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There was an interesting discussion in the Blog Mastermind forums that began with a question about when you should start outsourcing.

The impression this particular student had was that outsourcing is the key for success, and it is something that I emphasize over and over again inside Blog Mastermind. The problem in this case was the lack of cash flow to pay for outsourcing and whether it is worth going into debt to pay for help if it is indeed that important.

I was quick to explain that outsourcing is important and it’s worth paying a few hundred dollars to get your blog set up with a nice theme, a domain name and get a few key plug-ins installed for you if you can’t do it yourself, but beyond that you don’t really want to start using credit to pay for outsourcing.

What Do You Do When You Have No Money?

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How To Create Recruitment Systems To Hire People Before You Need Them

I was recently asked how I hired quality editors when running my previous business BetterEdit. As I responded to the question I realized the information provided might well serve others, so I’m going to explain my system for staying on top of the recruitment process here in this blog post.

Before I begin, a brief caveat - this system as I implemented it only worked because I had a website that received a continuous stream of traffic from Google. It was by no means a huge amount of people, perhaps a few hundred daily unique visitors, but because the traffic was targeted and due to the supply and demand ratio for editors versus work, I was in a good position to make the following system work.

However, that doesn’t mean this can’t work for you if you don’t have consistent search engine traffic or if the dynamics of the employment market in your industry are not as favorable, you just have to work a little harder to find the good people and bring in the traffic. If your website already receives consistent search engine visitors then you are position to immediately benefit from this technique, so make sure you write this down on your to-do list after you finish reading.

Slow Companies Fail

If you read Rich Schefren’s recent report, the Uncertainty Syndrome, you may remember he talked about hiring solutions that bring good people to work for your company BEFORE you need them.

Due to the speed of today’s markets, those who are quick and stay ahead of the curve generally win. Your company is only as good as the people working for it. If you combine those two ideas, then it makes sense you need the best people working for your business and you need them yesterday.

Think about any time you learned something new that you just knew you could apply to your business and immediately benefit from it, yet you don’t personally have the time to do it (nor does it make sense that you do it - it’s not your core strength), none of your current staff are available to take on the role and of course hiring new staff is never quick if you start from scratch. By the time you have the right person you’ve missed the boat - the market has moved on to the next thing and your prospective customers have already been captured by faster-moving competitors.

An even more common problem in successful organizations is business growth. In order for your business to take the next step you need help. Perhaps you require someone to take on the extra administration responsibilities, new talent to deliver the services your company provides, added customer support, maybe a project manager or a new tech person to help handle increasing technology demands.

If you are hiring reactively, then every stage of growth is hindered significantly by each new hire you have to make. This can be such a huge problem that you have to turn down work, work that is your company’s core strength that you would love to take on, simply because you don’t have the capacity to deliver the results due to limited resources. That’s VERY frustrating for an entrepreneur.

Be Proactive

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This is a guest post from Jason Katzenback, otherwise known as the current incarnation of John Cow (just like Dr Who, a new Cow is born each time the previous one quits the show)…

Have you heard the expression “No man is an island“… well perhaps to be more politically correct “no one person is an island”?

One of the hardest decisions any entrepreneur faces when starting a new business is the concept of delegating. At first we are more often then not responsible for all activities of our business including; research, planning, bookkeeping, webdesign and the list goes on and on. For most people this is not a problem for the first few months because you are in a start up mode where you are still getting your feet wet. As your business starts to grow momentum however, this quickly starts to become a burden.

Too Much To Do in Too Little Time

Suddenly it happens, you start looking at the clock and realize the day is done. Your spouse is calling for supper and you impatiently yell back “Give me a Minute”. You are frantically trying to get as much done as possible because of the complete and utter frustration of having too much to do in too little time.

Life continues like this for awhile and then suddenly tax time comes and you become exasperated because for the next week you will not be able to do anything but focus on getting your bookkeeping done and all your projects are on hold…. never mind the 150 emails you are getting every day.

STOP THE INSANITY!!!

If your business is at a point where there is revenue coming in and you just have too much to do in too little time, then perhaps it is time to consider hiring local employees to help. With today’s virtual world, there are many options available from outsourcing to hiring virtual assistants and depending on your situation these may be better options. If however you are ready and wanting to start an office with local employees then my hope is this post series will offer you some guidance.

Why Should I listen to YOU?

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It’s Monday morning in Australia and I’m about to have a group meeting at my house with my team to begin work on something new.

For most of my Internet business career I worked solo - and I really mean solo.

I built my website myself, created marketing materials like flyers and posters, promoted my websites, located and managed sponsors and provided customer and sales support. The only thing I didn’t do was actually provide the services, I had contractors do the editing when it came to BetterEdit.com my proofreading business and I had writers write the content on my first successful online venture, MTGParadise.com (although I did a lot of writing myself on that site too).

It’s amazing how far your enthusiasm and work ethic can take you in business. I’m proud of my achievements as a solo entrepreneur and I’m amazed at what I did manage to get done by myself. However after about 7 years of working without any support I realized that I couldn’t keep it up for ever, plus there was another pressing reason to get help - I had reached a ceiling point in my growth. Your business can only get so big if it’s just you doing the work.

With typical timing, it was around this time that Rich Schefren came to town with his first ground breaking report, the Internet Business Manifesto. I read Rich’s report and found myself agreeing with everything he said. I wasn’t exactly shocked by the revelation as some Internet marketers were when they first read the report. I knew I was working too hard and doing too much by myself, my problem was lack of action to change the situation.

Things finally did change in 2006. With my blogging business growing and my cashflow increasing I knew I could realistically outsource tasks to other people. With a looming trip overseas I decided I to do two things -

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A common small business start-up formula today is to offer a product or service and sell it online. If you are reading this blog chances are that describes your situation now. Perhaps you are a freelancer with skills to sell, or you decided to have a go at selling a product online, maybe through eBay or directly from a website. Maybe you quit your job or downgraded to part time work to have time to start your business, or you even attempted to do both at once - work a job and start a business at the same time.

Whatever the scenario, we all start at the same place - the beginning - and it’s at this point that we begin to take action to drum up business. Once you have something to offer, you brainstorm ideas for how to market what you do and then, finally, you go out there and “get in the face” of your target market.

During the early days you tend to do a lot of work yourself, and until you actually make sales, you are very pro-active (or at least you should be!) at chasing up more work and more sales. Generally, because the pressure to establish cashflow is so great, this stage of your business involves rapid action and you do a lot of activities that move you forward. I call this swimming.

Treading Water

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