Lessons in Outsourcing

Like anything else, there are pros and cons to outsourcing your work. The biggest pro, of course, being that it allows you to grow your business. As you take steps further and further from doing the actual grunt work, you can focus on expanding and other high-minded pursuits. You know this, I know this, Big Buisness knows this. I've done it to a certain degree but not nearly as much as I need to.

The problem is finding reliable people for outsourcing. I was lucky in finding my author for site #3 about a year ago. I haven't worked with her much in a while but she was good, reliable, and produced the level of quality I wanted.

My other attempts at outsourcing weren't so successful. I tried to outsource my link building but that turned into a fiasco with everyone and their mom's dog wanting to submit my site to directories and not actual related content sites. That fell through completely. This latest attempt has been for my product. I've been letting someone else edit it while I review their work and ask for changes. This has lead to a long delay in getting the product to market.

Things were going smoothly until this latest incident. I had been emailing the guy last week trying to get together and finish this project but I get no response. Finally I call the guy. He says that he finished it but I know there is no possible way because there were changes that needed information from me to complete.

Who knows, maybe I'm just whining but I feel that I shouldn't have to keep my outsourcers on such a tight leash. Yes, I need to be on top of things and make sure they are doing what I pay them to do, but once you have to start micromanaging them you lose the benefit of outsourcing. What are your thoughts?

Of Sales Letters and Bonuses

I tried to post last night but Blogger was down. I'm still working on the sales letter at the moment and it is starting to look as though an October launch for the product is not going to happen. There is literally only a handful of items left to change on the product but I have not heard back from my editor. I guess that is ok since the sales letter isn't finished.

For the product, I am planning to have 3 bonuses. One of them is finished and I have the other two in the planning stages. One will be a Excel spreadsheet for the customer to use and the other will be a mini-ebook, something to the effect of a quick start guide.

One mistake I may have made (we will find out soon enough) is announcing the product's existance to early to the list. I think by doing so, I have lost some of the momentum I needed to a successful launch. Hopefully I will be able to ramp the excitement back up.

Sales Letters are Tough

I've been working on this sales letter for the past few days and I have to say it has been rough. Getting this right is critical so, of course me being me, I'm obsessing over it. The product is nearly finished (seriously this time) so hopefully I will be able to submit it to Clickbank for review this week. I really want to launch this thing before month's end.

I have come up with 3 bonuses to offer with the product. One is nearly finished while the others are still in the preliminary stages. I can say that one is a spreadsheet so that should not take too long. 764 members in the newsletter now. I get email from them everyday saying how much they like it=)

Real Estate
This weekend I gave the 30-day notice to the tenants letting them know that they had to go. That was not fun in the least.

I have noticed something. Since I stopped posting on here as much as I used to, I'm not making as much progress as I used to. This time last year I would have probably had 2 or 3 products out. I originally created this blog to make sure that I continued to make forward progress. I felt that by not posting at least every other day that I was letting down you reader-type people. It made me work so that I actually had something to post about.

Foundations, Leaky Roofs, & Making My Own Product

Yes it has been, almost a week in fact. Let's see what's been happening.

Real Estate
Picked up the keys from the tenants this weekend. I have to kick one of them out so I can move in and unfortunately the one I like is the one that has to go. They have a month to month lease so that is the only one I can move into. What makes it worse is the fact that the other person staying is one that I don't like. Oh well. His lease will be up one day and I can get rid of him too.

There are a number of things wrong with the duplex so improving them will increase the value of the property. The big things right now are fixing the foundation and the roof. The roof shouldn't be too bad but the foundation will pose a bit more of a challenge. After those two things, I want to get the place to be more energy efficient. One of the tenants complained of a $300 utility bill. There's no reason for that. I know why it is happening but that doesn't mean that it should happen. The guy who owned the place before I bought it obviously didn't care much about the property. It's mine now though so that is about to change=)


Internet Biz
I have what is close to the final edit of the product in my hands. I will review it tomorrow and get back to my editor. The list has about 720 people on it. I'm so ready to start selling this thing.

Price point: $49.95 I heard an audio not too long ago that said that there is no reason to sell a product for less than $50 so I decided to raise the price from the original $35.00. A higher price implies higher value so I might as well take the shot, right?

After the product launches, I will spend about a month split testing and getting the conversion rate high before moving on to the next product. A higher conversion rate will attract affiliates and we all know the power of affiliates, don't we?=)

Whoa! That's a Rent Check!!

Yes, yesterday I received my very first rent check as a landlord. This is crazy. People are paying me money, a nice amount too, just because I own something. It is going to take me a while to get used to that=)

The editing on the product continues, as does the prelaunch sequence. Tomorrow I will begin writing the sales page and start employing some guerilla tactics to increase traffic.

Oh, eMax is about to be on their way out. My sites are down and their tech support answering machine told me "Bye". That's great customer service for you.

Broadcast 1 is Out!

The prelaunch sequence has begun and it looks like it will be longer than an 8 day build up. I had a first look at the rough edit of the product. It is turning out well. I'm hoping to have everything ready for a launch on Friday the 13th=)

Prelaunch Prep

I spent today writing the prelaunch sequence for the product. I'll use it in the autoresponder to send a letter discussing each day for 8 days. I have 5 finished. Each broadcast letter is meant to highlight features of the product that will get people excited. They discuss questions that people in this niche have and how this product will solve it for them.

This sequence of broadcast letters will be released along side the normal newsletter issues. In the letters I make sure to let them know that there are things in the product that don't show up in the newsletter. I make it a point to have solid, free content in the newsletter. Hopefully people will think, "Hey, look at all of this great stuff he gives for free! The stuff I have to pay for must be REALLY good."

The sales letter may be a bit tough.

The Week of September 25th

When I look back years from now the week of September 25, 2006 may be one of the biggest milestones in my life...

"One thing that people will always need is a place to live." My Dad told me that when I was thirteen. Ever since then one of my main goals was to get into real estate investing. I graduated from high school and went to college but all along the way there was evidence reaffirming that real estate was the way to go. Before graduating, I made the goal of having my first property by the time I was 25. My birthday is next month... I will be 25 years old.

Yesterday, the expert and I got together and worked on the project. It is being edited as we speak and I can't wait until it is ready for launch. This is my very first product that I have developed myself. The Great Experiment. How this does will effect how I approach internet business forever, whether it does well or not.

The week of September 25, 2006. I achieved one of my main goals in life and alos entered the stages of product development for something that will belong to me, all in the same week. Crazy.