGELY different from Dan Lok's audios.
Dan is a superb copywriter and motivator. He realises that your biggest challenge is actually taking the first step and getting started in outsourcing. So he starts by getting you excited and sold on the benefits of outsourcing. Believe me, there are lots of benefits to get excited about.
Dan is a been-there-done-that millionaire and he scatteres real gems throughout his audio files. You can hear the voice of experience and learn from it. For example, his "sample job description" (it's in one of the PDF files) alone is worth the cost of the product.
Brandon's book is a 62-page instruction manual. He jumps straight into the nitty gritty and takes you step by step through the entire process, starting with deciding what to outsource, and ending with project testing. Whether you're outsourcing software creation, website building and maintenance or writing projects, you'll find them all covered in his book. The Table of Contents gives you a really good idea of what to expect.
You can find a link to the Table of Contents here:
http://www.AssociatePrograms.com/outsource2
Brandon's book is the most comprehensive book on outsourcing I've seen.
The book doesn't tell us how experienced Brandon is, so I asked him about this.
"I've only been outsourcing for a few years," Brandon told me.
"About four to five months ago I realized that I had read a handful of ebooks on the subject, but they all seemed a bit thin on the practical side. Most of them just discussed theory, without really going into much detail about the exact steps that needed to be taken for various types of projects. So I decided to write a book that did just that.
"I felt that I had a fairly good understanding of the outsourcing process by then, but I wanted to learn more. And I wanted to find out what other people wanted to know about the subject (after all, I am a businessman :-). So I actually combed through every single outsourcing and freelancing related thread at the Warrior Forum, and wrote down every good question in each of those threads (over 80 total). If there were any questions that I didn't know the answer to, I researched until I
found the answer.
"I then took my personal experience, combined with the mountain of research that I had done, and began to assemble it all into a halfway logical, coherent form (-: The end result is The Internet Marketer's Guide To Outsourcing."
Brandon is being very modest. He's created a very logically presented ebook.
Although it's only a concise 62 pages, Brandon's book is much greater in scope than Dan's audios. However, if you're going to get Brandon's instruction manual, you need to be excited about outsourcing BEFORE you get it. You need to be utterly determined to do it. There's no point in getting this book if you're just going to skim it and forget it.
I don't waste much time on regrets, but when I look back on the history of our online business, one of my biggest regrets is that I didn't do a LOT MORE outsourcing and delegating much earlier. We're making up for that now in leaps and bounds.
If you haven't started outsourcing, right now is definitely the best possible time to get started.
Which product should you get?
Get excited about outsourcing. It's your future. Get BOTH products. You'll be very glad you did.
Dan Lok's audios - he'll get you excited about outsourcing
and give you valuable ideas and concepts:
http://www.AssociatePrograms.com/outsource
Brandon Tanner's no-hype outsourcing how-to instruction manual:
http://www.AssociatePrograms.com/outsource2
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3. How a cool Kiwi discovered smarter affiliate links
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Stephen Prentice, owner of the free webmail service, CoolKiwi.com, was trying to solve one problem when he accidentally found a solution to different problem. He stumbled upon a clever idea - what he calls "smarter affiliate links".
In his article, he describes his discovery and also explains how you can easily implement a similar solution to better promote your own affiliate links.
It's an interesting tale, and he's not trying to sell you anything.
Also, if you read between the lines, you'll see this successful affiliate's business model. He's attracting traffic by delivering a free service and then prominently promoting one product.
http://www.AssociatePrograms.com/articles/563/1/Smarter-affiliate-links---a-case-study
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4. Questions about tracking affiliate clicks and sales
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In my last newsletter, I linked to an article by Neil Cahill who offers a free way of tracking affiliate clicks and sales.
Several readers had questions about this, and added comments to the article:
* Great info! Now, is there any way to pick up the keyword that was searched for, or used to make the sale?
* Would there be a way with this to track Adwords keywords through a 'long chain' conversion process? For example, tag all Adwords ads and retain tracking info through your opt-in list *and* the sale?
* Is it only for tracking links back to your own domain?
* If I used these tracking URLs for inbound links to my site (for example on forums or article directory submissions) would I still have SEO benefits?
Neil has helpfully returned to the page and answered all those questions.
http://www.AssociatePrograms.com/articles/559/1/How-to-track-ad-responses-with-a-click-tracker
If you're going to add a comment, please note: All comments are moderated. They don't appear on the page immediately.
Because there was so much interest in this, I'm trying to persuade Neil to write another article for us.
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5. Gems from the affiliate forum
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Phil Wiley's Affiliate Talk forum has disappeared because his web host's server crashed and the backups were destroyed. In the following discussion thread, Phil Tanny describes a cheap solution which would have avoided the pain...
Is the Affiliate Talk Forum gone?
http://www.AssociatePrograms.com/discus/ftopic23427.html
After lots of research and hard work, a new affiliate website isn't working as well as hoped. What went wrong?
What improvements should I make?
http://www.AssociatePrograms.com/discus/ftopic23524.html
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6. Thought for today: the best executive
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"An overburdened, over-stretched executive is the best executive, because he or she doesn't have the time to meddle, to deal in trivia, to bother people." - Jack Welch.
All the best
Allan Gardyne
