In 2009 and armed with only a couple grand, Bryce Maddock opened the first TaskUs office in an old building on the floor above an elementary school in the Philippines.

Since then, he’s grown TaskUs to more than 1,500 teammates providing customer care and back office support to 60 of the world’s most innovative companies.

His company is committed to invest at least $25 million in the Philippines over the next three years, so that he can fulfill their mission of bringing meaningful employment to as many people as possible. It’s their goal to employ 10,000 Filipino people by the end of 2017.

Bryce Maddock Interview – CEO of TaskUs

Why should any business owners in 2015 outsource?

Do you know that President Barack Obama only has two suits – a grey suit and blue suit? Think about that: why would the most powerful man in the world only have two suits? To quote him directly:

“I’m trying to pare down decisions. I don’t want to make decisions about what I’m eating or wearing. Because I have too many other decisions to make.”

The President acknowledges that focus is critical for effectiveness. If he is worried about what suit to wear, he will have less attention to give to the things that actually matter. Organizations are no different. Focus is critical. To build the best product, come up with the most creative marketing program or write the most efficient code – but whatever it is you do, your organization must be focused. This means eliminating the distractions of back office work like content moderation for social networks or photo retouching for ecommerce companies, and reducing your internal customer service team to focus on only the most business critical items. In order to do this successfully, you’ll need a partner you can trust to deliver on these repetitive but important functions. 

Which is more important, price or quality? Are you able to achieve both when you outsource to someone you never meet?

The more time I spend in business the more I realize that you get what you pay for.

Outsourcing is not something you enter into blindly. I would never recommend outsourcing to someone you have never met face to face. At TaskUs we provide a U.S.-based Client Success Manager to guide our clients through the outsourcing process for precisely that reason.

Unfortunately, there are many companies who simply want to “do it cheaper,” and compromise on quality and process, but they quickly realize their mistake, as they are left to redo most of the work they outsource, while attempting to provide feedback to their outsourcing partner on how to improve. This often means the work takes longer than if the company just did the work themselves.

One of the reasons we are growing so quickly is because we believe it is possible to deliver great quality at a good price. We will never be as cheap as hiring someone working from home in India. So for us, the more important question is, “How do we deliver value?” We are really focused on being strategic partners to our clients. Our team challenges the status quo and looks for more efficient ways to do the same process, even if this means reducing the size of the team we have working for a client. On the customer service side, our team is fanatical about the brands we service. We work with a lot of fast growing, exciting startups that our teams in the Philippines know about and use in their daily lives. When hiring, we look for people who are passionate about the products we support.

That’s why we have such great loyalty. We function less like an outsourcing provider, and more like an extension of our clients’ team.

Most IncomeDiary’s readers won’t know this but we used TaskUs way back when they first started. We use to get you guys to do the research for our top list articles. Those articles have gone on to receive millions of visitors. What things can business owners outsource and get the best return on investment from?

Yeah, it is pretty incredible to think that you can outsource quality content with viral potential.

There are a lot of things that business owners can outsource. “Back office” outsourcing is worth considering for any repeatable process that consumes a lot of valuable internal resources. For some of our clients that can be photo editing, content moderation, lead generation or data management, for example.

These days we are also working with some of the world’s best brands to deliver high quality customer care for a fraction of the price of doing it in-house. We are increasingly the go-to partner for today’s fastest growing companies when it comes to customer support solutions, including phone, email and chat. We utilize that capability to help businesses find, retain and support their customers – so business owners can outsource a wide range of services, it really depends.

Each business has its own specific needs, areas of expertise and pain points. The best thing to do is to pick up the phone and talk to one of our Client Success Managers, in order to get the advice and support you need.

You have hired 1500 full time employees in the past 5 years. How do you work out who to hire? Are there any tests you use? For example, when we hired our last programmer, we asked that they use a subject line we mentioned in the job listing, if they didn’t use that headline, we knew they couldn’t follow instructions.

We take recruitment very, very seriously. Today we hire less than 8% of applicants. TaskUs teammates are responsible for our clients’ success and the continued success of TaskUs. We have a very structured and thorough recruiting process regardless of what role we are hiring for. We evaluate and test candidates for their ability to do the job they will be responsible for doing using specific skill tests. We also test for cultural fit and a range of other attributes including creativity, alignment with our core values, problem solving, communication skills, vision and leadership. Our interview process is multi-stage and very in-depth.

With all that said, because of our size, we have to screen hundreds of applicants every week. To do this efficiently we start with simple, quick screen mechanisms. The one you describe with the subject line is brilliant! We generally start everyone with a multiple-choice test that requires both Internet research and some creative thinking. This test eliminates more than 50% of our applicants, saving our recruitment team countless hours.

1500 employees sounds like a lot of experience delegating work. What’s your top tip for making sure an employee follows through on your instructions?

I love this phrase: spend 80% of your time hiring, so you only have to spend 20% of your time managing. If you hire the right people, management is so much easier. With that said, one of the biggest challenges in our business is the number of cultural differences between our U.S. and Philippines office. In the U.S. we are much more confrontational and in the Philippines, we are much more passive. To get around this I believe that face-to-face communication is essential, at least a few times a year. Get on a plane and go meet the people you are working with! Beyond that, I believe in clearly outlining a project, with objective milestones or metrics and deadlines. After you talk about it, document it in an email so that you can return later and say, “We agreed that this would be done by now – here is the email, what happened?”

How do you get customers to keep coming back time and time again? What systems do you have in place to encourage them to use you more and more?

We realized early on that the entire outsourcing industry was focused on the wrong thing. People started outsourcing to control costs, and I would be lying if I told you that this wasn’t the primary concern of most of our clients. But that doesn’t mean that cost is the only thing a customer cares about. In most cases, a very close second is the desire to maintain the same quality of service that they built their reputation on. Today, the entire outsourcing industry is in a race to the bottom, trying to beat one another by reducing costs. TaskUs is not the cheapest option and we never will be. But we are the world’s best outsourcing company for companies who care about quality, preserving their culture and brand voice.

We have a lot of younger readers who are struggling to decide between going/staying at university or working on a business. If you could go back in time, would you still choose to go to university or not and why?

I don’t think there is a right or wrong answer here. This is a deeply personal question. I graduated from New York University (NYU) and if I could do it again I would. Attending NYU gave me the leadership, critical thinking and business skills to accomplish what I have today. That said, attending college is usually incredibly expensive. I got a partial scholarship, packed in extra classes to graduate in three years (rather than the four it normally takes in the U.S.) and worked the whole time I was in school.

For some, a traditional college education is the wrong choice. But be honest with yourself. If you aren’t going to school and instead using that time to build a business or you’re taking online/alternative courses, then that’s great. But if you’re still sleeping in the bedroom you grew up in and spending most of your time on the couch watching TV, then a more structured education might not be a bad thing.

It’s so so so cool that you started your own charity called TaskUs Foundation that helps send kids in the Philippines to better schools. Tell us everything you can about this. Why are you doing it & what’s the long-term goal? What advice would you give to other companies that want to give more to the communities they work in?

When my business partner, Jaspar Weir, and I started TaskUs we had just graduated from college and were living with our parents. Our goal was to build a business that made us enough money so we could get our own apartments and maybe take a girl out on a date once in a while. It took us more than three years to make enough money to do that!

But once we did, we realized that there had to be something more. At that point we had 200 employees in the Philippines. These were people who depended on TaskUs to put a roof over their kids’ heads and put food on the table.

We thought long and hard about what we could do to further our investment in the communities that we were hiring people in. Education was the most obvious answer. To us, education represents the future. The goal of the TaskUs foundation is to empower the children of TaskUs teammates with the knowledge and access to build better lives than their parents have. Who knows, a few of them might even start businesses of their own someday.

You enjoy yoga, meditation and marathons. Do you think these things contribute to your success and how?

Absolutely. Meditation and yoga are a great way to stay grounded and develop the ability to focus as well as sit through uncomfortable situations in life. Both these practices keep me humble too.

As for triathlons and marathons: I believe in pushing my boundaries – but I am also very passionate about being efficient and effective. You definitely learn how to be both effective and efficient from endurance sports.

I should add that I’m not the only one who practices meditation. Our entire company has access to a Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction meditation program and the amazing app Headspace, which we pay for as a company. We believe it’s really important to support our teams. We’re a dynamic company that is growing – fast – and our people put a lot of time and effort into their work and we support them in finding useful tools to distress and decompress. A growing body of evidence indicates that meditation not only does both those things, it also helps make employees more productive and engaged.

If you’re struggling with productivity and engagement, eliminate these 6 distractions to supercharge productivity.

You have given some great advice today, but what is the best advice you have ever been given?

Just yesterday I was talking to my dad. I was going over a long list of challenges that exist in our business today. Believe it or not, as your business grows, so too do the list of problems you have to deal with!

My dad looked at me and said, “Bryce, enjoy the challenges, you’ve earned them.”

The post How The Founder of TaskUs Went From Zero to 1500 Employees in 5 Years appeared first on How To Make Money Online.

Do his methods work? The 25,000+ subscribers on Tim’s blog certainly seem to think so.

By the time you get to the bottom of this page, you’ll be able to judge for yourself.

What You’ll Learn:

• Why you shouldn’t worry about having perfect timing
• What Tim has in common with Google
• The words Ferriss thinks you should tattoo on your forehead
• The unusual way Ferriss comes up with book titles

9 Simple Life Lessons from Timothy Ferriss

#1 Don’t Wait for a Green Light

It’s natural to want to wait until everything is just right before making that big change in your life.

For Ferriss, running a nutritional supplements company 80 hours a week meant that it was never the right time to do the things he really wanted to (like dancing the tango or riding a motorcycle).

Ferriss decided that life shouldn’t wait for perfect timing:

Ferriss picked an imperfect time to start cutting down on the amount of time he spent running his business and the rest is history:  Tim used the extra time to become a tango champion, motorcycle across China, and write a best-selling book.

Making a big change before everything is perfect is risky. The situations won’t be perfect. You’ll make big mistakes, but Ferriss isn’t worried. He says, “just do it an correct course along the way.”

#2 You Only Have to Do One Thing (Just be the Best at It)

If you’re offering a product or a service, Ferriss probably thinks that you’re making it too complicated. This is what he told Derek Sivers:

Tim’s echoing Google’s company philosophy, which states “Simplicity is powerful.” At Google, programmers are taught that the best products “include only the features that people need to accomplish their goals.” (More on the principles behind Google’s success here).

But what if you’re customers are asking for a more complex product? Ferriss says only to add more features if the demand is overwhelming:

If you attempt to be the best at everything, you’re inevitably going to be a jack of all trades and a master of none. But the Internet is such a big, big place – and so if you want to stand out from the crowd, you have to be absolutely great at at least one thing.

Pick a niche and stick with it.

#3 Your Niche Doesn’t Have to Box You In

How small should your niche be? Internet entrepreneur Ryan Lee recommends narrowing your niche down twice:  “The more specific your niche, the easier it is to become number one in that market. You can come in and say, ‘I’m the world’s leading expert.’”

But the wrong niche can also make you feel suffocated, especially if you’re a person with a broad range of interests. Ferriss is an example of somebody who found himself in the wrong niche.

With the release of ‘The 4-Hour Workweek’ in 2007, Timothy Ferriss’ niche became productivity and time management for entrepreneurs. But Tim didn’t want to write about these subjects his whole life. He told 37 Signals:

Ferris has put a different spin on his niche by focusing on the ‘4-hour’ part. With the release of his second book ‘The 4-Hour Body’, Ferriss changed the subject matter completely – and shifted his niche to be about “lifestyle design”.

On his blog (which is subtitled “experiments in lifestyle design”), Tim feels free to write about everything from marketing to dance to practical philosophy. He’s even got a series of videos he calls “The Random Show” that’s about a niche-less as you can get. His upcoming book, ‘The 4-Hour Chef’, is billed as a “cookbook for people who don’t buy cookbooks.”

Don’t let yourself feel trapped by your own niche. There’s always a way to expand upon it.

#4 You are the Company You Keep

In my life, there’s nothing more important than my friends and family. I don’t say this just because I love them, but because they each set a powerful example for me. Without even trying, I follow their lead:  I act and think in the same way as the people who I spend my time with.

This is why Ferriss warns his readers so strongly about associating with certain people:

Giving your time and energy to negative people is “masochistic” according to Ferriss. If this sounds like your circle friends, maybe it’s time to meet some new people.

#5 Entrepreneurship Doesn’t Have to Be Risky

A lot of people want to be entrepreneurs but are afraid to take the leap. Ferriss insists that starting a business doesn’t have to be an “all-or-nothing” wager:

Being an entrepreneur in your spare time is a great way to learn, network, and start building a business without risking your livelihood. As Michael Dunlop has said, “If you start with nothing and end with nothing, then nothing was lost.”

#6 Testing is Your Best Friend

The original name of Ferriss’ first book was, ‘Drug Dealing for Fun and Profit’ – but Tim’s publisher didn’t like the title.

Ferriss needed a new title. Over the period of a few weeks, Tim ran a Google Adwords campaign targeted at people who might be interested in his book. He created a dozen different ads, each using different potential book titles and subtitles as the ads’ text. By measuring click-through rates of each advertisement, a clear winner emerged: “The 4-Hour Workweek: Escape 9-to-5, Live Anywhere and Join the New Rich”.

Did Tim’s unconventional titling strategy pay-off? Four years on The New York Times Best Seller List and 1.35 million copies sold worldwide suggests a resounding, “Yes.”

Ferriss shrugs off any notion that this is an overly sterile or inhuman method of naming your book, product, or website:

If you’re looking to get started with multivariate testing, Ferriss recommends Google Adwords as an “easy and simple” place to start. If you have more money to spend, he recommends SiteSpect.

#7 Be Difficult When it Counts

As a nice guy, I’ve never liked the idea that “nice guys finish last.” In fact, I believe that doing good and treating other people well is a key to entrepreneurial success.

But there’s a difference between being a nice guy and being a doormat. It’s a dog-eat-dog world. Unless you want people taking advantage of you, you have to learn how to stand up for yourself. Ferriss emphasizes this in The 4-Hour Workweek:

This stuff doesn’t come naturally to everyone. But if asserting yourself sounds scary, maybe that’s a good thing. After all…

#8 Fear is a Good Thing

What do you fear?

There’s a good chance it’s important – and that you’ve been putting it off. Ferriss says, “That phone call, that conversation, whatever the action might be – it is fear of unknown outcomes that prevents us from doing what we need to do.”

So why do I say fear is a good thing?

Your fears can serve as indicators of what you need to be doing more of for your life and your business. Make a list of your fears and then set out doing them; you have a roadmap to radically improve your situation. Ferriss advises that you “resolve to do one thing every day that you fear.”

If you’re still scared, Ferriss recommends that you define the worst possible thing that could happen if you take on your fear. Understand it, accept it, and then proceed. As you continue to put yourself in uncomfortable and scary situations, you will be both making progress towards your goal and becoming less scared. Bravery goes a long way in life and in business.

#9 Your Wildest Dreams are More Possible than You Think

Very few people chase after their true goals. As we get older, the voice in our head that used to say, “You can become an astronaut,” starts to say, “Be reasonable and lower your expectations!”

But as Ferriss points out, the competition is actually higher for the reasonable kind of success than the “in your wildest dreams” kind of success. That doesn’t mean that becoming an astronaut, rock star, or millionaire entrepreneur is easy – but it’s probably more possible than you think.

The Last Word

What do you think is the most important life lesson from Timothy Ferriss?

Is there anything that you’ve learned from him that I’m missing here?

Let me know in the comment section below.

The post 9 Amazingly Simple Life Lessons from Timothy Ferriss appeared first on How To Make Money Online.

It’s common to think that the easiest way to get out of the 9 to 5 work week is to start your own business and carry the title, “entrepreneur”.

Well, it doesn’t always work out that way.

As an entrepreneur, your business success… or failure (as the case may be) entirely depends on you. It also depends on a factor that many seem to be slaves to.

Your time!

And the best way to manage your time is to do more with less.

Do more productive work with less time. Make more money with less effort.

How?

Outsource…..delegate…..share your work load.

To whom?

Well, let the following 40 successful entrepreneurs teach you how they are able to work less and earn more by delegating time consuming tasks in their businesses to their virtual assistants.

40 Entrepreneurs on Hiring Virtual Assistants

#1 Timothy Ferriss

Why Tim Ferriss Made the List.

Listed as one of the Most Innovative Business People in 2007 by Fast Company, Tim is the proud author of, “The Four Hour Work Week”- a book that has transformed the lives of thousands of entrepreneurs.

What Tim Ferriss Has to Say about Hiring a Virtual Assistant to free you up from the clutches of your Email Inbox.

As he stated on his blog, Tim got rid of one task he dreaded- checking his email. Why? He found it unproductive and time consuming. How did he do it? Simple; by delegating it to his Virtual assistant with proven email templates that work!

Take action: Don’t get your time drained by your email, get a VA to manage your inbox and provide detailed instructions (using Tim’s templates).

#2 Pat Flynn

Why Pat Flynn Made the List.

From getting laid off from his 9 to 5 to becoming a successful online entrepreneur, Pat Flynn reveals his success secrets and strategies on his blog called the “Smart Passive Income Blog”.

In just four years of being online, Pat has risen from 5 figures a year to 5 figures per month. You can too!

What Pat Flynn Has to Say about Hiring a Virtual Assistant to earn passive income.

Pat is one entrepreneur that believes in keeping his efforts as passive as possible. As he states on his tutorial on delegation, “I know just how valuable my time is and where my time should be invested to give me the most return”.

Take action: Learn to let go of some things that you just love to do. Concentrate on those that give you the most return and hand over the lower earning tasks to your VA.

#3 Michael Hyatt

Why Michael Hyatt made the list.

Michael is the author of the New York Times Bestseller, “Platform: How To Get Heard in A Noisy World”. He has led various word publishing companies and is a successful blogger and speaker who concentrates on three main subjects- passion, focus and influential leadership.

What Michael Hyatt Has To Say about a Hiring Virtual Assistant to Reduce Expenses.

After time spent on writing to improve his blog authority, Michael got more attention and the inevitable happened- he became overwhelmed. After weighing his costs on hiring a physical versus a virtual assistant, Michael realized virtual was the way to go. He had more time to focus on what he loved- writing.

Take action: You may think that hiring a VA would drain your purse but it’ll make it fatter instead. By getting a cost effective VA to handle your daunting blog tasks, you’ll have a lot to gain.

#4 Tyrone Shum

Why Tyrone Shum Made the List.

This online consultant focuses on task delegation and has been interviewed and referenced on some of the biggest entrepreneurship blogs, including Income Diary. This video blogger sure knows (and shows) the ins and outs of delegating anything related to video creation and marketing.

What Tyrone Shum Has To Say about Hiring a Virtual Assistant to Handle All Your Video Blogging tasks.

From experience, Tyrone definitely knows the good from the bad. In this blog post about finding VAs, he shows you where to go to get all your tasks outsourced.

Take action: Low quality blog videos shouldn’t be your thing, so stop managing them. You don’t have to learn video editing to make your videos like Tyrone’s, a VA who specializes in video editing can do that for you….easily!

#5 David Risley

Why David Risley Made the List.

From janitor to successful online entrepreneur, David can definitely show you how to move from rags to riches… with just a computer and an idea.

His most recent blog, “BlogMarketingAcademy.com” is his reason for being on this list.

What David Risley Can Teach You about Hiring a Virtual Assistant from Twitter.

Hiring a virtual assistant for the first time can sometimes end in ill luck and this was David’s first experience. In his post about delegation, David shows you just how powerful Twitter can be in finding VAs…even if it’s your first time.

Take action: Social media is powerful if you know how to use it. Let David show you how to use Twitter to get started with a virtual assistant.

#6 Ryan Lee

Why Ryan Lee Made the List.

This entrepreneur and best selling author has been featured in various media companies including Forbes, Fast Company and entrepreneur magazine. As a full time employee and part time online entrepreneur, Ryan grew his very first business (a website on fitness) into a multi-million dollar empire.

What Ryan Lee Has To Say about Hiring a Virtual Assistant to Increase Your Long Term Revenue.

Ryan had his heart in his mouth when he set out to hire his first VA. When he finally did it, he realized that there was a big difference between being an employee and an employer.

Take action: Taking the plunge to become an entrepreneur can be daunting. When you start looking at long term benefits (like passive income) instead of short term loses (initial investment), hiring a new VA would be your next action.

#7 Ramit Sethi

Why Ramit Sethi Made the List.

Ramit sethi is the author of the New York Times bestseller, “I Will Teach You To Be Rich”. Apart from being an author, Ramit is an entrepreneur and teaches on how to manage your personal finances…..that’s because he’s the guru.

What Ramit Sethi Has To Say about Hiring a Virtual Assistant to Effectively Save Your Time for Personal Interests.

Ramit made lots of mistakes when dealing with his first assistant. Well, that doesn’t happen anymore as he now has his own blueprint to train and make the most out of his virtual assistants and time. He’s even willing to help you out.

Take action: Stop hiring and underutilizing your virtual assistants. Let Ramit show you exactly how to train them so you have time to do what you love. By using his templates, your VAs will be fully up to the task, everytime.

#8 Cody Mckibben

Why Cody Mckibben Made the List.

Cody is one entrepreneur that knows how to “live outside the box”. He is an influential speaker and shows people how to live an internet lifestyle.

What Cody Mckibben Has To Say About Hiring Virtual Assistants To Build A Company

As a co-founder of the Digital Normal Academy, Cody used the services of virtual assistants from the very beginning. And the purpose of his academy is to show you how to be an entrepreneur…the virtual way.

Take action: A VA can be a part of the core areas in your business. If you are just starting out, get a VA to handle tasks like customer support or even consultation sessions, like Cody. Just don’t get a VA with a bad temper because sometimes, customers can be annoying.

#9 Matt Wolfe

Why Matt Wolfe Made the List.

Matt quit his day job to become a full time internet marketer. After making thousands of dollars online through blogging, Matt’s goal is to teach you how he did it.

What Matt Wolfe Has To Say about Hiring a Virtual Assistant to Achieve Your Goals Faster!

Matt set three goals for himself with deadlines. He realized that in order to achieve these goals, he needed a VA to deal with his SEO and research. Now, these goals are history because he achieved all of them.

Take action: Getting an extra hand to achieve your business goals won’t hurt. Let a VA handle your customer support and research while you focus on other more important stuff like marketing and promoting your business.

#10 James Schramko

Why James Schramko Made the List.

This Sydney based entrepreneur left his full time job since 2008 to launch into internet marketing. Now, his blog ranks on page one on the number two spot for the highly coveted keyword, “internet marketer”.

What James Schramko Has To Say about Hiring Virtual Assistants to run your business in Autopilot.

James realized that hiring virtual assistants helped him delegate tasks that he didn’t want to do himself. This helped him create a team that could handle his business, even when he was absent.

Take action: Don’t just get one VA. Get more than one and tell them all there is to know about your business. This way, you put your system on autopilot.

#11 Brendon Burchard

Why Brendon Burchard Made the List.

From being a bankrupt entrepreneur to a millionaire, Brendon sure does have experience. His Experts Academy brings in gurus to actually show you how business is done. Brendon doesn’t just teach you how to make money, he shows you how to do it based on your own expertise.

What Brendon Burchard Has To Say about Hiring a Virtual Assistant to Move from Zero to Seven Figures.

Brendon started his online business with just one VA and moved from zero to seven figures in less than two years. Now he uses his academy to reveal his marketing secrets and branding strategies to those willing to learn.

Take action: Sometimes getting a VA even with no money in your pocket can be a good deal. With what you have, get a VA to manage less productive tasks. Then focus on tasks that can make you seven figures in due time.

#12 Noah Kagan

Why Noah Kagan Made the List.

This entrepreneur has been in and out of the big technology companies, including Microsoft, Facebook and Intel. What was he doing? Well, making them big bucks through innovative ideas and implementations. Now he is the founder of AppSumo which offers you the coolest apps out there at exclusive price deals.

What Noah Kagan Has To Say about Hiring a Virtual Assistant to Reduce Your Time Spent On Research.

Noah was fascinated by his first VA and decided to hire more. After doing some research and deciding on what he wanted done, he got his next VA to help out.

Take action: Determine the exact tasks you need done (like data entry or research) and delegate them. Also provide detailed instructions using Noah’s advice.

#13 Dustin Maher

Why Dustin Maher Made the List.

This featured fitness professional runs one of the largest fitness bootcamps for moms in the country, “Fit Fun Bootcamp”. He’s a personal trainer, writer, speaker and teacher helping you get the shape you deserve. By just helping moms get fit, he has built a huge online following.

What Dustin Maher Has To Say about Hiring a Virtual Assistant To Help You Concentrate On Your Core Business Functions.

When it comes to fitness, things like data entry and billing waste time. Dustin got virtual assistants to help him with everything else while he concentrated on fitness.

Take action: Determine the core functions of your business and delegate those tasks that are less productive; the need to feel busy should not be an excuse for you to do the work yourself!

#14 Adam Toren

Why Adam Toren Made the List.

This Serial Entrepreneur is the Co-founder of YoungEntrepreneur.com. He is a Mentor, Investor and award winning Co-Author of Kidpreneurs (Basic Principles of Entrepreneurship for Kids). He also Co-authored Small Business, BIG Vision which shows you just how to dominate your market by learning from those who have.

What Adam Toren Has To Say About Hiring a Virtual Assistant to Reduce Time and Cost of Managing Employees.

In this interview with Adam Toren, he states the benefits of having a virtual assistant and just how effective they can be, especially for your small business. Adam cut his expenditure in half and was still productive with a VA.

Take action: If the big entrepreneurs use VAs, then what are you doing with office employees? Save your cash and leverage your time by getting a virtual assistant to handle tasks in your business that do not require your personal attention.

#15 Michael Dunlop

Why Michael Dunlop Made the List.

For a young entrepreneur, Michael sure has a lot of things going for him. As the proud owner of the Income Diary Blog, he has been approached by some of the world’s largest companies including MTV, Ralph Lauren and DELL all because of his experience and authority. He believes in giving back and that’s exactly what his blog is for- to show you everything he knows about making money online and blogging.

What Michael Dunlop Has To Say About Hiring Virtual Assistants To Earn You Income On Autopilot.

What happens when you lose interest in your business? Does it continue to work or come to a standstill? Michael sure didn’t want the later part, especially if he was going to sell it. By putting his entire blog on autopilot, it’s turned out to be more profitable (passively) than ever.

Take action:You can earn from your business even when you’re absent. Get a Virtual Assistant to help with your blogging (from content creation to the actual act of publishing the content on your blog) and you’ll reap the passive rewards in the end.

#16 Leo Babauta

Why Leo Babauta Made the List.

This veteran blogger happens to be among the top 25 bloggers in the world with thousands of readers. His blog, “Zen habits” focuses on simplicity and health.

What Leo Babauta Has To Say About Hiring Virtual Assistants To Simplify Your Efforts And Increase Effectiveness.

Leo believes hiring VAs require you as the entrepreneur to think about and analyse the tasks you’d be delegating. He provides tips to guide you through the process of being effective with a virtual assistant.

Take action: Sometimes planning can be drudging, especially when it’s related to booking your trip or an event. Hire a VA to assist in tasks like organizing your travel plans or planning your events and presentations. This simplifies your efforts, giving you more time to concentrate on effective tasks.

#17 Mark Shead

Why Mark Shead Made the List.

This guy blogs about what many people (entrepreneurs and employees alike) crave for- productivity. Professionally, he is a business management consultant and focuses on streamlining businesses using technology.

What Mark Shead Has To Say About Hiring Virtual Assistants To Reduce Your Workload.

Mark has had his ups and downs with his VAs. In his ultimate guide, Mark shows you his best ways for finding and using the right virtual assistants.

Take action: Avoid giving your VA physical tasks to do, concentrate on delegating tasks that can be done virtually on your behalf. For instance, do you have to get your bookkeeping done? Let your VA handle it.

#18 Natalie Sisson

Why Natalie Sisson Made the List.

This creative entrepreneur shows you just how to run your business, regardless of your location. To achieve this, she shows you how she does it, using social media, online tools and delegation.

What Natalie Sisson Has To Say about Hiring a Virtual Assistant to free up time for you to create epic content for your blog.

Natalie points out that her VA helps her to format, edit, tag, SEO optimize her blog posts and then publishes them on her behalf. This way she has more time to focus on creating epic content for her blog.

Take action: It’s no doubt that blogging helps you to build your brand and community online. Instead of trying to handle the entire blogging process yourself, focus only on content creation, delegate the rest to a Virtual Assistant.

#19 Tsh Oxenreider

Why Tsh Oxenreider Made the List.

This entrepreneur blogs with moms in mind and her Simple Mom blog focuses on making mothers more productive, even when diapers get dirty every five hours. And she didn’t just decide to start blogging for the fun of it but to provide what she didn’t find on many blogs- parenting and productivity.

What Tsh Oxenreider Has To Say about Hiring a Virtual Assistant To Help get you “Unswamped” by too much work.

Tsh found her VA in an organic way and she has never regretted having the relationship ever since. Tsh advices that you get an assistant who is interested in you and what you do. Tsh’s entire blogging activities are managed by her VA and she’s cool with that.

Take action: Don’t treat your VA as an outsider. Disclose important information and let your VA be capable of handling your core and non-core business operations. The more you delegate, the more you get “unswamped”.

#20 Erica Douglass

Why Erica Douglass Made the List.

This entrepreneur doesn’t blog about success from knowledge but from experience. At a young age, she sold her first company for seven figures and intends to show you just how you too can have a successful life.

What Erica Douglass Has To Say about Hiring a Virtual Assistant to Help You Concentrate On Building Your Brand.

As a blogger, Erica doesn’t delegate content creation because that’s what gives her a brand. In her post, she shows you how to get started delegating and advices you to only delegate routine tasks, not major ones.

Take action: Delegate tasks like bookkeeping, video editing, transcription and research while you focus on tasks that make you who you are. If you video blog, let your face be in the video, not that of your VA.

#21 Marie Forleo

Why Marie Forleo Made the List.

This entrepreneur helps you back up your big dreams with results by simply showing you what to do. She’s been labelled as one of the top 12 online marketing and lifestyle experts globally and shows you how to be rich, from the inside out.

What Marie Forleo Has To Say about Hiring a Virtual Assistant To Grow Your Business.

According to Marie, the inability to delegate is one reason why small businesses stay small. By letting go of some tasks and handing them over to someone else, you’ll be doing your business a huge favour.

Take action: Concentrate on the creative parts of your business. Figure out what to delegate and find a VA with the right skill and attitude to get the job done.

#22 Anita Campbell

Why Anita Campbell Made the List.

Anita Campbell is the CEO and publisher of one of the biggest business blogs, “Small Business Trends”. SBT is an award winning online publication and provides information, news and advice on small Business issues.

What Anita Campbell Has To Say about Hiring a Virtual Assistant to Manage Your Social Media Marketing.

According to her research, Anita realized that certain virtual assistants are gradually evolving to become social media marketing assistants. She also advices that tasks should be delegated to VAs based on their functional expertise. Virtual assistants with SEO skills should only do SEO-related jobs.

Take action: If you don’t know how to get started with marketing and promoting your business on Social Media sites like Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and so on, get a VA who has prior experience with Social Media Marketing to help you out.

#23 Danielle LaPorte

Why Danielle LaPorte Made the List.

Danielle LaPorte is the jovial blogger at WhiteHotTruth.com, where she concentrates on making you rich…..spiritually. proud author of The Fire Starter Sessions, Danielle works with entrepreneurs that have one goal in mind- making a difference.  She’s an author, motivational speaker and has been featured in Body + Soul, Better Homes & Gardens, Vogue Australia, etc.

What Danielle Laporte Has To Say About Hiring a Virtual Assistant To Promote Your Business Online.

Danielle knows all there is to blog promotion and provides 49 ways you can go about this. By getting a VA to rock your social media (as she put it), you can build buzz for your business which if done correctly, can turn into leads and also sales.

Take action: Get a VA that’ll concentrate on social media promotion for your business. Especially in areas like networking and ad placements.

#24 Thursday Bram

Why Thursday Bram Made the List.

This born and bred entrepreneur didn’t think twice before building a business. Starting out with freelancing, she became an blogger focusing on business, personal finance and productivity.

What Thursday Bram Has To Say about Hiring a Virtual Assistant To Increase Your Time For Creativity.

Thursday is not a fan of repetitive tasks  and so hands them over to her VA. She prefers to work on creative tasks which she gets paid for.

Take action: Concentrate on tasks that you are actually being paid for. Delegate the important but repetitive tasks like emailing or scheduling of appointments to your VA.

#25 Carrie Wilkerson

Why Carrie Wilkerson Made the List.

From corporate life to coaching, Carrie has really grown personally and professionally. After building several profitable businesses, she now coaches others to do the same. This Barefoot Executive has been a source of inspiration to many because of her passion in helping others.

What Carrie Wilkerson Has To Say about Hiring a Virtual Assistant To Handle Tasks You Are Not Good At.

Yes, we learn everyday and as an entrepreneur, you need to know everything about your business. But, Carrie believes that the best way to get rid of tasks you’re not good at (is to delegate.

Take action: Delegate tasks you’re not good at to your VA. Your best bet would be to get one with specific knowledge of such tasks (like web design or writing).

#26 Sarah Shaw

Why Sarah Shaw Made the List.

This entrepreneur has ‘been there and done that’. She is a product launching expert and shows you just how to transform your ideas into a profitable product. Sarah comfortably handles five businesses and still has those innovative ideas pouring out. From her vast experience, Sarah now coaches women on how build several businesses like her.

What Sarah Shaw Has To Say About Hiring Virtual Assistants To Help You Build Profitable Businesses.

Having debt in a small business is enough headache not to talk of building five big businesses. Sarah especially loves the idea of hiring VAs. However, she advises that you only delegate the tasks you can’t do.

Take action: Analyse the tasks you have weak skills in and get a VA with strong skill sets in such tasks.

#27 Holly Reisem Hanna 

Why Holly Reisem Hanna Made the List.

This Work At Home Woman entrepreneur knows what it takes to build a business from home and still spend time with family. As her way of giving back, she shows other women and mothers the way to go in becoming self employed.

What Holly Reisem Hanna Has To Say about Hiring a Virtual Assistant to Free Up Your Time For Valuable Relationships.

Business tasks tend to reduce the time we spend with family and clients. We end up missing appointments or forgetting dinner time (if that’s possible). Holly advices that at this point, your best option is plan B- Delegate.

Take action: Don’t take your valuable relationships for granted. Get a VA and delegate the tasks that take up that extra time so you can create and maintain your relationships.

#28 Darren Rowse

Why Darren Rowse Made the List.

Darren Rowse is a veteran blogger, speaker and consultant who founded several blogs and blog networks, including the very popular Problogger.net; which has become so popular that it the number one destination for most up and coming blogger to contribute their guest posts.

What Darren Rowse Has To Say about Hiring a Virtual Assistant to Help You Spend Less Time moderating your Blog comments.

Darren has what it takes to handle comments on this blog…completely. But sometimes, it can become too time consuming; especially since he commands a large following of readers. His VA simply helps him with comment moderation and admin tasks, while he still continues to do run his blog.

Take action: You don’t need to have your heart in your mouth when you’re about to delegate. You’re the boss of your authority blog, but why not focus on creating great content for your readers while your VA moderates your many comments.

#29 Gina Trapani

Why Gina Trapani Made the List.

This techie entrepreneur founded the Lifehacker blog and has several apps to her name. As a writer from high school, Gina has authored four books aimed at making life easier using technology. She’s a web-show host and has been named by Fast Company as one of the Most Influential Women in Technology in 2009 and 2010.

What Gina Trapani Has To Say about Hiring a Virtual Assistant To Remind you about important business meetings.

How would you like to wake up to a merry day with the schedule of all your important meetings emailed to you? Well, according to Gina, you can only make this happen when you get your VA.

Take action: Never keep a new client waiting ever again? Delegate the scheduling of new business meetings to a VA. Also, make sure you’re reminded when you’re running late.

#30 Liz Strauss

Why Liz Strauss Made The List

This influential blogger has been recognized as one of the top 10 influencers of 2011. Her blog- Liz Strauss at Successful Blog commands authority as she has tens of thousands of comments. She even has a comment plugin created for her- Liz Comment Counter- just because she responds to comments.

What Liz Strauss Has To Say about Hiring a Virtual Assistant To Maximize your revenue.

You can get a virtual assistant to take over your income producing activities while you do stuff you love- like going on a vacation! Liz suggests that instead of wasting valuable time on mundane tasks (that you can’t let go off) and sacrificing your money, let your VA earn you money during that time.

Take action: Perhaps you are a perfectionist and love doing things to your taste. Make more money by getting a VA with specific professional skills that can handle the jobs your clients’ need- during the time you play.

#31 Tara Gentile

Why Tara Gentile Made the List.

This thought leader is a respected blogger, business coach and motivator. She focuses on helping people build businesses around their passion while they smile to the bank, effortlessly.

What Tara Gentile Has To Say About Hiring a Virtual Assistant To Help You Focus On Your Creativity.

Assuming you are a very creative person, Tara suggests that in order to balance your business with your creativity, get a skilled VA to manage your business completely. This way, you get to focus on what you do best. Who knows, it could be sculpting!

Take action: If you’ve put your creativity on hold, now is the time to resume. Hand over all business tasks to your VA (you’re still the boss) while you get your creative juices flowing again like Michael Angelo.

#32 Michelle Shaeffer

Why Michelle Shaeffer Made the List.

This entrepreneur focuses on women and helps them make the most out of their work at home businesses. She provides insights on just how to make things easier by using technology and automated business systems.

What Michelle Shaeffer Has To Say about Hiring a Virtual Assistant To Maintain Effectiveness in Your Business.

Don’t expect your VA to be a know-it-all, even when you don’t say jack about your business. Michelle believes that by communicating effectively with your VA– stating all your specifications and requirements, effectiveness finds its way to your business, without you even trying!

Take action: Get a VA and be detailed as to the how, when, why and where of your business. This way, you get effective delivery which will make you look good to your clients.

#33 Tai Goodwin

Why Tai Goodwin Made the List.

This entrepreneur doesn’t just teach proven strategies, she shows you how she used them. Tai is a marketer, writer and social media coach and focuses on bringing out the best- in her clients and non-professional relationships.

What Tai Goodwin Has To Say About Hiring a Virtual Assistant To Make Posting Content To Your Blog Easier.

Perhaps you’re a blogger and find it hard writing your posts. Tai suggests that instead of doing what you sometimes dread, go high tech and record your post instead. This way, your VA who transcribes will do it for you…in words.

Take action: If you are a blogger (by writing) but sometimes find it hard getting the words out, say it instead. Get a VA to transcribe it for you, format the transcript and post to your blog.

#34 Maren Kate

Why Maren Kate Made the List.

This entrepreneur never planned on keeping a full time job all her life. Her blog- EscapingThe9to5.com- is her personal diary that’s gone public is the hope of many people who want to live their dreams and build life changing businesses.

What Maren Kate Has To Say about Hiring a Virtual Assistant To Increase Your Productivity Online.

Perhaps you are an online entrepreneur and manage several online businesses. In this post, Maren gives you several ways you can handle your online business by delegating several tasks, such as setting up your website(s) or email list(s).

Take action: Put some of your online tasks on autopilot by letting your VA handle tasks like customer support or just getting email subscribers.

#35 Nora Dunn

Why Nora Dunn Made the List.

Nora has been in the financial services for over a decade and so knows the nuts and bolts of planning your finances. By using her knowledge on herself, she not only lives a financially sustainable life, but shows you how to do it too.

What Nora Dunn Has To Say about Hiring a Virtual Assistant so that you can have More Time for Your Family.

Perhaps you are the workaholic entrepreneur who unknowingly engages in unproductive tasks. Nora advices that you delegate those tasks that take the bulk of your time to VAs. This way, you free up more time to attend your son’s next game.

Take action: Time with your family is just as important as making money. Delegate most of your business tasks to your VA while you spend more time with your family is (if you have one).

#36 Karyn Greenstreet

Why Karyn Greenstreet Made the List.

Karyn is an internationally recognised entrepreneur and has spoken to over 260,000 people on business and personal development. Her passion to help the employed create their dream life and business earned her the award of the Most Inspiring Business Woman in 2011.

What Karyn Greestreet Has To Say About Hiring a Virtual Assistant To Save On Employee Expenses.

You don’t need to hire employees and have them working for you from within an office, you can simply avoid the cost altogether. In this post, Karyn shows you just how getting a VA can help you save extra expenses on location and salary costs.

Take action: It’s time for you to become a Virtual CEO and keep more of the revenue you generate. Get a VA and you’ll realize how cost effective it is!

#37 David Siteman Garland

Why David Siteman Garland Made the List.

He is the founder of The Rise To The Top, The #1 Non-Boring Resource For Building Your Business Smarter, Faster, Cheaper, a site to go get inspired by the many video interviews he has done with other successful entrepreneurs.

What David Siteman Garland Has To Say about Hiring a Virtual Assistant to Save Your Business from you!

According to David, he became a control freak and this was a huge problem he had to solve or risk not being able to grow his business to new heights. He was able to hire two Virtual Assistants who ended up saving him tons of hours per week by handling the details of his business that was bogging him down.

Take action: Doing everything yourself is not a good way to take your business to the next level, you need to get past your fear of delegating work to someone else and hire a Virtual Assistant so that you have more time each day to focus on what matters most in your business.

#38 Heather Allard

Why Heather Allard Made the List.

This Mogul Mom of three children has started three successful businesses one of which was sold for six figures in 2008. From freelance writer to inventor, Allard is a sought after expert and has been featured in The New York Times, Fox Business News, Working Mother, ProBlogger, American Express OPEN Forum and Entrepreneur.

What Heather Allard Has To Say about Hiring a Virtual Assistant To Get Your Business Back On Track.

You just know when your business us about to crash- no work-life balance, you become unproductive and then reject new paid jobs. To Heather, this is when your business needs massive help.

Take action: Don’t learn the hard way. Restructure your business with a VA, even when it’s on the verge of a “meltdown”.

#39 Sarah Wilson

Why Sarah Wilson Made the List.

This Australian blogger is an active personality in media and is a host and co-host of different shows, including Lifestyle YOU, Channel 7’s Sunday Night, etc. Apart from her professional side and ambassadorial duties, she is a speaker and focuses on wellness, media and ways to make life better.

What Sarah Wilson Has To Say about Hiring a Virtual Assistant To Handle Your Boring Blogging Tasks.

Just because you’re a blogger doesn’t mean that you’re interested in everything about blogging, right? Sarah found a way around this and has had a happy experience with her VA handling her boring tasks like research and SEO.

Take action: How’s been you blogging activity lately? Perhaps you could check all tasks associated with your blog and delegate those that bore the life out of you.

#40 James Wedmore

Why James Wedmore Made the List.

This entrepreneur is an author, speaker and video marketing strategist. He uses what he is good at to help businesses get what they want. He is the author of the, “YouTube Marketing Book” and focuses on traffic generation and brand marketing through videos.

What James Wedmore Has To Say about Hiring a Virtual Assistant To Get Massive Results From Little Effort.

According to James, it’s not about having the ideas but how fast you implement them. He suggests that for you to produce more with less effort, you need a system of obtaining results. No matter your business, hire a VA and applying him/her to your business systems is a great way to do more with less!

Take action: Automate your content creation, SEO and customer support by using VAs. Create systems that can run while you focus on ideas and massive profits would be yours to keep.

On a Final Note:

Your business success depend on, the actions that you take today will determine the outcome of your business tomorrow. You can only move so fast on your own. Why not get all the help you can get now and skyrocket your chances of achieving your personal and business goals faster, better, easier and happier. You’re an entrepreneur, so don’t work like an employee!

This is a guest post by Owen McGab Enaohwo the founder of H.Y.V.A.™; a company that provides Entrepreneurs with reliable Virtual Assistants. He is also the creator of the Virtual Assistant Blueprint ™; a FREE Video course for time-strapped Entrepreneurs! Get instant access now and Discover the 5 Most Costly Mistakes to Avoid Before you Hire a Virtual Assistant and the 5 Ways To Guarantee that You Get Your Desired Results from a Virtual Assistant.

The post What 40 Successful Entrepreneurs Can Teach You about Hiring a Virtual Assistant! appeared first on How To Make Money Online.

One of the greatest challenges most of these solo-preneurs face is the “solo” portion of it, which is largely the result of the fact that they often lack entrepreneurial or “big business” education which teaches leverage.

You know the picture… you strike out on your own, and quickly realize you are wearing so many hats in your own business and get stressed out…

Or you have so many great ideas for businesses, sites, products… but so little time and resources to put them all into place.

…or you have a ton of energy and excitement, but you lack the “big idea” you need to really make things happen for you.

Or maybe you have that one great idea, but you just don’t have the experience to bring it to its fullest potential.

This post is designed to give you some ideas, inspiration, and specific strategies you can use to create more leverage in your business today to help you overcome some of the adversity you face as a solo-preneur, and take your entrepreneurial drive, energy, and ideas to the next level.

5 Ways To Achieve More With Your Online Business

#1 – Outsource!

As a solo-preneur, you must start outsourcing some of your tasks and responsibilities. These can be things you need done but aren’t doing, things you’re currently doing but aren’t part of your unique abilities, things you’re currently doing but can be done cheaper (based on how you value your own time), or just things you suck at that someone else with specific training can do better and probably faster!

I can get into a lot of detail on outsourcing… but you’ll be better off reading the specific strategies I outlined in my previous article: The 10 Steps To Successfully Outsourcing Your Online Business.

My life and my business has never been the same since I started outsourcing many of my technical, research, and even managerial tasks.  I can now focus on my unique abilities that actually earn me money, and I have much greater leverage in my business and what I can do for myself and for my clients.

#2 – Get A Business Partner!

Having a business partner can be one of the greatest forms of leverage for both you and your partner, especially when done correctly. This doesn’t mean you take what you currently have and give half of it away to someone who’ll be your partner, and it doesn’t even mean that you’ll start a new venture and split everything 50/50.

You can set up revenue sharing and equity partnerships for new or existing ventures based on what each person brings to the table.

This can be a great option if you have new ideas for businesses, but don’t have all the time or resources to build them. In such a scenario, you would provide your ideas and some resources and some of your time, but find a business partner to run that “profit center” for you where you give a fair share of revenue and equity to that individual. This allows you to leverage your ideas, resources, and creative abilities, while having someone else do most of the implementation work. This also allows you to build multiple businesses simultaneously and expand your larger brand while also providing other entrepreneurial minded people with great opportunities that may be much greater than what they could produce on their own.

On the flip side, you can partner with a more successful entrepreneur and help them build out their new ideas, giving you great experience and a huge financial upside with less risk, while leverage their ideas, resources, experience, and creativity.

Of course, you can also equally partner with someone on a brand new venture, in which case you want to make sure you are really leveraging each other’s unique abilities. You want a partner who is strong where you are weak, and vice versa. This way, 1 + 1 does not equal 2, but something greater, because you can do much more together than if each of you just duplicated yourselves. It’s not just about finding someone “like-minded” but more so about finding someone with complimentary skills and strengths – even if you might not always agree, you can create more profitable and leverage businesses this way.

My biggest piece of advice, something I learned from my mentor Yanik Silver, is to clearly define your own unique abilities and having your business partners or profit center leaders do the same, and create partnerships based on these results. The Kolbe test is a vital tool for determining your strengths and unique abilities. Yanik had me take this before he considered working with me on any level, and since then I’ve had each of my employees take it and anyone I’ve considered working with on a significant level in business (and in life… I even had my girlfriend take it!)

#3 – Leverage Other’s Larger Brands or Traffic!

You don’t have to have the massive traffic or own a recognized brand to reap the benefits. You can leverage others’ brands and traffic in a win-win relationship where you both benefit greatly.

Guest blogging is one of the best and simplest examples of this leverage strategy. I am writing this post for IncomeDiary right now… sure I could write and publish the same content on my personal blog, or build my own blog about business advice and making money online, but it would take me ages to get nearly the same amount of traffic to my content as I get on the first day of having this post published here. In addition to my name and my ideas being exposed to thousands of readers, I am also getting brand recognition by association with the IncomeDiary brand, which increases my credibility online and opens up all kinds of other opportunities for me… I never know who might be reading this. Meanwhile, Michael gets some awesome (my humble opinion) content on IncomeDiary and gets a get variety through his various writers. He makes money from the site each time a new article is published, so it’s in his best interest to get people like me to write.

Find a popular blog in your industry and start guest blogging for it. You’ll be impressed how quickly you gain credibility and industry recognition… and you’ll find that your own traffic will increase as a result, as will your sales and your ability to charge more for what you do because of the association with a larger successful brand. So long as you provide great value, the owners of the blogs or magazines you write for will greatly appreciate your contribution. It’s a total win-win, and doesn’t cost you anything except your time.

Guest blogging is just one way of leveraging others’ larger brands and traffic. You can also explore different co-branding opportunities, such as co-authoring or contributing to others’ literary works (there are branding agencies for new authors that help align you with best sellers… costs some money but can be worth it if you want to be a recognized writer or contributor to your industry). Another great strategy is to interview big names (like IncomeDiary has done)… this not only gets you great content and big-name-brand association, but if you do it right the big names will share the interview content with their audiences, which can drive some great traffic back to your site.

You don’t have to necessarily have a “blogging business” to leverage such strategies. For example, my primary business is a web services company, but my blogging for IncomeDiary or doing my own side interviews with Internet marketers helps establish me as an authority in my industry, all with a lot less work and less money than it would take to get the same level of recognition through paid advertising or direct sales.

The flip side of this is that if you already have a recognized brand, you can totally use this strategy to let others leverage your brand to create more leverage in your own business. If you own a blog, you can recruit great guest bloggers. If you own more of a traditional business, you can use your recognized brand to recruit interns who will work for you for free in order to gain the experience and the brand association that comes with working for you. What better leverage than free labor! Especially free labor passionate about the opportunity to contribute to your business…

#4 – Create a Product!

An excellent way to leverage your current efforts is to create a product if you haven’t yet. Since we’re talking about online businesses here, you’re likely familiar with information products. You have to realize that if you are doing something successful in business, people are probably willing to pay you to teach them how you do what you do, what resources you use, what strategies you’ve picked up, and how to become successful at what you do.

If you believe that you do something or know something that people are willing to pay you to teach them, then you have a simple opportunity to leverage your current knowledge and/or business processes by creating an information product out of them.

This is pretty simple… document what it is what you do that others would find valuable. Write it in such a way that you could understand it when you were brand new and wish you had this information. You can make it a combination of PDF’s, videos, audios, worksheets, etc. You can sell it through a marketplace like ClickBank or entirely through your own membership site. There are entire products and sites dedicated to teaching you to create and monetize your own information products, so I won’t go into all the steps here, but I’ll definitely encourage you to explore any unique value you have to offer that others would pay for and turn it into an information product. One of the several ways this site (Income Diary) makes money is through Michael’s product where he teaches how to make a profitable site like this. He could have the profitable site with the product, but Site Profit Domination makes the site a lot more money from a process that was already being used and documented anyway.

Even if you only sell it for a few bucks (you can do better than that!), you’re creating additional leveraged income that you would not have otherwise had from knowledge you already had. In addition, documenting your unique processes and success story can actually help you improve and systemize your own business!

I’m going through this exact process now, putting together a high ticket product on how to build a successful web services company, and in addition to opening an exciting stream of leverage income for me in the near future, it’s been an incredible process of documenting and systemize my business processes and increasing efficiency and delegation within my company.

#5 – License Your Ideas or Strategies, Let OTHERS Do The Work!

You might have some great ideas or business processes, but don’t want to put in all the work to make and market your own product. Maybe you just want to make some of the product, then let some professional put the finishing touches on it, do all the marketing and distribution for it, take care of all the customer support and business development… then you just take a check every month for having the idea and getting it started.

This is what licensing is like for physical products, unique business processes, technologies, information, and more. In the online marketing world, one of the simplest way to pursue leverage this way is to let an Internet marketer or Internet marketing agency publish your product. You’re responsible for creating some good content, they do the rest… you can have much more successful results this way, and it’s a whole lot more leveraged than doing it all yourself. Meanwhile, you can focus on your primary business or go work on more content.

Of course, if you have marketing skills and distribution networks, you can leverage other people’s efforts and intellectual property while you use your marketing abilities and resources to publish their products, making the bulk of the revenue for their product or concept. What makes this somewhat different from a partnership described in the first strategy is that the one creating the product here is quite different from a business partner or a profit center, but more so an author or in some cases an idea catalyst.

I hope these five strategies for creating more leverage in your online business help you to create more freedom, earn more money, and focus more on your passions. If you don’t end up using any of these specific strategies, then take the inspiration and start think about other ways you can better leverage your business or your personal abilities. You’ll find you can reap massive benefits and also serve a lot more people.

Read more: ‘21 Ways Successful Entrepreneurs Think Differently’

The post 5 Ways To Create Leverage In Your Online Business appeared first on How To Make Money Online.

There are countless benefits of outsourcing, ranging from greater personal freedom to more profits to just plain necessity in some case.  I’ll skip the details of outsourcing benefits and just cut straight to the meat: how to actually do it.

The outline below is written such that you can follow it verbatim to get great results with outsourcing, even if you have never tried it before and don’t know where to start.

10 Steps To Successful Outsourcing

Just kidding… sorta. Now to the serious stuff!

Below I outline my exact outsourcing formula for you step by step. Like Tim Ferriss’s DEAL in The Four Hour Work Week, it starts with Definition and ends in Liberation!

1. Define

The first step is actually figuring out what it is what you do, what you want to do, what you don’t want to do, and ultimately what you can and should delegate. Take a piece of paper (or a spreadsheet) and break it into four columns: What I Do, What I Do That I Don’t Like or Am Not Great At, What I Want To Do, and What I Can Delegate.

Start from the left and move to the right. Before filling out the delegate column, eliminate. Cross stuff off from the 2nd column if you can. This can be a great exercise to stop doing your least productive and unnecessary activities… especially before you go and pay someone else to do them!

Here is a snippet (not the whole thing) of my own list when I started this process several months ago to give you some direction in your own list:

As you can see when I started there was a huge disconnect between what I was currently doing and what I WANTED to be doing. Since then things have changed significantly, and are still changing in the right direction. This takes time, but this first step is absolutely necessary to understand where you are, where you want to be, and what’s holding you back.

I’m still working on outsourcing some of these, but in the last couple of months I’ve been able to boost my revenue and do a lot by outsourcing, while also freeing up my mind to focus on bigger and better things. In a few months, this list will evolve, and so should yours. The more you go through this process, the easier outsourcing gets, and the more freedom you experience.

Don’t be conservative on the “delegate” list. If you think you might be able to delegate, put in on there, regardless of how much you might think “but this requires my knowledge/skills/access to do properly.” Just put it on there and figure out the details later.

2. Decide What’s First

Take your “delegate” list from above and determine the top 2 or 3 items that you need done most, at least one of which you feel pretty comfortable delegating immediately.

Write out exactly what it is that you do or need done on these items. Outline it in the action steps that you would follow to do it. Then break down these action steps to be super simple that a skilled technician can follow.

However, if you have a technical task that you want to outsource from your “Things I Am Not Great At or Don’t Like Doing” List then don’t spend too much time on your outline. Just determine what you need and write out scenarios in which you might need it.

I did this with a lot of tasks that I was really incompetent in…

For example, because I run a web design agency, most of my outsourcing needs relate to web design and development. I first looked for a coder, because that was something I didn’t really do well myself. Then as my business scaled up, I hired more people to do the stuff I knew how to do well in WordPress and Photoshop, but having these employees at such great rates allows to focus more of my time on building relationships, doing the consulting, and working directly with clients… not to mention all the other things that I actually love to do in personal and entrepreneurial business life.

I defined what I needed done first, and what kind of work was needed for what client sites. In this particular case, I didn’t outline all the steps since the people I’m hiring know them better than I do, but I defined my needs very clearly, down to the level experience required with each programming language and software.

3. Identify

The next step is to profile your ideal employee. The more specific you are here, the more qualified applicants you get, and the easier the next steps will be. Being clear about what you want is more like to… well, get you what you want.

Also, the better you identify your ideal candidate, the easier the interview (step 7) will be.

You should decide:

• What skill areas you need
• What level of skill you need in those areas (on a scale of 1 – 10)
• Approximately how many hours per week you need done (better to overestimate than under) and which working hours you prefer
• Level of English speaking skills
• Level of qualities such as independence, problem solving, creative thinking, communication, etc.
• Determine what your budget is for this. How much is it worth to you to have it off your hands personally, or to have it done in general?

Outline all of these areas and more in your Ideal Candidate Profile before you go recruiting!

4. Post Your Job

Once you have your needs defined, your most immediate tasks/jobs outlined, and your Ideal Candidate Profile, it’s time to go to the job boards.

Start by posting a job. Create a document from the steps above, defining what you’re looking for in terms of skills and quality. The best way is to create a separate email address for your applicants, so that you can easily review them all at once, and you reduce spam.

Collect your applicants contact information, resumes, and portfolios if appropriate.

I recommend NOT giving out your Skype ID, phone number, or other contact information for questions. Just give that unique email address, and request their Skype ID for interviews. Unless hiring in your own country, a phone number is usually unnecessary.

Now, in this post I am outlining my own process, and I recommend outsourcing primarily to the Philippines. I have had experience with both Philippines and India, and find that the Philippines provides better overall results for less money. There are many other specific reasons that I recommend the Philippines as your primary spot for outsourcing, but ultimately it’s whatever works best for you and your specific situation.

Here are a few great sources for posting your job listings in the Philippines:

EasyOutsource.com
craigslist.com.ph — some cities are better than others for different tasks
hirefilipino.com
onlinejobs.ph

There are other options, and you can find quite a few through Google. I’ve personally had the most successful with EasyOutsource.com

If you choose to post your job in India or other countries, you can find similar sources for these countries, or use the local Craigslist to post a job or “gig” as well as search through other job/outsourcing networks.

You can also choose to look at a few outsourcing agencies. The advantages of an agency, which has many potential employees ready for you, include that the include employee is trained, available at a specific schedule, always has an Internet connection and power, and can be quickly replaced if they quit or get fired, or don’t meet your needs. However, an agency is typically much more expensive.

For example, I’ve found quality workers in my industry for as low as $2.50 per hour for some WordPress tasks, while an agency would start at a minimum of $8 per hour and go way up from there.

Of course, you can also try finding a freelancer, which is also a form of outsourcing, on one of the following sites:

AwesomeWeb.com

Freelancer.com

odesk.com

5. Seek

One you’ve posted your job and are waiting for replies, you should go and start proactively looking for candidates. Keep your criteria from step 3 in mind and use the same sites above to search through postings.

You should have a prepared letter to send to anyone whose post interests you. You can base this letter almost entirely off the previous steps and the job posting, except that here you can give a little more information on you or your company, as well as your contact information, and ask for some good times to set up a Skype chat for an interview. Always suggest 2 – 3 times that work for you – an eager and dedicated applicant will usually make one of those times work, and you avoid the back and forth of scheduling. See more on step 7 about tools for scheduling and conducting interviews.

6. Sift and Sort

Now that you’ve posted a job and sent out some outgoing requests, you’ll start to get a number of applications to sift through. Depending on how many you get, narrow it down to the top 5 – 7 applicants based on your profile, and decide to schedule an interview with those applicants.

Here are some things I typically see in an application:

• Resume with some past employment and education
• Links to previous projects (since I’m in the web design business)
• Their answers to my job post requests, either in a list or in a paragraph “cover letter” format.
• Take the application itself as an evaluation tool. Take a look at how complete it is and the language used – depending on your requirements, this can matter a lot in and of itself.

Then of course evaluate the technical details of the application. Pick your favorite 5 – 7 applications and move onto the next sorting step: The Interview.

7. The Interview

The next step is to interview your qualified applicants.

This is the part where a lot of people screw up when they get started. I know I did. I was so excited when I first started getting applicants that I started to hire the wrong people. My biggest problem? I didn’t interview properly.

So how do you interview properly?

Here are a few tips:

• Make interview questions in advance based on your Ideal Candidate Profile
• Ask specific questions. For example, I ask: “How skilled are you in php on a scale of 1 – 10?”
• If hiring for something that requires a portfolio, ask for your applicant’s role on each project. Just because they post a website link in their portfolio, doesn’t mean they built the entire site. The might have just made a few graphics, or coded an optin form. Ask for specifics so you get a better idea of skillset.
• Ask them a little about their previous work experience, what they struggled with, and where they performed well.
• If possible, test their knowledge on the spot. Have a few technical questions prepared for them to answer once they tell you their skill level in that area.
• Whenever possible, perform an audio interview after an initial Skype IM chat. If the applicant does not have a microphone, this might already be a significant enough issue to merit dismissing the application. It’s pretty important for you to be able to connect on a call occasionally for Skype screen sharing, and generally explaining some concepts and tasks. It’s also important to get a voice interview in to better judge communication skills and character.
• Be specific, but not intimidating. You want to build a good relationship in the beginning. Filipinos especially can be easily intimidated with aggressive language, so choose your words more carefully than if you were speaking to someone in your own culture (their sense of humor is generally great though!)
• Even if you like the candidate a lot, don’t hire them immediately after the interview. Tell them you like what you’ve seen so far and you’ll get back to them very soon. You should have 2 – 4 applicants that you like from the interview to move to the next step.
• However, if you know right away from an interview that you won’t hire them, tell them so: “Sorry, right now you don’t match our needs. I appreciate your time and wish you luck.” If you think you might need them in the future, add “but feel free to stay in touch as your skills develop.”

8. Try Them Out

Now that you have 2 – 4 qualified applicants, test them out! Make a sample task based on your outlines in step 2 and give your applicant the instructions.

Notice how well the applicant does the job, how long it takes, how many questions they ask, how comfortable they seem with the work, etc. Keep in mind this is their first time working with you, but be critical enough to ensure you get the right person.

You should feel confident that based on the application, the interview, and this sample task, that this applicant is a good fit for the job. If the first few steps turned out well, but the sample task was a disaster, you either have to give better instructions or your applicant is under-qualified and ultimately over-sold you on the application and interview.

If you have a few great prospects, use the last and often best tool at this stage: your intuition. At this stage, don’t hesitate too long, make a decision, hire the right person, and get them trained and working!

Once you hire someone, make sure to pay the other applicants at their agreed hourly rate and thank them for their time, and tell them to stay in touch if you like them. If they got this far, there’s a good chance you might hire them in the future or refer them to someone else looking for a good employee in the same field.

9. Train & Organize

Once you’ve hired your new outsourced employee, make the best use of your time and theirs by providing proper training and organization.

A few training and organization tips:

• Use Google Docs Spreadsheet for login information. Change your passwords to something you feel comfortable sharing, and different from your most important secure accounts (personal email, bank, Facebook, etc unless you are outsourcing something relating to these). In the spreadsheet, include columns for: Account, Login URL, Username, Password, Notes.
• Set up standard communication systems and stick with them. If you have a project management system such as Basecamp, put your tasks and projects in there and assign them, and avoid extra emailing. Use Skype for instant messaging and voice talks, but try not to rely on it for scheduling tasks throughout the week.
• If you do decide to use primarily email for communication with your new employee (again, not recommended, especially once you hire more than one), make sure your emails are well structured with all the instructions and some what-if scenarios to reduce back and forth and information bottlenecks.
• Use Jing (free tool) to communicate visual tasks. You can take a screenshot, draw and write directly on the screenshot, and upload directly to a link that gets copied to your dashboard – all within seconds. You can also record 5 minute videos for instant upload. This communication tool alone can change your life.
• If you assign a long term task, as for progress reports, ideally at the end of each day. This will allow you to correct course if necessary and better estimate future project timelines and investment required.
• Use a system for your new employee to track hours. Google Docs Spreadsheets can be a good start, but many project management systems and accounting systems will have a feature for this. I currently use my accounting software, QuickBooks, to track all my team’s hours and it works perfectly.
• Write a welcome email for your new employees, outlining the communication details above, a little bio about yourself and/or your company, and an overview of your expectations and procedures.

(You can give clear visual instructions within literally seconds, and upload and send them instantly)

Make sure you go back to step 2 and outline your desired tasks and projects well each time you put your employee on a new project.

You can even buy information products and have your employees learn and implement them, but that topic would merit an entire separate post

10. Let Go!

Finally, the last step is to let go a little. Don’t micromanage. The step above helps you to create systems for your employee, and eventually for your team, to be productive with or without you. Sure, you have to check in, assign new stuff, make sure all is going well, etc… but remember, the idea here is that you are getting more done with less of your own time (and if done properly, with less of your own money), so that you can enjoy life more and earn more money doing what you do best.

Work hard but… Relax.

The first time you go through this process, it can seem a little overwhelming. You might be tempted to quit it and just continue to do-it-yourself. Remember: successful entrepreneurs all use leverage; the sooner you learn it, the better.

Once you get over the hump and master this process, you will earn more, work less, and be able to contribute more to the world with your own unique abilities. It can also be a lot of fun!

Feel free to share your own outsourcing experience in the comments below.

If you have any questions about outsourcing, please ask them below! I’ll do my best to answer each one, and may even write another post on the most frequently asked questions about outsourcing.

Read more: ‘10 Lessons From 10 Years Of Hiring Freelancers’

The post 10 Steps To Successfully Outsourcing Your Online Business appeared first on How To Make Money Online.

I had an internship at the time for a gym down in Ft. Lauderdale, FL, and one of my assignments was to create a calendar of all upcoming gym-related events. In a moment of genius (or laziness), I decided to try out this whole “outsourcing” thing to create our events calendar.

I had someone from BrickWorks India, gave them my instructions, and patiently waited for my calendar to be completed.

48 hours later, it was done — and done EXACTLY to my specifications. Which was awesome. I know that a lot of people have outsourcing horror stories (and I do as well, though that’s for another post), but my first experience was flawless. Needless to say – I was hooked.

Since then, I have outsourced hundreds of projects to people all over the world, from Romania, to the Philippines, and to India. I’ve had logos designed, websites created, apps coded, linkbuilding done, and so much more that I can’t even remember at this point.

I’ve become pretty experienced in the “Art” of outsourcing – and because of that, Michael asked me to write you guys a post on some tips for better outsourcing — how to make sure you avoid a nightmare experience, and enjoy the true benefits that outsourcing can offer to you and your business.

Know What You Want

The most important key in outsourcing successfully is knowing EXACTLY what you want. One of the biggest mistakes I see people make when they outsource is that they give vague instructions, and expect the person they are outsourcing to to understand exactly what it is that they want.

The simple fact is this: no one is going to understand your vision unless you tell them explicitly what your vision is. If you just say “Make it kind of look this” without providing specifics, you are likely to be disappointed with the results. This mistake usually ends with you wasting a ton of time trying to get your project right.

So, in order to avoid this, you need to figure out exactly what it is that you want done. If you want a website designed in a certain way – do a wireframe (I will literally draw it out on a piece of paper, scan it, and e-mail it to my designer). If you want an app or piece of software to provide a certain function, make sure that it is outlined completely before you ask the outsourcer to do the work. For logos, provide examples of what you’re looking for with specific instructions.

A lot of people make this mistake when they start outsourcing — and it almost always ends poorly. So make sure that you take the time to figure out exactly what it is that you want your outsourcer to do, before you ask them to do anything. And, along these lines, you want to make sure you’re very specific in your job description as to what you are looking for.

Where To Find People To Work For You

There’s a couple of great sources to find employees online, and I’ll outline a few here:

1. oDesk — While my experience with oDesk is relatively limited, I have had quite a bit of success with the employees I’ve hired from there. They are usually the cheapest, but they provide good quality work. oDesk also has internal time tracking, and will take screenshots of your employees desktop while they work, so that you know they are on task.

2. Elance — I’ve had the most experience with Elance, and out of all of the sites that I’ve worked with, it’s been consistently the highest quality. While the workers here are usually on the more expensive side, you definitely get what you pay for. I’ve never had a bad experience with anyone that I’ve hired from Elance.

3. Craigslist — While not really “Outsourcing” as Craigslist is generally local people, I still list it here as it is a very, very useful resource for finding employees. You can still get cheap work, and depending on how big of a city you live in, you can usually get responses very quickly. However, I will say that Craigslist is best for finding employees that are local (that you will see face-to-face) as Craigslist does not protect you like Elance or Odesk if you are just hiring someone to work for you online.

Some other resources for hiring that I have only limited experience with are:

Guru
RentACoder
SitePoint
Freelancer
OnlineJobs.ph

Getting Started With Your Outsourcer

Before you dive in and give your outsourcer the reins to your business, you want to make sure that they are reliable, provide quality work, and communicate well with you, first. You don’t want to give them a huge project (that is important for your business) before you even know if they are legitimate or not. That is simply a recipe for disaster. Trust me, I’ve been there.

What you want to do is give them a small test project first. Something simple that is of minimal consequence to your business. For example, if you want them to eventually redo the design of your entire site, maybe have them redesign a banner or a specific portion of your site first, to test their skill.

The biggest thing you are looking for in this test, aside from actual skill — is reliability. Will they get the project done when they say they are going to get it done? I can tell you from personal experience that there are a TON of skilled workers out there to hire, however, only a small portion (I’d honestly say less than 5%) of them are actually reliable and can get things done by specific due dates.

And when you find the reliable ones – make sure that you hold onto them, as they are an extremely, extremely valuable resource to you and your business.

Keep Things Business

Another big mistake that you can make working with outsourcers is becoming friends with them. Now, that might sound a little strange, but hear me out. If you are hiring employees on a regular basis to do projects, there WILL eventually come a time when you have to fire someone because they are not getting the job done. It is an unfortunate inevitability when working with employees. I honestly wish everyone always got their work done on time, but that simply does not happen.

When the time comes to let go of someone because they aren’t getting their work done, if you are emotionally attached to them (by having become their friend), it makes it much harder for you to fire them. You might give them second chance after second chance because you don’t want to hurt their feelings. This is a mistake.

This is going to sound cold hearted – but what it comes down to is this. You have to decide which is more important to you – this persons hurt feelings, or your livelihood. If they are not getting the work that you need them to get done on time, it is THEIR fault that you are firing them, and you should not feel bad about it. They are taking advantage of you and you need to let them go.

If you are truly planning on being successful online, this is a hard lesson, but one that you need to learn early on, or it can be devastating to your business.

So because of this, it’s important to separate business and friendship – and keep them separated!

Questions? Comments?

I hope this post was helpful to you guys — let me know in the comments if you have any outsourcing or hiring questions, I’ll be here to respond.

And, if you like what I wrote here, chances are you’ll probably like our blog over at Real World Traffic. Make sure to check it out as well!

Read more: ‘What 40 Successful Entrepreneurs Can Teach You about Hiring a Virtual Assistant!’

The post My Top Tips For Outsourcing Work on The Internet appeared first on How To Make Money Online.

Today I have a very special guest as an interviewee – Jonathan Mead of IlluminatedMind

I have been a fan of illuminatedmind for some time – it appeals to my values and in particular I like how Jonathan inspires people to Live On Your Own Terms. He also has a very bold statement on his website that makes me smile every-time I see it:

Don’t Read This Website If You Want To Be Ordinary

Jonathan says illuminatedmind is for the unconventional soul, the wanderer, vagabond, outlier, and those of us who walk the edges – I like that. Indeed Jonathan is an amazing example of someone who has took “Personal Development” – stood it on its head and come up with a refreshing new approach. As Jonathan says:

We’re born free, but somewhere along the way we become domesticated and we lose our authenticity. We start thinking we need to become something we’re not, and hold it against ourselves that we aren’t “what we should be.”

We should never go against ourselves, and never change who we are to succeed. The purpose of Illuminated Mind is to incite a ruthless resolve deep within to go with yourself; to empower and emancipate your most authentic self.

Jonathan also in this interview introduces us to the Zero-Hour Workweek (it may not be what you think) and explains why he doesn’t care for the word: monetize.

Enjoy the interview (Podcast and Transcript Below) and as always I look forward to your comments.

best wishes

Michael

** Click Here To Listen To This Interview With Jonathan Mead **

Jonathan Mead Interview

Interview Transcript:

Michael Dunlop: Hello, everyone. Today I’m with Jonathan Mead. So I would just like to welcome you Jonathan. Great to have you here today.

Jonathan Mead: Thank you, yeah, it’s awesome to be here and to speak with your readers, and hopefully I can share some kind of value today.

Michael: All right, well, I’ll jump in straightaway. I understand you’ve recently gone self-employed and you’ve been doing this now full-time. How were you able to do this? So many people who are listening to this right now have their main goal is just getting away from the nine to five and not working for the man and doing it on their own terms.

Jonathan: I personally believe that you can have all the tools in the world, you can have all the resources. You can have a really great mentor. You can have the best training you possibly can find. But I really think the shift happens — and what’s really going to make it inevitable that you make this happy for yourself whatever you want to call it, ditching the 9-to-5 or working for yourself — if you want to make that happen it really starts in your mind.

I personally believe the biggest attribution to making this happen for myself was knowing 100% without a doubt that this was going to happen. It was only a matter of time and I would do whatever it took and I would try everything that I possibly could try. I would fail over and over if that’s what needed to happen, but I knew that it was going to happen, that it was just a matter of time.

So I think it’s that kind of just certainty that, you know, that you’ll do whatever it takes. It doesn’t matter whether you have enough resources or whether you have enough time you are going to make the time. You are going to make the resources.

Yeah, I think that was the biggest shift for me.

Michael: What would you say to those people who don’t really have too much time to spend, to get to their goals? I mean, we’re both rather young compared to a lot of people trying to do this, so we can waste a bit more time. But a lot of people, they need this now. This has to happen for them as soon as possible.

Jonathan: Yeah, you know, for some of those people I could definitely relate. My situation wasn’t — it’s obviously not exactly the same as everyone’s. Some people have kids. Some people have grand-kids. Some people have lost their job and now they have to make it happen.

So a lot of people in a lot of different situations. But personally for me… what initially happened is that I started to read a lot of stuff online and I started to get into the kind of entrepreneurial space. And once I started to see how much more it made sense for me to work for myself and how much better that would make the quality of my life, I knew that had to happen. It made me really frustrated with my current situation because I knew where I wanted to be but I wasn’t there.

I wasn’t getting there as fast as I wanted to be. So yeah, for me it was a necessity that I needed to make time. So personally I think you have to really ask yourself some hard questions. You have to ask yourself what am I willing to give up in order to make that happen.

There’s the obvious time-wasting things that everyone mentions, like watching TV or surfing the Internet or spending time reading blog posts that have no point or have no purposes. Those obvious time-wasting things which a lot of people talk about, but there is also commitments that we make that we think are non-negotiable that really are optional.

So it’s taking a look at those things as well. Like maybe you had some kind of committees or groups that you are involved in that aren’t really necessary that you could drop. Maybe there’s some hobbies that you don’t need to be spending so much time on.

Maybe you don’t need to be spending that much overtime at your work, trying to impress your boss and keep up with everyone else. Maybe it’s that you don’t need as expensive of a car as you bought, that is requiring you to make $600 car payments that makes you have to work 10 more hours a week.

It’s taking a look at those things that are kind of like the hidden things that we think don’t really make much of a difference, but they really do. So I think it’s really just taking a hard look at those things and really being honest with yourself and asking yourself: do I really want this? What am I willing to give up at least temporarily until you make it happen?

Michael: Oh, great advice. And you mentioned that you did look online to find some ways to make money yourself. What was the way you found that worked best for you and why do you think it did work for you?

Jonathan: The first thing that I found that worked pretty well was my e-book. I think that’s fairly traditional way that a lot of people start making money online, at least if they’re in the kind of information product marketing realm, so to speak. That was pretty effective for me because I would say I had a lot more success with that, promoting my own product.

Before that I was promoting some other people’s stuff as an affiliate and that wasn’t as effective for me as promoting my own stuff, because I actually had that trust and that relationship both with my readers. So that was pretty effective for me. After that, that just kind of grew organically into coaching. It seemed like the next step.

I wanted to help people on a more personal level and really get inside the hearts and minds of people and see what kind of problems they were having and get to know people personally, so I could really know my audience a more intimate level. That really helped me with being able to see what kind of, that those biggest problems were. What those biggest frustrations were.

And that really helps you figure out where you can provide the most value. So even if you are not interested in coaching or consulting on a long-term basis, it can help to do some kind of free consultations or free coaching just to be able to get to know people and get to know your clients on a more personal level.

It really helps you to make a more emotional connection when you do release another product. So that was kind of the organic evolution for me.

Michael: And you mentioned that you sold an e-book and you have done coaching. Which would you say was the best for yourself or the time put in versus the return you get?

Jonathan: Yeah. It’s really hard to say because they’re really two totally different markets. For me, I got a lot of value out of the e-book and creating it. But the thing is, after you do that you don’t have a lot of interaction with your customers and you don’t have a lot of interaction with the community of people reading it, as much as you do with something, say, one-on-one or in a group setting or something like that with coaching. Or even seminars or things like that.

So I would say that it really depends on your goals. I had some different goals. I did coaching because I, number one, wanted to connect with people on a deeper level. And then I also wanted to create another income stream for people that wanted to take what they had learned in my e-books to a higher level.

My goals were different for each thing. I think for anyone who is listening, it’s really about what kind of market you want to be in and how you want to market yourself. Obviously coaching on consulting, there’s a ceiling that you’re going to reach, because you can only make so much money based on how much time you have.

If that’s OK to you and you really value that one-on-one interaction with people, then go for it. You’re going to have to learn how to market yourself in a much different way than a product, which we obviously don’t have time to get into right now. But I really think it really depends on what you want out of it. If you start asking that question, then you can get into that.

Personally, I value the coaching but I don’t have any goals to take it to a huge scale. I just like having three or four clients a month, and that’s fine for me.

Michael: That’s cool. I get what you’re saying. And it sort of give you also ideas what to cover on your own site. Because they sort of tell you the questions they’re still not too sure about themselves.

Jonathan: Yeah, absolutely. It’s like free content.

Michael: Yeah, that’s good. So you’ve mentioned you sell coaching and you sell your own e-book. I take it this is all from your blog?

Jonathan: Yeah, it’s all kind of evolved from my blog. I do have another project that I just launched at the beginning of October as well. It’s called Paid to Exist, and it teaches people how to create an income out of their passion. We’re on week six of that out of eight weeks, and that’s going really well as well.

But yes, it’s all evolved out of my blog. It’s just been really awesome to see it happen. Once you have it going, the coolest thing is you can always find ways to optimize things, you can always find ways to continually make things more and more effective. The only thing that’s really limiting you is asking yourself how far you want to take this.

Michael: Sounds good. I have thousands of people who visit my site regularly who have recently set up their own blogs. What’s the difference between when you first set up your site to actually monetizing? What was the transition you had from not making money to finally making money and making enough to give up your job?

Jonathan: That’s a great question, because that’s something that I personally really struggle with. Before I had this blog and now really this business, I had never run a business in the past except for maybe mowing lawns for neighbors when I was 10 or 11y years old.

When I first started this blog, I had this mindset of if I can just get enough readers, if I can just get enough subscribers, I can find a way to monetize things. You hear that word a lot in the blogging realm, “monetize.”

I personally can’t stand that word, because it implies that you’re taking something that’s not meant to make money, or that doesn’t start with the purpose of making money at least, and then trying to figure out a way to make money from it.

So instead of starting with that paradigm, this is shift that I had to make, because I did start with that monetization paradigm. I had to shift to the paradigm of I’m running a business, these are the things that I need to do to make money, how can I use my blog in way that supports these objectives?

So it’s going from the mindset of how can I monetize this content or this whatever into how can I run this business in a way that’s supported by a blog?

Michael: All right, cool. That sounds good. I’ve read the “Four-Hour Workweek, ” a great book. But you’re brought out you own e-book for you blog, called the “Zero-Hour Workweek.” I love the idea of it. It’s something that I apply to what I’m doing today.

It would be good for you to share with my readers what “zero-hour workweek” means.

Jonathan: I talked a little bit earlier about figuring out that it made more sense for me to work for myself, and that in the beginning it really frustrated me. That was a really big, eye-opening experience for me, realizing that I can be much happier working toward my own goals and furthering some personal mission that I have and the kind of change I want create and the difference I want to make in the world.

What really, really frustrated me is that in our society, we live in this paradigm or this – we have this framework really that says that work is a chore and life is what’s fun. We’re constantly thinking that we have to do one in order to do the other. You work in order to have your life and when you’re spending time in your “life,” you’re basically avoiding the work, and dreading and counting down the time to when you have to go back to work.

That kind of concept really frustrated me because I thought, why should there be such a big dichotomy between those things? Why can’t those things exist harmoniously? For me, it was just about realizing that even though there was this big, giant paradigm out there that was looming over me and looming over so many other people that want to do something that they’re passionate about, just because a lot of people chose to live that way, doesn’t mean that you have to choose that as well.

Because it’s not a requirement. What that paradigm is, is it’s really an agreement. So if you stop agreeing, then you can choose something different.

So what the zero-hour workweek is really about, what this whole philosophy is really about, is realizing that there doesn’t have to be a boundary between your work on one hand and your life on the other hand.

There doesn’t need to be any compartmentalization.

Your work can be your life, and your life can be your work, and that’s actually the best way to live.

Michael: All right. Yeah. That really makes sense. So you’ve been running your own Internet business for a while now. Life online and the whole Internet gives you the freedom, most of the time, to do what you want when you want. What would you say the Internet lifestyle means to you?

Jonathan: It’s given me the freedom to do a lot of different things. I study martial arts and I can do Jeet Kune Do during the day whenever I want, which is something I wouldn’t want to have to try to do in an office, because I’d probably get thrown out by security or something. [laughs]

It’s allowed me to book a plane ticket within a couple of weeks and go fly out and spend time with my family without having to ask a boss if it’s OK. It’s allowed me to do a lot of things. I can basically set my own schedule and work when I want.

That’s something I’ve really had to train myself to realize, that I have the ability to do that. Because when you leave the 9-to-5, you can start bringing in those old patterns with you to your new work.

So that’s something I’ve had to constantly remind myself that I can work four hours in the morning, take five hours off and spend the afternoon with my wife and go see a movie or something and then I can work a little bit more at night.

It’s really just about how you want to design it and that’s really the coolest thing to me. It’s really like constantly evolving process of seeing, OK, this is cool. This doesn’t work. What do I want to change and just keep refining it?

Michael: Right. And one of the main things you talk about in your blog is how it came in your dreams of being who you wanted to be. So many people aren’t able to live their dreams and do the things they want to be.

Which is kind of silly, because it’s 2009, we can do whatever we want. What would you say to those people, whoever it is, to make money and then do something or just to take something off their bucket list and get something done?

Jonathan: It really comes back to that whole thinking that you have to live by what you believe is the proper way to live or what is the acceptable way to live. And really, if you find that you take those risks and you do what you want to do, you’re going to find out that your whole life didn’t fall apart and nothing exploded. [laughs] And that everything is OK and it’s going to work out.

So I think start taking small risks and start challenging the status quo in your life. Start with little things and then build your way up to the things that really scare you. As you kind of build that courage, I guess, then it will be easier and easier for you to do it with the bigger things in your life, like say quitting your job or something like that.

Michael: Wicked, that sounds good. So you start making money online and you started taking all the dreams you want to do yourself and just living life how you want to, on your own terms. If you could gain a time machine and go back and do it all again, what would you do differently?

Jonathan: I think one of the things that I would do differently is start out with my business operating it as a business and as a real professional. So a lot of bloggers — and this goes back to that monetization mindset. A lot of bloggers and myself, I was guilty of this, too. They just want to run a blog and they just want to do something that’s fun and they don’t want to treat it like a business.

They don’t want to be a marketer. They don’t want to have to do accounting. They don’t want to have to do administrative stuff. They just want to run their blog and then put up some ads and hopefully they’ll make a few hundred dollars a month and then everything will be fine.

But if I had to go back, I would change that and I would start out that this is my business. I’m setting up my corporation. I’m setting up my books. I’m setting up my accounting. I’m setting up all my systems. I’m treating this as a real professional business and figuring out what are the things that I need to do to make money are and then kind of use that as a tool to be a little bit more serious about it.

Because I think that once you make that shift, it’s a lot easier to start creating the income and start getting the other stuff rolling, because you don’t have as much mental resistance.

Michael: No. Completely great. Its something most bloggers get wrong. Especially with the whole having accounts and stuff, because it’s something where a lot of people slip up. I think from the beginning you’ve got to realize, is this what you want, to make money online, or is it just the fact that you have a voice and you want people to hear it?

That’s definitely important, you can talk about. OK, I’ve got a few quick questions – just two. What did you like most about the Internet?

Jonathan: I like that it’s able to connect so many different people that have different interests. So it really empowers community and it empowers tribes. I think that’s my favorite thing.

Michael: Wicked. What do you like least about the Internet?

Jonathan: I like least that it can, if you are not careful, stop you from realizing that there’s another more intimate version of the Internet or Internet version of reality out there. So you can forget that you can email someone 100 times, but if you just pick up the phone once, you can likely make a deal with someone in five minutes.

So it can be easy to forget stuff like that and it can be easy to forget the value of kind of the face-to-face communication.

Michael: So that’s a fair point. What’s the best advice you have ever been given?

Jonathan: Whoa. [laughs] The best advice I have ever been given. I think the best advice I have ever been given it to not take life too seriously and to realize that it isn’t going to kill you if you don’t get everything done on your to-list today. It’s not going to make that much of a difference in the long run. You are not going to be sitting on your deathbed wishing that you would have installed a better productivity system.

Michael: All right, cool. And who do you look up to model yourself on?

Jonathan: One person I look up to a lot is my martial arts teacher. And just living consciously and being more aware of your health. Another person I look up to is Steve Pavlina, the personal development blogger.

In the marketing niche I look up to Eben Pagan a lot.

Michael: Great.

Jonathan: So those just a few people.

Michael: They are good people to model yourself on. Very cool people. All right. Thanks very much, Jonathan, for sharing some great advice with us.

Find out more about Jonathan Mead at http://paidtoexist.com

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