June Outsourcing Mastermind Session Notes

Outsourcing Mastermind Notes from June 11 9pm EST Session:

Getting set up with headsets and mic to work with Tokbox (pretty successful overall for first use!)

How is everyone progressing on getting first or new outsourcers

Questions about getting account set up with bestjobs, mostly squared away after emails.
After our series of emails on getting an account set up through GetAFreelancer, Mark also offered up setting up access through his outsourcers so people can at least get the process started.

Asked How long does it take to hire an outsourer?
Unlike getting freelance talent, hiring an outsourcer on a part-time or fulltime basis takes more time and back and forth emails to interview and vet the candidates. As Jeff suggested, Leigha asks candidates do some level of trial work that I give instructions on. So while in the recruiting mode, I wrote up a short list of tasks I'd like completed as a trial work to measure quality, and communication before hiring them as either full time or part time.

Overall, there is frustration in the back and forth of the hiring process.

Mark found it takes about 2 weeks to get an outsourcer from first contact to contract signed, set up and working. This seems to be a normal set up time from my experience.

Leigha, as my project manager, is responsible for all the contact and interviewing.

She gets frustrated that its not an instant process. She'd hoped it would happen that it would go from we found your resume, here's some trial work, I like your skills, here's what we can offer and it's done in under 3 days. Each step takes time to complete and establish a relationship. She also is learning that their time difference and weekends are off from ours here on the east coast. Sometimes she'll expect responses mid day, while she should expect most responses during our night time. And while Fridays are usually really productive days, that's the Filipino Saturday so there is virtually no communication.

Some take aways as the business owner is that it's our first responsibility to define the kinds of talent we need and establish what we want done that will move our projects, sites and business forward.

Without being able to give someone else direction and anticipate a workload it's hard to lay a plan and take action for hiring part time or fulltime. We are uncomfortable with hiring someone and not having enough work for them to do laid out before starting to interview and hire.

On the 5 hour drive back to Florida Leigha and I spent the time making lists of all the projects I'm working on, what are the tasks and processes that I can let go of for someone else to do. then grouped the results and tasks by the kind of skills needed.
This helped me understand what to look for in a content writer, a jr wordpress dev, an outbound caller and a general VA on a part time or full time basis.

Mark added that one of his first interviewing questions when outsourcing is, Do you have broadband internet access? Then, do you have a relatively new computer? Those are the basics for working remotely from home for any outsourcer you bring on to your team. without these, they wont be able to do the work you need done.

Going with tasks or short term project outsourcing would be fine to get started on some of the lancing sites. When you reach the point where you have a consistent stream of work needed, then it could be time for moving into hiring on your own. Damian, if it's easier for you to do a few tasks here and there through eLance or GAF, go for it!

Communication and keeping track of things with project management software or email.

Using tokbox was a great real time video conference tool for small groups. Scott called it the Hollywood Squares of Outsourcing.

Options to consider and use daily for one on one communication:
Skype
Here's the deal with skype: as long as all parties have a skype account they can chat, do voice and video for free.
There are premium features like having a us phone number, calling regular phone numbers or forwarding to a regular phone line that cost some money.
I've got a pro skype account that does all sorts of things for 60/yr. for unlimited us calling.
Here's their calling features breakdown (http://skype.com/allfeatures/subscriptions)
I anted up for the skype pro account after killing off two biz lines and only having my cell phone for biz use and seeing a sky high bill. That 60 bucks was cheap and I thank Skype every time I remember what overage minutes look like!

Another great option that I use is inside Google. It's called google Talk. It's inside all gmail accounts and google apps for business accounts.
It does chat, 1on1 voice and 1on1 video. It also sends text messaging for free if you set it up right.
http://www.google.com/talk/about.html

For back office, there is Google Apps.
It's Google's online app suite of email, calendar, chat, documents, spreadsheets, forms, presentations, real time collaboration and permission based content sharing.
http://www.google.com/apps/intl/en/business/index.html
Free for up to 50 users.
Jeff uses this, I use it, great stuff.
Useful when you're ready to break free from the inbox search, attach and revise document attachments pains.

Project Management
Once you realize you've got to share your information, vision and direction with others, email will start to fall short on delivering the right communication.
For online project management for you, your PM and out outsourced staff a central area will help keep everything on the same page.

As a commercial project management app recommendation:
Basecamp http://basecamphq.com/
Probably the best small business commercial PM web app out there. It's hands down the originator of sexy web apps. Very well designed and has premium features like time tracking, not available on open source pm apps.

The open source project management app I use is:
ProjectPier http://www.projectpier.org/
Trade offs for open source is self hosted, you have to deal with any server issues, maintenance and no tech support. (Linda did mention outsourcing it!)

Neither are like MS Project and there are no Gannt charts.
Both are good for central communication for remote teams.
PP is an open sourced version of Basecamp circa 2004.

If you've never used a project management program before but know that email isn't cutting it anymore here's a brief run down of the basic parts of a PM app and how it can help you organize and keep track of everything.
http://www.projectpier.org/manual/tour/concepts
For basics of basecamp, (made by an FSU ITPM recent grad)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p-GIZ5sFak4
http://2007.ispace.ci.fsu.edu/~cam07k/ir/files/tutorial.pdf

Choosing a Wordpress Membership Plugin
After seeing Hamza's membership based hot seat session, Damian had asked about what kind of membership plugin to use with Wordpress. He had 2 contenders: Wishlist and Your Members.
Hamza uses Your members but for integration with aweber and more training videos, Damian was leaning more toward wishlist. The best recommendation I could give him was that since he knows the features and support he's looking for to choose the pluging that best meets those specific needs. I've heard great things with both and I use memberwing for some of my client wp membership sites. So wishlist gets my vote for his best choice.


By the end of our hour, we all agreed that between the forum( http://outsource-forum.com ), and email contact there should be enough to keep the momentum going on a weekly basis in building out our outsourcing teams and to do this kind of "face to face" mastermind once a month.

There are some documents that I'll be sharing with you on the forum that I give to my outsourcers on content writing standards as Scott suggested and how to migrate wordpress for Damian.

Guys, I'm sure I didn't remember everything we covered but those were the basics of our one hour outsourcing mastermind. If there's anything you remembered talking about or want to follow up on, reply on the forum.

My best,
Vanessa