[41] Outsourcing: When, Why & How?
This is Bootstrapped Web episode 41. It's the podcast for you, the founder who learns by doing as you bootstrap your business online. Today, we're talking all about outsourcing.
Speaker 2:And I am Brian. And I'm Jordan. Let's do this.
Speaker 1:Alright, Jordan. So, it's Monday. We actually did an episode on Friday. It's been a long No no speak.
Speaker 2:But That's right. Entirely my fault. I've got some, family obligations. Good, fun wedding coming up this week. So we'll get it done a bit early in the week.
Speaker 2:Yeah. And before we jump right into it, mean, it's only been a few days since we last recorded, but, why don't you give us an update at least what's going on, you know, right around now?
Speaker 1:Yeah. Sure. So, you know, again, I'm I'm still, like, in the thick of it trying to produce the this course product highs. You know, I'm in this phase still kind of early on in in the in the process, but it's really intensive writing. So, I'm doing just a ton of writing, and I have a lot more to do.
Speaker 1:But, you know, a big part of my promotion and my launch plan here is to do, guest guest articles. And I've written I think I've written about four in the past week for four different sites, and they should be coming out over the next couple of weeks. But, you know, these guest articles take me a lot a lot of time to write because they have to be awesome. Like, I my best writing is usually published on other sites than my own. I found that to be the most effective way, at least, you know, organically for for content to to to at least expose myself to brand new people who've never heard of me before.
Speaker 1:That you know, that's why I love guest posting so much. And so that really takes a lot of time because I I really wanna make those articles great. Meanwhile, I have, you know, 15 to 25 lessons that need to be written. I I'm making some headway there, but, you know, just really trying to do the writing, and it it takes a lot of time. And, you know, I'm I'm also kind of a little bit struggling with productivity and just my schedule having the the six month old at home, and I'm trying to optimize my routine.
Speaker 1:I don't know if maybe it's because I'm getting a little bit older. I'm definitely getting way more tired in the afternoon. So all of my creative work, especially when it comes to writing, has to get done in the morning hours. So I try to get as much writing as I can done in the morning, and I won't even look at my email until, like, after lunch, which I've become a little bit better at.
Speaker 2:Yeah. That's good.
Speaker 1:You know? But but then I have to, like, get to the office in the afternoon after my wife gets home from work, and that's I have a three hour window there where I can do a lot of work, but I'm just my energy is so drained, and I can't get any real quality writing done at that time. So, you know, that I'm kinda struggling with this problem right now. I I I do schedule all the emails and phone calls and and meetings to the afternoon, like, the extra crap that needs to get done in the day, and I get my production stuff done in the morning. But, you know, right again, September is, like, my hustle month.
Speaker 1:I'm trying to get a lot more done every day. So just thinking of of better ways to improve my routine. I'm trying to get to bed earlier, at night and trying to better optimize my mornings. Gotta do that that morning exercise, which I've been slipping on a little bit lately. That's probably why I'm I'm struggling a little bit more.
Speaker 1:Gotta have a, you know, healthier breakfast and and nutrition. I you know, I know how important these things are. I I've seen how important they are, and I haven't fully committed to them. So I'm trying to get be conscious of that.
Speaker 2:Yeah. They they they add up. My my my first question to you is, are are you taking full advantage of caffeine's legal status? Are you are you abusing
Speaker 1:Oh, yeah.
Speaker 2:Are you abusing coffee sufficiently? Because usually the the first, you know, the first way to go, you know, Occam's razor of productivity is add more coffee. Yeah. If that doesn't work, then you you you move beyond it.
Speaker 1:Well, yeah. You know, I've I've always had the morning cup for years, and and I've added the the afternoon cup. I you know, right now, we're speaking at 04:30, and I just finished my second cup of coffee today. You know, the thing well, the thing with that the thing with coffee, though, of course, is it it works for me for, an hour or two, and then you get the coffee crash. So I'm trying to have that more sustained energy, which is it's hard to do, but I think it I think it really comes down to having that really healthy, nutritious breakfast.
Speaker 1:And for me, it's always been exercising in the morning gives me energy throughout the day. And whenever I don't do that, I'm I'm kinda screwed.
Speaker 2:And and a lighter lunch.
Speaker 1:You know?
Speaker 2:I I I love I love a hot lunch, but it put puts me to bed. Yeah. So I I definitely try to do that. Cool. So Jordan, what's So up with you're you're plenty busy then.
Speaker 2:We're we're at the it's the fifteenth now, so we're halfway through. So, you know, you still got two weeks to make September a month to look back on and be satisfied. So Yep. You know, definitely keep keep it going, keep it up. Cool.
Speaker 2:On on my end of things, you know, we talked about the Mixergy interview being published last week. It it has had a bigger effect than I expected on on business. So, you know, you expect it to add Twitter followers and some emails and connecting with people, and it's been it's been awesome on on the personal front. People from Portland reaching out, you know, having coffee with someone in in in a few weeks when I get back into town after this wedding, and just making connections, and that's that's good and it's healthy. It's, you know, you make friends and it's good for the future and all that.
Speaker 2:I did not expect it to have as big of an impact on the business and on Cardhook and free trials and sign ups, and and it has. So I got, like, you know, eight free trials over the past, like, forty eight hours
Speaker 1:That's awesome.
Speaker 2:Which which I don't, you know, normally have that type of a weekend.
Speaker 1:Well, I gotta think that a large part of the Mixergy audience, of course, is ecommerce store owners. Right? So
Speaker 2:You know?
Speaker 1:I mean, not exclusively, but
Speaker 2:It's definitely not exclusively. It's lot of software, but yeah. But I think you're right. I think it's more ecommerce than than we think. Mhmm.
Speaker 2:And so that's been cool. And and and the the interesting part of it, right, this goes back to our ongoing conversation dialogue, let's call it, about audience building. A lot of it is coming from a from, like, a personal point of view. Right? So on OLARC, my OLARC has gotten more action in the past, like, five days that it it has ever seen.
Speaker 2:And on my OLARC, I have it pop up to say, I'm Jordan. Hi. I'm Jordan, the founder. If you have any questions, let me know. So I think what's happening is people are getting to know, you know, Jordan on screen at Mixergy.
Speaker 2:And then they get to Cardhook, the site, and it's, hi. I'm Jordan. And it's like, this person's very accessible and it's easy. And so I'm kinda like hitting it off with people on like a running start. It's not like, hey, I'm not sure who you are.
Speaker 2:I just have a few questions about your software. It's like, hey, now I feel like I know you, and I'd love if your software works with my type of ecommerce store. I'd love to almost like work together. So it's this this affinity mixed in and it makes things, you know, makes the process go much, much smoother. It's it's fun.
Speaker 2:It's more personal.
Speaker 1:Yeah. That that is awesome. And that's that's my favorite thing about, doing this podcast and and writing so much is it you do have that, like, immediate rapport with people who've who've at least seen some of your stuff out there. So it's it's
Speaker 2:always different. You don't know them, but, you know, at least myself personally, I'd love to just be easygoing and have rapport with with someone that I just met. So it it allows for that. Yes. That's that's definitely a big notch in the audience building category.
Speaker 1:Yeah. For sure.
Speaker 2:Right? Yeah. So I've been very busy with that. And the the coincidence of doing last week's episode on on doing things manually is is pretty ironic because all this, activity because of the Mixergy interview and these things I'm building out, it it has strained a lot of these pieces that are are done manually in the business and expose them as insufficient. And on one hand, that's disappointing, and I'm, like, a little mad at myself.
Speaker 2:But on the other hand, it also tells me that I didn't build those things too early, and now I'm being guided by real world forces. Like, okay, I need to get my onboarding and setup process less manual. Because right now, just assume, okay, I'm gonna talk to everybody on the phone. I'm gonna hit it off and have some rapport. So when they jump into the app and they don't see these perfect directions on, okay, here's what to do next and what to do after that, and once you have this, that's not perfectly, you know, in tune on the back end.
Speaker 2:And now, I haven't been able to get to some of these people that sign up for a free trial. That's that's a big mistake.
Speaker 1:Well, you know, I wouldn't call it a mistake. I I think you're in that phase where Yeah. You you should be bumping up against these these pain points, and that's how they identify themselves. That's how you know where to go next.
Speaker 2:Right. So I I feel On one hand, I'm like stressed. I'm like, oh, I haven't gotten this person back in in twelve hours when normally it would be just an hour or two. I don't care if it's the weekend, and I might be losing them, but at the same time, look, I'm happy that more people are signing up, and I just put my pricing. Right?
Speaker 2:I kept my pricing secret for a long time for for my competitors, from the market in general, about that 10% of recovered revenue capped at a tier. And I just made the change just before the mix surgery interview published, And I think that's really helping because people see that pricing and it's kinda no lose. So people are signing up. So yeah. And that's also a
Speaker 1:great thing because if they're signing up after having seen the pricing, that's that's just a qualifier, you know, as well. So you're not getting people who are just kinda kicking the tires just to find out what the pricing is, you know, and it's, you know.
Speaker 2:Yes. And right. So my, my to do list is being prioritized by real world considerations and real people knocking on the door saying, hey. Why don't you work with Shopify? And that has a lot to do with, the topic for today, which is outsourcing.
Speaker 2:Yep. So if you we wanna move right into that, that's, that's a pretty natural transition.
Speaker 1:But before we do, you know, you and I have been talking about, know, on an upcoming episode, maybe we'll start doing some some question and answers, some like a mailbag type episode. So I'm gonna throw it out there to the audience. If you guys have any questions that you'd like us to answer, whether it's about our own businesses or just our thoughts in general, or if you wanna run by what's going on in in your business. You know? Tell us what what the URL is, where you're at, what you're working on, and what one of your challenges is.
Speaker 1:And, Jordan and I would love to kinda give you our perspective on that. So if you'd like to submit a question to the show, go to bootstrappedweb.com/ask. That'll get you to our contact form, and you can, send us an email that way. Of course, you could always reach out to us on Twitter. I'm gonna put the question out on Twitter next week, and maybe we can grab some some questions from there as well.
Speaker 1:I'm at castjam on Twitter. Jordan, you are Jordan Gal on Twitter?
Speaker 2:Yep. At Jordan Gal. And I think this could be really interesting, especially for people who are a little sick of hearing about our situation. If you wanna apply a little bit more specifically to your situation, you know, here's here's the chance. It's these, these real world scenarios.
Speaker 2:They're never black and white. They're never clear cut, especially when it's your business and you have all these assumptions built in and you've convinced yourself of certain things. It's great to get feedback from a third party that's a lot more, cold in in the approach. So submit your questions, and we we yeah. We'd love to do a whole episode on that.
Speaker 2:We we spoke to I think it was Elliot last week who gave us some suggestions on future episodes, on doing things step by step, on, you know, really breaking things down like, okay, how do you set up a, you know, how do you set up a webinar sales funnel? And just go step by step. So we wanna hear from you guys. So bootstrapweb.com/ask or tweet us. That is your chance.
Speaker 2:Yep. And, and and with that said, let's let's boogie on over to today's topic, which is outsourcing. So Yes. What are we talking about here, Brian? Give us a little, definition behind it.
Speaker 1:Well, you know, like, outsourcing is one of those words. It's just like it's so broad. Right? It covers so so much ground. There's so many different types of outsourcing, reasons you might outsource, you know, anywhere anything from I need a quick transcript of a podcast, you know, a one time quick thing to I need a website built or an application built out that'll take a couple months to hiring an ongoing employee, contractor, outsourcer, employee.
Speaker 1:These lines tend to be blurred, quite quite a bit these days. So that's kind of what we're talking about is how all these things have fit into our businesses in the past and how they're fitting in today, and some some of the tips and and processes that we work through today. Maybe you can apply some of these same things in in your business out there.
Speaker 2:Right. Outsourcing, you know, in on one hand, it makes you think of, you know, really big manufacturing companies that outsource to different countries for, you know, labor cost advantages. And I I think when applied to bootstrapping, the the second you go beyond yourself or if you have a business partner, the second you go beyond the core founding team that you're working with, whether it's, you know, on your own or with somebody else or with several people, I consider that to the outsourcing. Anytime you look outside the company for help with the business, the the issues of employment and October and w two and, you know, oDesk versus Elance versus in person overseas, like all these different issues. I really think what we're talking about in this episode is hiring outside of your company to get things done.
Speaker 2:We'll we'll just call that outsourcing.
Speaker 1:Yeah. And, you know, I I think that outsourcing is one of these things, especially for bootstrappers and and developers and designers, builders on the web. For so many of us, it's we know it's out there. We know it's an option. We know we can do it, but we're afraid to take that step to hire that first person or to even just delegate one aspect of a of a project to someone.
Speaker 1:I know that I've been in there in the I've been there in the past. I've had a lot of questions about, like, how do you get started with this kind of thing. So just to give you a quick why outsource because it's so easy, you know, like, for me, know how to build a website. I know a little bit about code. I can design, you know, what whatever I needed to.
Speaker 1:It's it's the question of, like, look, if I can just do it myself, why am I gonna go hire someone to do it? Or or or why am I gonna spend the time to train someone to do something that I I can do perfectly well on my own? And my answer to that is to better leverage your time as the founder. Sometimes, are things that you should be focused on, like your core skill, you know, the thing where you can personally add a lot of value to your business, but there are probably a lot of other things that you kinda know how to do. You can get by.
Speaker 1:You could spend an extra week figuring it out on your own. But if you just outsource it, you just bring in someone to take care of that piece for you, they would get it done way quicker. Yes, you you can spend a little a little money on it, a little even a little bit of time training them, but what you get back in return is a whole chunk of time that you as the founder can go dedicate to something more important, like pushing forward a new marketing initiative or further developing the product or, you know, getting to launch. You know? It's all about leveraging your your time as the founder.
Speaker 2:Yeah. And and you don't wanna do it too early, and it you know, it's I think it's a I think it's a it's a great thing, and it's also a curse for people like yourself, Brian, that you you actually know how to do everything that you need to do. So if you need to build a new plugin to integrate with something, you know how to do it yourself. And if you need to build a website and make changes to it and you can do that yourself, it's it's almost the the reverse for people in my situation where I can't do it even if I wanted to, which is bad and frustrating and you're relying on other people. But on the other hand, because you can't do it, you you you can't.
Speaker 2:I can't go spend time on building a WooCommerce plug in for Cardhook because it it would take me months to even it's pointless. It's just beyond Right. Consideration. So I have to rely on other people.
Speaker 1:Yeah. And and, you know, I it's interesting that you that you call it like a a blessing and a curse. Right? Because I think there you and I are on both sides of this of this coin here, and I often do look at it as as frustrating in the fact that I kinda know how to do certain things that I should be outsourcing. And then when I go and and outsource it, especially when it comes to hiring a developer for something, it's almost like I know too much.
Speaker 1:And it and it makes it more difficult. And for that reason, I move so much slower. Like, I if I need a a a certain functionality built in our WordPress system, I know that I need to hire a WordPress expert who has specific experience with this set of tools and and whatnot, and and, like, I know exactly the technical questions to ask them. And in some ways, that's a benefit, but in other ways, it makes me even more picky, makes me a little bit more micromanaging, even though I don't I don't think I, you know, go overboard there. But yeah.
Speaker 1:It's, you know, it's it's tough. Sometimes I I I look at guys like you, and I'm just like, know what? I I wish I could just say, screw it. I'm outsourcing it. I'm I'm gonna, you know, dedicate this option.
Speaker 1:And and, like and that way, can move on with my day and focus on something more important. You know. And frankly, it'll still get done. It might not get done exactly how I would do it, but it it'll still get done and it'll it'll move things forward.
Speaker 2:Good enough. That's that's the name of the game oftentimes. Well, that's that's a really interesting topic to cover. How do you know where that line is? Where are those things that you should not let anybody else touch?
Speaker 2:Right? The the a lot of times, like the the copy on your homepage, you know, do you wanna let somebody else change that? Or is does that need to be from your voice? All these different things. How do you know?
Speaker 2:I I end up airing too cautiously, and I convince myself that I it has to be done by me because otherwise, x y z negative impact. Right? And it's it's usually not the case. The the most successful people in business that I know don't actually do that much. I I think about I always think about my my family's business.
Speaker 2:We had we had a lot of difficulty in hiring outside the family for for critical tasks. And at the same time, we have these competitors that are good friends of ours for a long time. They are probably four or five times the size of us, this business. They and they don't do anything. They just do they literally do nothing.
Speaker 2:We would meet them and they would say, guys, what are you talking about? Like, what are you complaining about? This is the greatest business in the world. All we do is we push x amount of money in and we get three x back every year. And and this person does the marketing, this person does the processing, this person does the representation, this person does the collection, you know, that's it.
Speaker 2:Yeah. It's like whatever you convince yourself that you have to do for whatever reasons, oftentimes there's an example out there of someone doing it very differently and much more efficiently. So how do you know?
Speaker 1:Well, you know, that that is a good question. And I think as a as a bootstrapper, in the first year, first two years of of a business, getting it off the ground, self funding the whole way through, my approach has always been do do most things yourself that you that you're able to do. Of course, if you have no development chops and you need to hire a developer for certain things or a designer or whatever, you know, you you'd have to budget for that and and and get that done. I think that the the strategy and figuring out the processes, especially when it comes to marketing marketing is something that I still do almost a 100% myself. Mhmm.
Speaker 1:Copywriting, coming up with with, strategies for, you know, retargeting campaigns or, you know, like email like email automation, writing out those those email sequences and whatnot. That's still something that I do as the founder almost a 100% myself. Because I think that those are that's that's very highly strategic, and it's it's messaging, and it's knowing my customer. And, you know, and and then I think as you get to these larger businesses, three, four times the size, they're also three, four years ahead. They've already developed these strategies, and then they've, you know, systemized them and boil them down to a set of procedures that they they can then hire people to fill those roles.
Speaker 1:But they they still spent the time early on, developing what those strategies were and refining the systems and and the process.
Speaker 2:Yeah. You also have to build up the internal knowledge base to hand over to whoever you hire, whoever you're outsourcing to, whoever is gonna take care of it for you in the future. You need to see the issues, go by your desk often enough to be familiar with them, and then it takes a lot of familiarity in order to teach somebody how to handle a responsibility. Of course, you want someone who's gonna be smart and adaptable enough to take what you give them and then run with it. But but Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah. But I everything you said that the word strategic is what is what stuck out because you have successfully outsourced the content generation, right, in your business. So so you do have writers who do a good job with content and blog posts and publishing. You you even have them go and publish it. Is that right?
Speaker 2:You don't you don't do any of that process.
Speaker 1:So yes. So so when it comes to the content marketing, and this is for for like, the restaurant engine business and Hotel Propeller. We, over the over a couple of years, we've developed an entire system that is almost completely runs without my direct involvement. It's almost completely outsourced. Now, in the very beginning, I wrote the first set of articles.
Speaker 1:I came up and and then even for the first year after I started outsourcing the writing of the articles, I was still the one coming up with the topics, the creative things that that should resonate with our particular audience and our market. But then, even after the first year, I outsourced that piece. Then I then I put it to the writers to come up with the topics, and I even came up with a procedure for how to come up with, topics, you know, researching relevant, you know, industry blogs and and looking to past articles, seeing what resonates, looking to questions that we get from from people. I've got a very in-depth procedure for that. In fact, I actually gave away the entire guidelines that I give to my writers.
Speaker 1:That's available on on my site at castjam dot com. And that's something that that has developed over two or three years. And, again, this goes back to in the beginning, I I handled all the strategy until until it got to the point where I was doing something again and again and again. It was repetitive. Then I can boil it into a procedure, Then I can hire people and delegate those tasks out.
Speaker 2:Right. So I I guess that the repetitive nature of a task helps to, right, classify that as something as outsourceable, as non critical strategy.
Speaker 1:Yes. Exactly.
Speaker 2:Right? Yeah. And and we're we're we're dancing around a lot of these topics that that E Myth covers that extraordinarily boring yet really powerful book, on basically building your business as if it were going to be a franchise and then backing yourself out and documenting the process for each repeatable process and Yeah. Only keeping internally what is absolutely critical in strategic function.
Speaker 1:Yeah. You know, like, that for me, that was Demyth was a game changer. Like, I really got into that book.
Speaker 2:And Yeah. It's amazing.
Speaker 1:And yeah. I like, just the whole thought of of the business working like a machine. When I read that book, I I never really had that type of education before. So it you know, I was like, oh, wow. Like, you could just build something that runs on its own, you know, and and it's like a you're building like a machine up, you know.
Speaker 1:And, you know, it's it's just it's just fun to build up a business that over time, just piece by piece, systematically, you're you're developing these processes, then delegating it, and then that frees you up as the founder to work on something new. So why don't we get into some, specifics of, like, how are we actually putting this stuff into action? So, Jordan, like, how are how are you using outsource, outsourcing in your business right now?
Speaker 2:Yeah. So I've I've had, you know, a a few different experiences with with outsourcing. ODesk occupies like a like a one sixteenth square block in my brain. It is accessible. It is top of mind.
Speaker 2:As I go through my working life and my working thoughts, oDesk is right there in my brain. Because whenever I come across an issue where I say to myself, but I don't know how to do it, I that thought is replaced by the oDesk logo in my brain. Because you can, if you once you open your mind up to the fact that you can get just about anything that you can think of done, it helps to take your ego out of these decisions. Right? This week, I get I get an email.
Speaker 2:I don't I I haven't wanted to integrate with Shopify. Few different reasons. They don't allow JavaScript, blah blah blah. This week, all of sudden, I get, like, five, six people emailing me saying, does do you work with Shopify? So, okay.
Speaker 2:I kinda get the hint. Shopify, you have to do an app. If there's a marketplace, I I don't even think about them. You know, it doesn't bother me that I don't know how to do it or I don't know someone. Something like oDesk just represents the possibility of what outsourcing can do for your business.
Speaker 2:So that I use in everything I do. When I do consulting work, I look to oDesk. When I do, certain work for my, yeah, the family business that's very Excel and Access and VBA, I I have people there that are freaking magicians. Mhmm. Magicians.
Speaker 2:My my brother comes to me and he says, I got a list of 500 properties. I need all this data. I find someone on oDesk who will go and query the the county website and pull all the data out automatically, record after record after record and put it into nice Excel file for me over Dropbox, done. It cost me, like, $28 for four hours of his time. I send it back to my brother and he's like, how in the hell did you do that?
Speaker 2:So It's really a matter of, like, mentality, like, a a shift. Yeah. Everything's possible.
Speaker 1:Yeah. And and I think that that what you just described is kinda similar to your customer acquisition strategy that that we talked about last week, manually emailing ecommerce owners, and you had a you had a VA kinda help, you know, filter out that list. Can you talk about what that process is that the that the VA does? And how did you how did you hire for that? How did you train for that task?
Speaker 1:And how did it get done?
Speaker 2:Yeah. This is this is one of those things that without the mentality of I can outsource even brute force because brute force brute force costs $4 an hour. So I you can you can even outsource things that are completely manual that are insane to do. You know, twelve hours of data entry, copying and pasting from website is insane. You you can't do that yourself.
Speaker 2:But if it's $4 an hour, you can get that done. If it's good for your business, you should. So this is one of those examples where if you don't think that way, you you wouldn't have even approached this. Right? So I think I've I've spoken about this before.
Speaker 2:I got a list from a company called BuiltWith. They track technology. So they'll tell you what websites are using what technologies. So I go to I go to them and I download hundreds of thousands of records. You know, 50,000 sites that use WooCommerce, these 15,000 sites that use Volusion, these 30,000 that use Magento.
Speaker 2:And then what I do is I say to myself, okay, I'm gonna sort by Quantcast. So I'm look I'm looking for the big sites first. And when I have a list of, let's say, a thousand URLs, I want an email address for each of those sites. There is no affordable way to get those automatically. So I'm gonna hire someone on oDesk to go to every single site and look for an email address.
Speaker 1:And we're talking 1,000 sites.
Speaker 2:Yes. I've probably done this for 3,000 at this point. And they go and they they go to the contact page and then they look for the owner. They go on LinkedIn. And in teaching them how to do it, I mean, there's nothing better than
Speaker 1:Alright. So
Speaker 2:video.
Speaker 1:So There's nothing better. Okay. So so that's what you did. You you took a video of you doing it yourself for the first first one or two sites?
Speaker 2:Exactly. And talking through it. Here's my Excel file. I'm gonna open up this. I'm gonna open up LinkedIn.
Speaker 2:I'm gonna open up the URL. I'm gonna go to the contact page. I'm gonna click on the SSL certificate because usually that pops up, and that usually has an address and an an email address associated with it. I
Speaker 1:That's clever. I didn't even know that.
Speaker 2:Oh, hell yeah. You gotta get in there, baby.
Speaker 1:And what are you using for the video and and to and then to share the video with the person?
Speaker 2:I use Snagit. Yeah. For from TechSmith. I I basically use Snagit for everything.
Speaker 1:And that is I'm not familiar with that. Is that a local video recorder? Like, on your on your computer? So then how do you share your computer with with someone on on oDesk?
Speaker 2:They actually have something that hosts video, so you can share with a link.
Speaker 1:Gotcha.
Speaker 2:I think it's I think it's called Jing. Yeah. TechSmith, makes ridiculous product. I think they also make Camtasia, which I have on my other computer.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:Okay. So I I film myself going through this and talking through it, then I document it in detail. Right? You think back to to Tim Ferriss' book about how detailed you you do these things, and then I always, always start with a test. I say, I have a thousand of these.
Speaker 2:I have work for you for the next month, but do 50 of them and then send it back. Mhmm. And then and then it's a learning process, and hopefully the person on the other end is good, and if they are good, you stick with them, and then it's a learning process. So I learned the same on the same path as they do. So first, she would send me back, and then I would blast out a 100 emails, and 30 of them would come back as a bad email.
Speaker 2:So then we added a layer to the process. We said, okay, now before sending it over to me, here's a service that allows you to check the email address to see if it's valid. Check first. So now she only gives me emails that are valid. So it's like a learning process with the with the person on the other end.
Speaker 2:You don't expect perfection at first. What you do need to expect is communication and responsiveness.
Speaker 1:So that type of task, who were you looking for in oDesk? I got I'm I'm pretty I'm I'm familiar with oDesk as well. So which category did you filter by in oDesk? And what did you write in the job ad? And then how did you, like, shortlist your candidates for for that particular task?
Speaker 2:Yes. So this is hugely important. The way I do it is, you know, the keywords that you use are hugely important. And what I do, first I go to Odesk and I search I I start searching for keywords. And then I start to learn how Odesk classifies it.
Speaker 2:Right? So this is okay. This is data entry and data extraction. Right? That's the terminology they use.
Speaker 2:So then I start to write my ad and I never open it up. I only allow it to be seen by people that I invite. And so then I go and I look at the keywords and I I sort by price and I sort by ranking and I sort by reviews. I I try to narrow it down from the, you know, 8,000 people that are under data extraction. I try to willow it down.
Speaker 1:That's interesting. What you know, I I use Odesk quite a bit and I don't make it I I it's my ads are available for everyone to see. But then I do invite a whole a whole bunch of people. But Right. Then I get also strangers come in.
Speaker 2:Yeah. It's it's overwhelming, especially for, you know, for lower end or or less skilled jobs. It's really it's overwhelming. So that's my first go to, and I try to invite anywhere between five to 10 people, and I hope that one of them works out. And if not, then I start to open it up or invite more people, but I try to avoid opening it up.
Speaker 2:And then what I like to do, my ideal, if it's something that's low cost, like $4 an hour, I hire two people at the same time. And then I cut one off and stick with the other. You can't do that if it's, you know, a $30 an hour development job to integrate with, you know, Magento. You you you can't do that. Mhmm.
Speaker 2:But I do I do see that as similar where right. I have I had a Magento extension built. Magento is, like, one of the biggest ecommerce platforms, and high end people use it. So this was hugely important to me. And the guy was the guy was ridiculous.
Speaker 2:The guy was so good and got it done. You know, I was I was getting quotes from domestic people of, like, $2,000, $4,000 for extension. This guy did it. I think it was $30 an hour. It probably cost me less than $300 total.
Speaker 2:And he was amazing. And if it didn't work out, you know what? If I lost $300, it's still a lot a lot better than $3,000
Speaker 1:an hour. Where was where was that developer based?
Speaker 2:He was in Eastern Europe. Cool. Yep. I yeah. He may have been Russia.
Speaker 2:I mean, I've worked with a lot of them, so they're they're all over the place.
Speaker 1:Very cool. So, you know and and I think that brings up an interesting distinction between you know, when it comes to outsourcing, there are ongoing tasks like your customer acquisition, filtering out the email, you know, extracting the emails. That's something that you can hire someone to do week in, week out for you. As long as it keeps working, you're you're gonna want someone to do it. That could potentially even be the same VA who who becomes like your part time or full time employee, and that's one of their weekly tasks.
Speaker 1:Right?
Speaker 2:Ideally, it is the same person because who wants to explain everything, you know, intricacies again? You just wanna say, hey, I've got a new list for you. Do the same thing as last time. Just remember to do x, y, and z.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So the so those type of things is like one big bucket, like the ongoing repetitive work, and then you've got project based work. I just need one thing built. It should take less than a month. I just need an expert in this one thing.
Speaker 1:Yes. You
Speaker 2:know? And and one quick hack to mention before I ask you, a little bit more about Restaurant Engine. When those one off projects come, I always try to position it as more opportunity than just the initial project. So right now, I'm working with a NetSuite developer, and I say to him, if you build this integration, every NetSuite customer that I get, I'll just send your way to do the integration. And then you'll get to know them.
Speaker 2:You can introduce them to your consulting practice. You can do a great job for them on the integration. And I think that keeps the higher quality people, you know, motivated. And then I I mean, obviously, to stick by it as much as possible.
Speaker 1:You know what? I'm gonna give you that's something that as a freelance web designer, I heard all the time, and I think developers and designers hear that line all the time. I I think in I think in your case, it it's it's unique in in that it's actually true. Like, you you run a a very specific service that will generate ongoing, demand for for the the same, the same task. Right.
Speaker 1:But, know, I get companies that or, you know, when I was doing freelance web design work, like, I'll get agencies who are like, oh, you know, we have so many projects. And, yeah, they probably do, but it's like, I'm not going to discount my rate for that, or I'm not gonna give you especially for for the first time, you know?
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:You know, and and I I would hear that. And even if we do the project together, and then I don't hear from them for like a year, it's like, okay. You know? Yes.
Speaker 2:Yes. I'm sure they hear it all the time. Right. At least it's a little bit more specific. Yeah.
Speaker 2:So so you've you've got some interesting things going on with with Restaurant Engine because you you have I mean, you have the need for a good amount of work. So what what does your situation look like? How many people? What do they do? Is it part time?
Speaker 2:Is it full time?
Speaker 1:Sure. So, you know, Restaurant Engine has been around for it's been over three it's I I guess it's almost three years since we've been live, and going back to prelaunch is probably over three years. Only in this past year, I really had I you know, this actually goes back like a year and a half. I I've I've had full time employees, part time and full time employees, and it's only a team of three right now. Two people are in The Philippines, and one person is in California.
Speaker 1:And then in addition to that, I have kind of a handful of contractors who I turn to for those one off projects. So the the full time people, the the two in The Philippines, they they're basically handling customer support. One of those guys in The Philippines, he's been with me for, like, a year and a half at least now. He he kinda leads the customer support, but he's also my my go to guy for a whole variety of tasks, really. But, primarily, it's it's customer support.
Speaker 1:It's setting up websites. It's improving internal processes and whatnot. He really helps out with that. And then my other person is also like a frontlines customer support person. Then my other employee who is in California, she handles a lot of the sales calls, basically, for the most part.
Speaker 1:She she's she does a lot of phone calls with with restaurant owners and and and hotel owners and customers. I hired her in The US because we need someone who's a really great communicator over the phone, and she really is. She does a great job with that. She does a couple of other random things, helps out with social media and and our blog and whatnot, but but for the most part, it's those, sales consultation calls.
Speaker 2:So it it sounds like what you would expect where the The US based, person that that's who you want talking on the phone to potential customers and and and new customers. And in in The Philippines, it sounds to me like they're they're definitely doing customer support emails and they're writing, but it's not it's not speaking the same way as the American based.
Speaker 1:Yeah. And that's for, I guess, few reasons. Obviously, there there's the the spoken language barrier, but it's you know, when it comes to writing, it's interesting with with Filipinos because they they do have, you know The Philippines is an English speaking country. Of course, they they speak Tagalog and and all sorts of other dialects. My my wife is Filipino, and she speaks, you know, Saguano.
Speaker 1:And and, it's it's kinda crazy how, like, one island speaks a completely different language than the next island. But in in school, since since since they're children in The Philippines, it's all English. So that's why The Philippines has become such a popular destination in in Asia to outsource, especially customer service related stuff because the communication is easier. And it's also, kind of more of an Americanized culture there than other Asian countries, I find.
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 1:Actually, I went to The Philippines with my wife and, found that. And so what I found with my team in The Philippines is that they're really excellent, excellent English writers. They they write emails. I I think the vast majority of our customers don't even realize that they're in The Philippines.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:You know, just really, brilliant communicators. And that's really what I look for when I'm when I'm hiring. And no matter what role I'm hiring for, I'm always looking for the best communicator. If you are if you go above and beyond to be clear and you and you write with, you know, know, perfect grammar and and just, you know, you get your point across clearly and you and you don't leave any questions unanswered, that's really what I look for, and that's and that's what these guys are brilliant at. That, you know, we do a web design service, so they also need to have some tech web savvy skills.
Speaker 1:They need to be be able to go into WordPress and and use our interface and use our features. They also operate Mailchimp and and do a couple of other technical tasks, so, you know, they can do that. And and the other guy and my guy in The Philippines is also he's also a very talented front end web designer and developer. So he'll go in and tweak some CSS and and do some things there as well. So
Speaker 2:So how how did you find, right, these multifaceted, talented communicators, developers, designers? Like, okay. How did you find the two in The Philippines, and how did you find the the woman here in The US?
Speaker 1:Yeah. So I did start with oDesk for for the guys in The Philippines. It's a guy and a girl, by the way. And and in oDesk, I was hire I think I filtered it by I was looking for what was I looking for? Like, designers, web developers.
Speaker 1:I I'm sure I used WordPress as a keyword in in there. I you know, you should have some kind of experience using WordPress, installing plugins, installing a theme, that kind of stuff. And and so the one the the first guy actually was, a web designer. He's capable of building an entire designing an entire website. Of course, we don't exactly need him to do that.
Speaker 1:Like, he'll he'll use our platform to set up somebody's website. And then the other person came as her previous position, she was customer support for a web hosting company. So so she has that experience, which which translates very well over to what we do.
Speaker 2:Right. I feel like hosting hosting is the most difficult support possible.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So those were you know, that's basically how I found them. I I put up an ad in in oDesk, just spoke very detailed about and this was, like, over a year ago, so I'm I'm trying to remember exactly what I wrote there. But, I I basically listed out a bunch of the the most common tasks that you will be doing, and then I use that as a jumping off point for the interviews. You know, tell me, like, tell me if you have specific experience in using Mailchimp to send an email campaign, or do you have experience installing a plug in in WordPress?
Speaker 1:Which ones? Tell me about describe your experience there. Yeah. So, you know, we can get more into the the process a little bit later on. And then the other side of this thing is that I do have contractors that I turn to for project related things.
Speaker 1:So I have, one or two developers that I turn to. One guy is in Canada. He's actually traveling now through Europe, but, you know, like, $50 an hour, higher level WordPress expert, back end developer. So whenever I need, something modified in our checkout, in our in our, like, sign up form or, you know, custom functionality built in, like a new feature that I that I'm not capable of coding myself. He's he's the guy that I would turn to there, you know, be a couple $100 of of work to do, a new feature ad, and we'd scope it out.
Speaker 1:And, again, like, he's a fantastic developer, but why did I hire him? Because he was, like, above and beyond a much better communicator than all the other developers. And and I'll I'll give you an example for hiring a developer is, like, you get so many responses of guys who just, like, don't take the time to to communicate. I mean, you know, you you get the guys from who who just send, a list of 20 websites that happen to be on WordPress. Like, you know, that doesn't help me.
Speaker 1:I'm asking you to describe exactly, you know, two instances where you built something similar, and and tell me in your own words how you did this. So this guy responded with a video. He was the only guy who actually take took a video of himself speaking, you know, showing me a screencast of of one of his projects and speaking to me and addressing the the specific things that I asked for, in his own words, and and he he had an accent and everything, and and he was, like, totally putting himself out there communicating. It was awesome.
Speaker 2:Awesome. Yeah. It's as you go through these processes, especially if you right. If you solicit a lot of people to to to bid or or to to apply, you're just looking for an excuse to get rid of people.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:Any flag that comes up is just immediate bang, you're you're gone because I'm looking at 20 people. I need to narrow it down to three. You just give me any reason. On the flip side of that, fewer people give you a reason to clearly say, oh, put him into the yes pile immediately. So that's that's the type of thing to to look out for when when hiring someone.
Speaker 1:Yep.
Speaker 2:Yeah. And and okay. So in terms of in terms of price, it's a tricky thing. I like to associate the higher price with higher quality, but it it's not always necessarily true. But but what are the what are, like, what are the tiers that you look for?
Speaker 2:I know for me, for for manual work, I look for less than $10 an hour. And then if it's a little trickier type of work, somewhere between, like, 10 and 25, and then and then development and really complicated stuff, you know, I guess somewhere around $50 max.
Speaker 1:Yeah. There there are definitely different tiers, and, you know, market has to come into play as well. I mean, a US developer versus a Eastern European developer, they have different cost of living and all that. So, yeah. I mean, you know, I I think outsourcing to somewhere like The Philippines or, you know, overseas, it for for a customer support related position, you know, you're you're obviously looking between something like even as low as, like, $3 an hour up to $6.08, $10 an $10 an hour would be fairly high, I think.
Speaker 1:But
Speaker 2:Do do you still pay them through oDesk, or is it is it separate?
Speaker 1:Or For a long time, I did pay them through oDesk. And then recently, we moved everyone off of oDesk, and and they're tracking their time manually now. And we implemented Time Doctor for them to have, like, a time tracking app on their computer that then sends me a report. And then they manually invoice me with PayPal now. I see.
Speaker 1:They used to invoice me through through PayPal, which through oDesk, which is really nice because it was, like, automatic, you know.
Speaker 2:Yeah. And oDesk has those amazing features where you can you can view right. It takes a screenshot of their screen every, like, what, sixty seconds or something?
Speaker 1:Yeah. Time Doctor actually does the same thing. Okay. Okay. But I never look at those.
Speaker 2:Right. Exactly. Once you build up enough trust, you don't you don't care.
Speaker 1:I I honestly, I never even looked at it in the beginning. I I just never really cared about that. I I care more about the job getting done, and and I and I could see if it didn't get done, know.
Speaker 2:Right. Right. I I I would go through it, especially for something like, you know, collecting emails, just to just almost to see what they're doing and how they're thinking through it, and I would spot out sometimes like, oh, there's no reason that you should be on this screen. You would wanna go to the contact page, not the about us page, little things like that. But I guess once you build up enough trust, you don't Yeah.
Speaker 2:Need that level of
Speaker 1:You know scrutiny. Well, that's somewhere like for me, especially in the very beginning, they're gonna need to figure out how to do the task, and they're gonna be figuring out the best the best way to be efficient with it. So so they're gonna be jumping back and forth between different screens and figuring out the right process. And you have to account for that. You gotta when you're outsourcing a new task to someone, you're gonna do it 10 times faster than they will ever do it.
Speaker 1:And especially in the very beginning, when they're just getting used to something, they're gonna they gotta feel it out. They gotta figure it out. So you gotta give them time to do that, and and know that going in. You know?
Speaker 2:Right. Let them improve. That I mean, that's one of the reasons that communication gives you the indicator of this is someone who's intelligent. They're gonna be just fine even if they don't start off, you know, in a sprint, they'll they'll get there. It's obvious that they're smart enough to do it, and Yeah.
Speaker 2:I can teach them, and I can communicate with them.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Definitely. So I mean, like, asked about pricing tiers, Like, yeah. I mean, developers again, it depend it depends on the market, but when I when I'm looking for a feature or functionality to be built, like, very high level or or if it's, tied to our sign up form or, you know, 50 is actually average. I mean, for other projects, I I've had guys that I work with for, like, 85, a $100 an hour.
Speaker 2:Yeah. I guess it also depends on the technology and the level of work.
Speaker 1:Yeah. And and this also goes back to my days of consulting projects, where for many years, I did outsource a lot of of that work, where I'd have higher budget web projects that I would I would budget out. You know, if it's a if it's a $15,000 project, I I would outsource, like, $6,000 of it at least to a designer and developer. And in that case, I'm probably hiring someone US based or Canada or I've had guys in The UK and and whatnot and, like, you know, between sixty to a hundred dollars an hour.
Speaker 2:Right. There there's still very much that separation of if I if this is super important and I'm gonna spend the money on it, then you go US based. And if not, right, this like it's almost this split between I don't even see it so much as like first world and second and third. It's really like US based, so we can like communicate and talk on Skype and be on the same page to start things off, and then everybody else.
Speaker 1:Yeah. And and I guess another another point that comes up here is the hours and and communicating and time zones and all that. So the another nice thing about working with The Philippines, and this isn't true for every worker in The Philippines, but you have to ask them upfront in the interview process if if this is important to your business. Sometimes it's not. But for for me, it is, especially for customer support.
Speaker 1:I need them working on US time, like, US,
Speaker 2:hours. Okay. What what's the time difference over there?
Speaker 1:It's about twelve hours. So Okay. 11AM is 11PM. So they are working through through their night. They're working like the night shift.
Speaker 1:Wow. Which, you know, I mean, these days, a lot of Filipinos who do VA work and and outsourcing have become used to that. You know? That's becoming a a normal thing for for workers, like like guys in their twenties and, you know, in college, you know, they're they're sleeping during the day. You know?
Speaker 2:Look at people have pursued pursued opportunities, you know, to to to the Alaskan Seas. So staying up overnight, that that's just part of the deal. And I don't think we need to walk over the the the well well tread path of the whole exploitation thing. I I think that's No. Think I think it's pretty obvious that that people do, you know, and and are happy to to receive opportunities.
Speaker 2:And there's there's a guy who runs a VA site who explained this much more eloquently than than we can on on this episode. But I think it's it's a great thing to provide opportunities, and it's it shouldn't be seen in in the light of, oh, it's only $3 an hour. Is it enough?
Speaker 1:And Yeah. And I and, you know, we pay a little bit more. And I think that's one of those features. Like, are are you willing to show up on the night shift? Know, I'm I'm willing to pay a little bit more for that.
Speaker 1:Especially and and then the other thing is the predictive bill. Like, I'm guaranteeing forty hours a week of work and, you know, nonstop. So it's
Speaker 2:Yeah. It's great.
Speaker 1:You know, a lot of these guys kinda pick up quick jobs here and there. And and but, yeah, you know, like sick you you know, anywhere between, like, $5.06, $7 an hour in in countries like this is a very comfortable living, especially for someone who's in college or just out of college, you know, as most of these workers are. It's it I mean, you know, my my wife tells me firsthand, like, she she she comes from the you know, she's only been in America for something, like like, ten years or something. But, you know, that that is a that's like a well paying job. Right.
Speaker 1:You know? And this is like a whole other conversation, but I'm I'm thinking that like, The Philippines is actually known as one of these comp countries where most of their population most of their educated population will go live overseas, you know, and send money home and whatnot. I think in recent years, that's got I don't know if there are any stats to back this up, that's got to be reducing as the web has taken over, working virtually has become so popular, especially in a country like that. You know, like my guys both have young newborns at home, and they're supporting families. And this is perfect for them because they get to work from home, they get to be close to their family, and they get to have you know, make a comfortable living.
Speaker 2:Right. Why why leave the country if you can make the same same wage and and stay put and keep your cost of living the same?
Speaker 1:Mhmm.
Speaker 2:So so speaking right. You you have a bit more complex of a of an outsourced system. So how do you how do you manage all these different things? What what what tools do you use to to to work with them and stay in the same page? I I feel like that that would be a challenge.
Speaker 2:I know for me right now, you know, a few oDesk messages, that's no big deal. But to have someone who who works forty hours a week, let alone two or three people, what do you what do use? How how do you
Speaker 1:do it? Yeah. So in the beginning, I only had one one guy in The Philippines. He's still with me today. And before I hired the second and third, it was just me and him for, over a year.
Speaker 1:And so in that case, it was just I'm, you know. And and I told him and I tell everyone, I on the hours that you're working for me, you need to be signed into I'm. You need to be available for chats. Mean, that just tells me that you're here too.
Speaker 2:Right. If I need you, you're you're a click away.
Speaker 1:Yeah. And we can have a quick conversation. And and so that that's basically how that works, just like Gmail and and like Google talk I'm Once it got up to three people, that's when we started using Slack, the you know, slack.com, and we started using this maybe four or five months ago, which has been great because for a little while there, had three people and we didn't have Slack, and we were all doing private IMs to one another, and then sometimes we would like CC everybody on an email, but it got kinda crazy because I was like, you know, she's not in on this conversation, and he's not in on that. Kinda, we gotta relay it to him. So I was like, alright, we need some kind of chat tool.
Speaker 1:Looked at a couple of them. I looked at HipChat, settled on Slack, which has been awesome. Again again, it's one of those things where if you're at work, you're you're signed into Slack. And a couple of cool things for me with Slack is that I have it on my iPhone as well. So so I'll get notifications when I'm out, you know, and and my team is working on something.
Speaker 1:If they really need to get a hold of me, they'll just post something to Slack, and I'll get a little ding on my iPhone, knowing that something's up and they need my attention. And then you can kind of like tag people, you know, just saying like at Brian or or at Ashley or whoever you're talking to, that'll that'll kinda ding them. And you can have, like, different rooms. Like like, we have, like, one section just for customer support, and then we have another section just for sales. And they're kind of like two chat rooms within Slack, so that's how we we basically use it.
Speaker 2:Interesting. I feel like I've heard more and more about about it recently. It sounds like a tool, you know, for a little further on. Once once you once you're communicating with more than two people
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:You gotta you gotta go to the next level.
Speaker 1:Yeah. I think and especially when, like, everybody needs to be aware of what's happening. You know, when you're working remotely with a team, it's having having some kind of tool like this I'm finding is is increasingly important. I I and I'm also at this point now where I'm I'm thinking more about as things start to grow and, you know, eventually, we'll hire a fourth and fifth person. Now I now I need to start thinking about, like, I don't know, like, but also also internal process.
Speaker 1:Like like, I've never really done anything like a weekly meeting or like a Monday morning meeting. Like, what's everyone working on? What what are our goals for the week? I'm not sure that I'm a fan of those things, but then at the same time, it's like maybe maybe we should start doing something along those lines. And then how do we do that as a remote team, you know?
Speaker 2:Right. If it if it helps, you you implement it. Even if it's, you know, not your instinct. Yeah. It's tricky.
Speaker 1:I see. I mean, other tools though, like Skype, especially, my employee in California, Ashley, you know, we'll do this isn't like a set thing, but every couple of weeks, we'll we'll just do a Skype video call and and catch up on on what's happening and and tell me about some of the recent sales calls and what have you been learning and and things like that or ask me any questions. Right. You know, I like having these, like, video calls with with the team. Mean, less so with the guys in The Philippines.
Speaker 1:I have spoken to them over Skype video, but they're just much, better communicators and faster communicators on chat and email. So, you know, they prefer that.
Speaker 2:Right. It's also a learned skill, managing people and being the boss.
Speaker 1:Yep.
Speaker 2:And and and, you also, I don't know, the the way a lot of us operate, we don't wanna keep we don't want things to be very corporate, and we we wanna be friendly and have normal relationships with people that work for us. So something like Skype and video keeps that alive to a much greater extent than, you know, the email or chatter.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Yeah. So, I That's you know, this is something we could we could talk about a little bit. I mean, becoming a manager, becoming a boss for for a lot of a lot of freelancers who are starting to level up into that role as you start to hire employee number one, employee number two, or even just subcontracting a project. I did that for years, and I think I think my approach is generally, like, pretty hands off.
Speaker 1:And sometimes, feel like maybe I'm being a little bit too hands off, like I'm not micromanaging enough.
Speaker 2:Right. Not bossy enough.
Speaker 1:Not necessarily bossy enough, but like I'm just I just care about results and and and reasonable expectations. Like, if you say that you're gonna show up between the hours of eleven and 5PM Eastern Standard Time, and you just don't show up and you don't communicate, like, that's a red flag. We're gonna we're gonna have an issue. And and then, like, when it comes to development or or even, like, design work, it's like, in the beginning, I'm I'm gonna I'm gonna give you extremely detailed specs, and we're gonna discuss them and make sure you don't have any questions. And then we're gonna say, okay, you know, can you deliver this by next Friday?
Speaker 1:Is that is that reasonable? Like, can like, I'm gonna ask you that. You you tell me, is that is that reasonable? And then, I mean, either it gets done or it doesn't. You know?
Speaker 1:And if it Yeah. If it does, I usually, I can have a a a pretty good feel of, whether they're competent and whether it's gonna get done. And but then if if it doesn't or if somebody doesn't show up, I mean, that either I'm not if they're, like, an employee, I I would probably have to let them go, I've had to have that happen, like, after two or three weeks of somebody just not showing up on schedule. If they're a contractor for a project look. If you're making tons of mistakes or if you're just ignoring the specs or if you're three days late on a delivery, that's our first and last project together.
Speaker 1:You know? And then the other guys, I mean, like, you know, I'm gonna work with you again and again. Like we like we talked about, I do really value the idea of coming back to the same person again and again because your working relationship becomes just much better. You know? Right.
Speaker 1:Yeah. It's better for everybody. Yeah. And you and you run through the process so much quicker because you can understand where you're coming from.
Speaker 2:Right. You don't have to go look for people and neither do they. You have to go through that whole, you know, marketing process, for lack of a better term, of either finding someone and attracting them or them on on on their end finding a a new gig. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah. I yeah. This is
Speaker 2:for me not I don't think it comes very naturally, the the being a boss thing. I've definitely had the experience. The the last person I worked with, was in person in The US when I was in Miami. It's actually an interesting story how I I I got to work with her.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So who who was that? Why did you hire someone, and what was your need? And and then
Speaker 2:I was I was ramping up, the consulting side of things, and I was using a direct mail marketing tactic. Right? The the the lumpy mail and other types of direct mail. And so that that required somebody in person. Right?
Speaker 2:You you gotta you gotta put these things together. It it was it was tricky. There was a process involved, and you had to find advertisements of people who were advertising, and then you had to go qualify them and find out who the owner of the company is, and do they make enough money? Do they have enough employees? Are they a qualified prospect?
Speaker 2:Put them into the database. Right? So this was this was, I thought, best handled in inside with with me right next to me. That that was the way I decided. I I think it made sense.
Speaker 2:So what I did was I went to good old Craigslist. But what I did on Craigslist is I made sure to position the ad in such a way that attracted the right person. And so instead of saying, you know, marketing administrative work, like stuffing envelopes and researching websites, I called the advertisement, learn from an entrepreneur. And and the whole ad was if you wanna see the insides of what starting a business and growing a business is like, this is an opportunity. Right?
Speaker 2:I'm an entrepreneur, and this isn't fancy raise money VC thing. This is the real deal, web hustling. And if you wanna hustle on the web, I guarantee you, you wanna you wanna learn from me. This is a great learning opportunity for you. And I think what that did is it pushed away a lot of people who just wanted an office setting and to clock in for $10 an hour and call it a day.
Speaker 2:And it attracted people who said, maybe this isn't gonna pay as much as I want, but this is this is what I want. This is my thing. This is my chance to learn from someone instead of just reading about it in blog posts. And because of that, I I found, this girl, Avril. She went to Harvard.
Speaker 2:She was smarter than I am. She was legit. She was a great writer. She was the real deal. And she wanted a little bit more money, and I said yes immediately.
Speaker 2:And I got to work with somebody really smart, because that that ad and the experience and the opportunity was positioned in a way where I wasn't I wasn't bullshitting. I wasn't pretending like I said flat out in the ad, if you wanna start your own business, this is an opportunity to learn and I'm happy to help you. And and that's where she and I are right now. Right? She is off doing something else.
Speaker 2:We're no longer pursuing that same type of marketing strategy, so we're not working together on that. But she's starting her own thing, and I'm, like, giving her help and mentorship, and I wouldn't be surprised if we got, you know, we partnered up on something in the future.
Speaker 1:Yeah. What does that actually look like, the the mentorship stuff? Like, are you does she just like call you up? Every now and then you guys do like a strategy session or she kinda picks your brain or how does that work?
Speaker 2:It all started from a very straightforward acknowledgement that if I were in her shoes, the job that I'm talking about is not what I would aspire to. It's a stepping stone. Yep. And I understand that and I want to attract the type of person who wants their own business and they wanna be a millionaire themselves. So I'm not attracting an employee.
Speaker 2:I'm attracting someone who wants to just soak up knowledge. So when you start the relationship off that way, there's no qualm about the other person saying, I have these other interests. I wanna pursue these other businesses. What do you think I should do? How would you approach it?
Speaker 1:Yep.
Speaker 2:And so everything's out in the open. It's, hey, I don't think you should do that because you can make more money if you do it this way. And it's this collaboration, and it's an immediate mentorship situation because she's you know, she saw me do a lot of things that she knows she needs to be doing. The the webinar stuff and and and outsourcing and marketing, and and I worked with her to outsource things through oDesk. Because I said, look, you're too smart and I'm paying you too much to do things that are manual.
Speaker 2:So I'll show you how to go on oDesk. I'll show you how to find people. Yeah. And that was was also something that you you can do through the web, and it just it's just about attracting the right type of person.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Well, it's interesting you brought that up. Know, if we go back to episode 33, think and this was with, my friend Brad Tunar. I think this was, like, the the episode just before you you came on as cohost. Brad did an interesting thing.
Speaker 1:He's a WordPress developer. He has a a very successful plugin for WordPress. And he this was just a couple weeks ago. He he hired a he needed to hire a a developer to help him out on on his product. And he put up the ad saying, work with me four days a week if you want to launch your own plug in business or your own app or whatever.
Speaker 1:I'm gonna pay you a a very competitive salary, and you can also pick my brain and learn from me and have a steady paycheck four days a week, and and that's gonna free up a three day weekend for you to work on your own thing with and, like, that's how he positioned the whole the job. You know?
Speaker 2:And Think about who you're gonna attract if if that's the if that's the way you position it. Yeah. I mean, that's I I think that's that's brilliant, and it's just an honest approach. It's I don't wanna hire someone who only wants to be an employee. Maybe that's not the greatest thing for me because it might be better to have someone who just does the same thing over and over and over for the next three But it's just being honest about, look, this this is a great opportunity.
Speaker 2:Don't you don't have to hide it from me that you have these other ambitions.
Speaker 1:Yep.
Speaker 2:Yeah. And, I mean, right now, I'm in a situation where it's it's just about time to get more help on Cardhook. And so Yeah. So why don't Yeah. I mean, yeah, I would I would basically come to you and say, you know, what what would you do?
Speaker 2:How would you find someone and how much how much should I look to pay? And
Speaker 1:Well, why we why don't we talk real quickly about, like alright. So what what is it in Cardhook that that is becoming an issue? Like, becoming a problem? Like, what would you like to start outsourcing? And then and then let's talk through it.
Speaker 2:I think it's a pretty classic scenario. The the strategic things the the there are two lists. What needs to get done because I owe it to someone and needs to get done in the next day or two, and the strategic things that will move the business forward in a big way. So right now, my time is being dominated by the first list, and and the balance needs to go more toward the
Speaker 1:second Like, what are some examples of things that you're doing
Speaker 2:that that should make it I need Replying to emails is is a big one. Helping people get set up. So, right, it's a big deal to go from, great, you sign up for a free trial, but you need to get launched. And to get launched, you need to get integrated. So it's not that complicated, it but does take a little bit of a little bit of handholding.
Speaker 1:Alright. So those two things. Those are two good examples. Because I I think dealing with email, replying to email, this is something that I you know, you hear all about in Tim Ferriss' book. Everybody's like, oh, I wanna hire a VA to to take care of my email because I spend so much time in my inbox.
Speaker 1:I don't I don't buy into that. I I've never hired someone to read my email for me. Maybe down the road, it would come to that point, but that's not step number one in in my opinion when it comes to outsourcing and delegating. Look, it's your inbox. You're getting customer questions.
Speaker 1:You you gotta be the one answering them as the founder in the early days. No.
Speaker 2:And and answering them right. I have templates set up, but it's not standardized. I know right before we got on, I wrote three different emails. They took me, like, twenty minutes each to write and it's complicated and it takes thinking and I go into their account and I see what their name is and what the URL is and then I reply and I I I say something about that.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:I I agree. But there there are a lot of email tasks like those updates that I send. I'm like, hey, you've been running Cardiff for two weeks. Here are the results.
Speaker 1:Okay. Now that is that's something that can be systemized and procedure. But you know what? Let let's go back to the onboarding thing. Right?
Speaker 1:So somebody first signs up for a trial, they need to get integrated. They need to get launched. Right? And I my understanding is it's a piece of JavaScript code that needs to be pasted onto their site. That's a process that can totally be documented, systemized, and outsourced.
Speaker 1:So Right. You know, you you'll wanna hire someone with, just basic web design skills or web development skills, really, ability to use FTP. Because what's gonna happen is you're gonna need to ask your customers for their FTP access, And, you know, just give us temporary access to your website. We'll we'll drop in the code for you. And the other nice thing is that you're only working with one ecommerce platform.
Speaker 1:So that means, like, the template for the footer of the site or the the header tag or whatever. It's it's gonna be basically the same because it's all the same platform.
Speaker 2:Well well, not anymore. Now now we're working with, like, a a bunch of different ones, and we we have an API that people can use if we don't integrate with them specifically. So Okay. It's starting to get it's starting to get there. So, yeah, the the person
Speaker 1:So it's just a couple of different variations. Need to understand, like, in a procedure, like, okay. If it's this platform, then we handle it this way. If it's this other one, then we have this other API, what you know, whatever it is. And then and then, you know, same deal.
Speaker 1:I would I would do video tutorial, but these are real customers that they would be dealing with. So what I might do is bring someone on and have them shadow you as you do it for the first 10 customers.
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 1:You know? And maybe it's if you're doing it over the phone, conference them in. If you're doing it over Skype, conference them in. I think that kind of thing. You can even be open with with your customers.
Speaker 1:Be like, you know, this is my new employee. He's gonna he's gonna Yeah. That's right. Work with me on this. Yeah.
Speaker 2:That's a mental hurdle because I've had a lot of success so far from people saying like you thank you. You're so responsive, and I talk directly to you, and, you know, it's like makes everything so much easier. So, to to do away with that is is a scary leap.
Speaker 1:Yeah. I mean, you know, it's but it's natural, you know. I I think it's It's also
Speaker 2:not necessary.
Speaker 1:Like, what happens on Restaurant Engine right now? We we do manual setup onboarding for every new customer. When when someone comes to our website and fills out the sign up form and pays for the setup fee, the very next screen that they see, technically, they can go log in to their website, but the first screen that they see is basically just a blank white screen with, like, two paragraphs of text that says, success. Thank you for signing up for Restaurant Engine. We will contact you within the next twenty four hours, or someone from the team will contact you within the next business day, to get rolling on your new website setup.
Speaker 1:You know, if you have any questions in the meantime, here's our here's our email address. If you wanna start if you wanna log in and start tinkering around, here's the link. You can start doing that. But again, let us you know, we're here to help. We're gonna do it for you.
Speaker 1:We'll be in touch probably in just within just a couple of hours. Obviously, that's not the exact text. But
Speaker 2:Right. You know? So interesting that they they really sign up for a service. Yeah. You know, it it really this hybrid, thing that they're like, okay, it's it's like signing up for a product, but you're really signing up for a service, and and you're gonna deal with with humans, and they're gonna think through it, and it's not gonna be like, oh, there's a bug.
Speaker 2:This software sucks. It's like, no, these people are gonna take care of you. Yep. And then you're gonna pay like a product. Very it's a very interesting hybrid.
Speaker 1:Yep. It's a it's a productized service. That's what it's all about.
Speaker 2:That's right. That's right. Very cool. Alright. So I feel like we could go, you know, on forever about these issues because everybody deals with them everyone's and worried about w two verse ten ninety nine and your accountant and there's there's just a lot of angst around this topic.
Speaker 2:And there's a lot of a lot of ego that goes into letting things go and convincing yourself that you're the only person that could possibly do this.
Speaker 1:Yeah. But I I think I think we should kinda round it out with the same point that I made at the very beginning is that if you're just getting into outsourcing and delegating for the first time, the whole point is to leverage your time as the founder. You're gonna be much more effective. You're gonna enable yourself to push the business forward Because somebody is handling the day to day, the repetitive tasks that you've systemized, and, of course, it takes time. You gotta, you know, refine these things over time.
Speaker 1:But your the return on that investment is your time as the founder to go do your very first webinar or talk to more customers or, you know, something more valuable.
Speaker 2:Yeah. It's it's scary when I look at that second list of strategic things that I know I wanna do, that those those languishing for week after week, you you it's not a healthy thing for the business. It's not smart. So the the difficulty is in bouncing when should I spend the money on outsourcing. Should I wait until I can really afford it?
Speaker 2:Should I do it just before that? Should I do it starting out? So those decisions are are difficult, but there's no doubt that doing everything yourself is a recipe for either failure or very, very slow growth, unnecessarily slow. So something we'll all continue to struggle with. And again, if any of you guys have specific questions on it, get over to bootstrapweb.com/ask, and let's, let's get into it.
Speaker 2:So, Brian, why don't we wrap this baby up?
Speaker 1:So, yeah, like, like like Jordan said, as always, you can head over to bootstrappedweb.com. That's where you'll find all of the, backlog of episodes and, including this one. And please, if you are enjoying this, not only send us your questions and feedback, but head over to iTunes and leave us a five star review. We'd really appreciate it. And with that, let's well, you know, we'll we'll see you guys next week.
Speaker 2:Thanks everybody. Talk to soon. Yep.
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