Outsourcing Monster Part 2

The forum is finished. I gave the guy a bonus because the amount he bid to do the job was really, really low for the amount of work he put in. At least it seemed that way from the outside. I also outsourced my first article distribution. We will see how that goes.

As far as directory submissions go, I'm not so sure I like the company that did the work for me. They may still be submitting my site but I haven't received any word from them about it. All of the directory confirmations have stopped coming in but the company has not sent me the Excel sheet with the directories they submitted to as they said they would. Next time I will create my own list of SEO friendly directories and outsource the work to a single person. I think there would be more accountability there and I can make sure they are doing things right.

I sent an email to 2 potential JV partners today. I asked them to promote my newsletter in return for me promoting their product. I am trying to rebuild my list after losing most of my subscribers. I spent 5 hours extracting the names and email addresses from EmailAces and making all of the necessary edits to get the list in the right format for Profollow. 1,478 people received a "Confirm your subscription" email today. I'm hoping that at least 800 do so.

I Have Become an Outsourcing Monster!

At this very moment, I have 4 projects that are being worked or bidded on. I also have another that I will initiate today after work. All of this should help to boost the product site. I have also started outlining 2 more products for that site. Both of which I would like to have out by the end of the year. I have also decided that I would have a forum installed on the site as well.

The HTAR forum is not finished. The guy said it would be ready last Tuesday, I have him until today. We will see if he can pull it off. I am in the process of trying to figure out if a product could be developed for the home theater site as well.

I need affiliates... That will be the next focus after the product creation wave.

Rough Month

Due to a number of things this month, things have been pretty rough for the Business. Even worse than last month. The part that will probably have the worst long term effect is the loss of my list. Out of the 1200 active subscribers, only 100 or so transferred over to Profollow. That is a hell of a lot of time, effort, and money down the drain. Let this be a lesson to you: Make sure you choose your autoresponder carefully.

Outsourcing is working, though. My forum will be finished on Friday, the directory submissions are underway, and I have created a new article creation project for someone to work on for me. I also started looking for a legitimate article submission service. It is actually much harder to find one than I thought it would be. Most of them have a very "fly-by-night" look to them. I'm not worrying about losing the $20-35 they charge as much as I am leery of giving out my credit card info to those who only fly at night.

Outsourcing is Fun!

Yes indeed, this outsourcing thing is where it is at. My forum is progressing slowly but you know what, it is progressing and I'm not doing work on it myself. I'm contemplating outsourcing the task of copying and editing the rest of my autoresponder messages in EmailAces. I bet for $30 I could get it taken care of. I have become so caught up in it that I look forward to my checks so that I can outsource more work. Did you know that in the 2 years I have been at this, I have not spent a single dime the Business has earned on myself? I just realized that the other day.

Anyway, I have also entered a new realm of outsourcing... directory submissions. I have found a service that will submit my site to 100 SEP friendly directories for a very reasonable price. That is hours of work that have immediately been lifted from my shoulders.

I have also added three testamonials to the salesletters and turned the PPC pipeline on for the first in weeks. I was a bit disappointed in not seeing any sales. Alas. I do have to say that adding the testamonials, scanned signature, and address do seem to make the letter more polished. We will see if polished = sales.

Rolling On

I've thrown out my monetary goals for the month because I have had to pause my product campaigns for the major revamp. I have been productive, though. Over the weekend I was able to transfer over a year's worth of autoresponder messages into Profollow. I think that it is ready to transfer my subscribers but I just haven't mustered up the courage to pull the trigger yet.

I also created somewhere between 6 and 12 middleman/Adsense pages onto the site. These are the pages that I send my subscribers to that generate income other than from my product. I have come to the realization that it doesn't matter at this point if my product is making $3000/month because I think the site/newsletter as a whole has that potential. As it grows, that amount and the amount generated by my product will increase.

In that vein, I have created different lists in Profollow. A main list that has just content (read: middleman and Adsense pages) and then sublists targeting the specific area of the niche that people are interested in at that time. When they sign up for the blue widget list, they will automatically be added to the main widget list. They will receive a content message on general widget information from me once a week and a promotion message on blue widgets once a week. This way I can hit people with promotions dealing more with what they are looking for rather than random promotions that may piss them off.

I have also started adding new elements to my salesletter. There is a scan of my signature, I have added the PO box address for the business, and I will also include a couple testamonials. I will run the salesletters in split test using the pop-ins for a week or two before deciding if that method is better than the namesqueeze.

Hellllloooo Aweber!

Yes, I have signed up for Aweber. Did it this morning and I must say that so far I love it. Actually, I signed up for Profollow which is a private-label version of Aweber. Jeff Walker of Product Launch Formula fame is the one that owns the label and promised to provide bonuses that Aweber does not. Same system, though.

Anyway, it is light-years ahead of EmailAces. I cannot recommend staying away from EmailAces enough. Don't go with them.

With that said, HTAR now has a newsletter. I was thinking about it today and if I hadn't been scared and cheap back in 2005 when I started this, I would probably have 20k+ subscribers by now for that one site. Live and learn.

I have also decided on the person to build my forum.

Multiple Me's

This is JonnyQ coming to you from the comfortable leather couch at my parents house in sunny San Antonio.

Those of you who have been reading my blog for the past two years now know my feelings about outsourcing. Toward the end of 2005, I had great ambitions in regards to constantly having articles outsourced on a monthly basis. It was not long after that that I took my first serious attempt at PPC and made my very first sale.

Since then, I have focused on PPC almost exclusively. Can you blame me though? Do SEO, get great content, slave for hours building links and submitting to directories - Result: A couple dollars in Adsense. Create a PPC campaign and a dynamic landing - Result: Sales!

Well, the circle is now complete. I am back to building the content sites but with the skills I have picked up in the past two years, things will be different. Nearly everything will be outsourced. Not just article writting - nearly everything. I just can't do it all alone. Article writing, link building, directory submissions, etc. will almost all be outsourced. I need to create a monthly budget for outsourcing and a database of my workers. I think this is the only way that I will be able to create the juggernauts I envision for my sites.

A day or two ago I started looking for someone to build an SEO-friendly forum for HTAR. The purpose of the forum is to make the search engines think that the overall site is updated regularly as people create new threads. Not only will I have static articles created and added to HTAR but I will have a forum that is constantly building the site automatically. This type of forum will be implemented on all of my content sites. On the registration page, I will also have a check box for joining my newsletter list. The forum will have Adsense or Yahoo ads on it to make sure that the new real estate is monetized. I may use Yahoo so that my CTR doesn't drop with Google.

Thanks to all of you and your suggestions for hosting. I'm going to check them all out and if I choose one that was suggested, I will try to find you and let you know so that you can give me your affiliate link. In fact, if you have suggested a hosting service leave your email address so that I can contact you. Make sure to disguise the email address so that you don't get picked up by spam bots. Keep the suggestions coming.

Growing Pains

This is going to be rough and it may (read: will) impact my goals for the year. Whether that impact will be positive or negative remains to be seen.

Growing Pain #1: New Host.
I need one bad. iPower is good and I like them a lot. The problem I have is that they only allow 6 domains per account. If I were to transfer all of my stuff to them, I should have enough room for all of my domains if I get 2 accounts. I'd still be paying the same amount I am now but there would actually be customer service available. Stark contrast to eMax Hosting.

By the way, spread the word not to use eMax. Sing it from cliffs and rooftops and in the shower.

I had to contact tech support today because I had forgotten my password to get into HTAR. Yes, it had been that long since I updated that site. I asked the guy about a solution to my problem and his answer was simple...

Dedicated server.

Unfortunately, I do not make enough to support a dedicated server, autoresponder, and PPC costs. It is something to shoot for though.


Growing Pain #2: Switch to Aweber
I knew I should have left Email Aces alone but I allowed myself to be duped by a "guru". I know, I know. I knew better but I chose to ignore my instinct. One year and over one thousand subscribers later I have finally become fed up with them. Their options, limited. Their tech support, nonexistant.

I WILL lose subscribers in the transition but Aweber will afford me greater flexibility in my marketing.

Just like real growing pains, these will hurt for the short term but will benefit the business in the long run.

Thank, Jean-Rene and Sunny Monkey for your suggestions on hosting options. If anyone has any other suggestions, let me hear them.

HELP!!!

I need a new host that will allow me to have unlimited addon domains, great tech support, and won't cost an arm and a leg.

I've had it with eMax. Every other month I have to contact their support center because something isn't working right. The latest was the mail server... again. I couldn't send outgoing mail from any of my domains I had hosted with them. When I contacted them, they didn't even look into it. They just kept saying that they tested it and things worked for them. After nearly 10 emails back and forth and being bounced to 3 or 4 different people, the last one actually looked into the problem and fixed their mail server.

If anyone has any hosting recommendations, let me hear them.

Also, I've been tagged by Empress.

5 Reasons Why I Blog:

1. Accountability - If I post something on here and say that I will do it, I feel a deeper obligation to make it happen.

2. Meet People - I've met some great people from blogging.

3. Keep a Record of My Progress

4. Get Other People's Take On My Ideas

5. Have a Place to Rant and Rave When Someone Pisses Me Off!

Burke, Jean-Rene, BJ, Jen, you are tagged.