The Death of Broadcast Advertising...
Vinay Patankar · 15 Apr, 2011 · Business
It has been a topic of discussion for some time now that broadcast advertising has been losing its effectiveness. I mean seriously, when was the last time you saw a billboard on the side of the road, picked up a phone and called the number displayed? Maybe recently, but it was probably a fluke. Broadcast advertising is basically the same as spam - untargeted advertising to the masses. Not that spam doesn’t work, it does. But it is not the most effective method of advertising. Examples of broadcast advertising include: - TV - Radio - Newspaper - Billboards - Cold Calling - Junk mail - Etc... These methods, while targeted to a small level (like you know that mostly females watch The Bachelor so you advertise female oriented products during the airing of that show), in modern age of today, you can do so much better. With the technology and data that exists today, it is much easier to find, track and target your audience down to an almost exact science. Here are some targeted advertising options to consider: Search Advertising I’m sure most of you know what search advertising, most people in the world have probably clicked on a Google search advertisement at some point in their lives. But you know why you clicked on it? Because you were searching for it, it works. Facebook Advertising Most people tell Facebook what their likes and interest are. So target people who are interested in what you have to offer... Sponsored Emails There are email newsletters in EVERY single market in the world. Instead of broadcasting to your general demographic, why not purchase an advertisement on an email list from people who have already indicated they are interested in what you have to offer? Retargeting Retargeting or behavioural retargeting is genius. You may have seen this happen to you already, but basically if you visit a site of a certain type (say a stock trading website) you can then follow that same customer across different sites showing them the same advertisement until eventually they buy. Needless to say, there are many other methods of targeted advertising that all work very well. And a good combination of broadcast and targeted advertising can work wonders too (think broadcast advertising to determine your target market, then retargeting that customer until they buy). But if you find yourself stuck in the old school mentality of broadcast advertising only, you need to get with the times... Related read in Business: Long SaaS Ramp of Death.
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Just say YES! And a Tattoo!
Vinay Patankar · 17 Feb, 2011 · People · Travel
For the last year or so I have been trying to live my life much like the Yes Man (you know that good book by that guy and the crappy movie with Jim Carrey). It’s amazing what can happen in your life if you just say yes. There are a whole bunch of quotes I could pull to this argument and I have talked about the importance of decision making in the past. Men (and women) should make decisions and that decision should be yes – most of the time anyway. And once you say yes, you need to DO IT, and DO IT GOOD! Take my last 2 years for example. I made the decision to quit my job and travel. I then made a decision to make money while I travel. I travelled all over the world (South East Asia, Europe and North America) while making money and having all sorts of crazy experiences which I loved. While I was in Canada, I made a decision to enter the Shoemoney Contest which I won controversially and lead me to Vegas. In Vegas I met Adolfo Salazar who I now work for. I met Shoemoney and DK who are great guys. I moved to Tempe, Arizona to work with Adolfo for a couple of months, I then plan to spend Summer in Costa Rica. This is life in Tempe: In March I am going to Vegas for Lead Con, Austin for SXSW, Lake Havasu for Spring Break and Miami for Ultra Music Festival. While I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t decide to say yes, I also wouldn’t be here if I didn’t have support and help of others. Such as my uncle in Vancouver, Adolfo and Jeremy Schoemaker. Humans are social creatures and we progress much faster when we work together (something many internet marketers don’t embrace). Relationships are everything. Relationships are created through commonalities and shared experiences and are maintained through loyalty and trust. And because I promised to get a Shoemoney tattoo if I won the contest AND the black jack hand here it is.... Now that’s Abstract Living... And thanks again Jeremy, my life has changed directions (once more) thanks to you. Related read in People: Networking Awesomely Review.
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How I Created an Info Product
Vinay Patankar · 15 Feb, 2011 · Business
I just did a guest post on how I created an info product on Dr David Klein's (DK) blog. DK is one of the best known internet marketers marketers out there and is a regular at all the industry events. I met him at ASW and have been working with him since. Check out the post I did by clicking here. Related read in Business: Product Idea: Hairdresser Poncho with a Clear Window for Phone/Magazines.
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Interview with E-Commerce Store Owner - Padma Pandya
Vinay Patankar · 30 Jan, 2011 · Business
I posed an interview that I did with Padma Pandya from GreenDoggieBags.com on Eshopwiz. Click Here to Check it Out A strong follow-up in Business is Start-Up Idea: TailSearch - Search for Retail Stores.
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$2,000 Black Jack Hand - #ASW11
Vinay Patankar · 22 Jan, 2011 · Travel
Here is the video of the $2,000 Blackjack hand I did at Vegas. Here is the story in case you missed it: - Shoemoney's Crazy Affiliate Summit West Contest - My Entry - Finalists Announced - The Controversy - Winner Announced! - A day at ASW - ASW - Recap, Photos and Video ## Video of the $2k Blackjack Hand Awesome time, thanks Shoemoney! A strong follow-up in Travel is A Day at Affiliate Summit West 2011 #ASW11.
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Affiliate Summit West #ASW11 - Recap, Video and Photos
Vinay Patankar · 20 Jan, 2011 · Business · Travel
Its been more than a week since I have gotten back from Affiliate Summit West 2011 (#ASW11) and wheels are turning. I am thinking it may have been the most productive few days of my life, even though all I did was get wasted all night and wake up at 5pm each day. Here is a video of my time in Vegas. (click here if you cant see the video) You may notice there is very little of the 'actual conference'. That's because I didn't really go to much of the 'actual conference'.... Hell I didn't even use my free breakfast's, lunches and I think I used about 2/10 of my drink vouchers... Some people may say that I wasted the time there because I didn't go to any of the sessions and didn't learn anything (which I know is what many of the others who entered Shoemoney's Contest wanted to do. But I beg to differ. I learned HEAPS. But what I learned, will never be told at a session or keynote. Its the real shit. I also made some deep relationships. I went to Affiliate Summit knowing nobody. Like literally nobody. But I have gotten very used to rocking up to places knowing nobody and quickly making friends. It is kinda necessary when you are a solo traveller. I left ASW with a bunch of new contacts. But not just business cards. Real projects that are in the works. On top of that I made new friends. It is really hard to really befriend someone when you meet them during the day at a networking event. Sure you may have things in common, sure you may have an interesting conversation, maybe even go for lunch or something. But it is still surface level. To build a relationship and you need to have shared experiences. There is almost no way around it. So how do you do this? Well... going out partying until 8am is a good start. Doing stupid shit helps too: My goal at ASW11 was to make some solid connections. I didn't want to come back with a bunch of business cards and no follow up plans and I didn't want to come back having not met anyone but listed to a bunch of speeches which I could learn in a few hours of research on my own (no disrespect to any of the speakers). But hey, that was just my strategy going in knowing nobody. Next time it will probably be a little different as I will arrange to meet people in advance now that I know a few people. What is your general conference strategy? \[gallery orderby="rand"\] A strong follow-up in Business is A Day at Affiliate Summit West 2011 #ASW11.
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A Day at Affiliate Summit West 2011 #ASW11
Vinay Patankar · 12 Jan, 2011 · Travel
4:50pm – Woke up at the Wynn overlooking Las Vegas Blv. 4:55pm – Got out of bed to check my phone that kept beeping. Had message to go to lunch – 4.5 hours ago... Organise to meet a friend downstairs for food and to watch the BCS game. 5:45pm – Get downstairs and get in line for food. 5:50pm – Realise Shoemoney is launching his new product in 10 minutes, so run off to the announcement room for the only event/speech I will see all ASW. 6-7pm – Watch product launch of Link Control and get a free lifetime pass. C ya later Hypertracker. 7:30pm – Roll with Shoemoney to play my $2k blackjack hand. I get dealt a 13 against a 10, land an 8 on the hit for 21. Dealer is 18. Winner winner chicken dinner! 8:00pm – Eat dinner/breakfast with Shoemoney and crew at Switch. 10:00pm – Head over to the Affiliate Ball at Rio with a VIP ticket. Watch 3-6 Mafia rock the house. 1:00am – Head over to the Veniusian for a drink 1:30am - Head over to XS at the Wynn 3:00am – Have a 'drink' with a nice young lady in my hotel room 7:00am – Sleep time It's a tough life... Photos and video to come For another Travel angle, read Affiliate Summit West #ASW11 - Recap, Video and Photos.
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My Half Assed and Very Late Affiliate Summit West Schedule
Vinay Patankar · 07 Jan, 2011 · Business
Tomorrow I leave for Vegas baby, second time in a few months, and second time with a $1k+ free conference ticket in my hand. The universe must want me to go to Vegas.... You rock universe! But more importantly Shoemoney, his sexy staff, all my friends and family who voted for me, all the people who don't know me but I harassed them via email or Facebook and to a few hundred random s from Mturk in some third world country. YOU ALL ROCK! If you don't already know, I am headed to Affiliate Summit West on an all expenses paid trip because I won the Shoemoney Crazy Affiliate Contest. ## Travel Plans I am a very last minute traveller. Some people spend days even weeks planning their trips. I usually wake up in a haze, walk out the door and figure out where I'm going while I'm walking. OK, that might be a bit extreme but I am closer to the latter than the former. Spending 10+ months travelling last year taught me that its not worth spending all your time planning if its going to cost you enjoyment in the moment. Plus sporadic planning can turn into crazy adventures. It can also turn into a looming and costly disaster but that’s a story for another day. I have a 9am flight which I booked at 6pm tonight. I then booked a nights’ accommodation at Circus Circus which looks very entertaining for its modest price tag, and is close to the Wynn so I wont have much of a trek in the morning when I switch to the Wynn. ## ASW Schedule Looking around the web for some things to do, I stumbled upon the Canadian Affiliate Marketing meetup which is from 5:00PM – 6:30PM at the Wynn Parasol “Up” Bar. I figure I gotta go and get my pass so could be a good opportunity to meet some Vancouverites. Then I'm headed off to DKs Poker Tourney. I figure this will give me a good opportunity to chat with people and maybe make some plans for the rest of the summit. And that's about all... Ill figure the rest out when I'm there. If anyone has any tips on specific events or parties to attend I'd be keen to hear about them. I also had some questions about whether I will be blogging live from the event. In all honest, no probably not. I'd like to, but yea, doubt its going to happen. Will try and do a few post about it when I land - if I don’t come back with 100 business ideas that lock me down for the next few months! Anyways, if anyone is at ASW hit me up. We can grab a beer. Related read in Business: Affiliate Summit West #ASW11 - Recap, Video and Photos.
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Winning the Shoemoney Crazy Affiliate Contest - P1
Vinay Patankar · 07 Jan, 2011 · Business
So as you may know by now, I was the winner of the recent Crazy Shoemoney Affiliate Summit Contest that finished up a couple of days ago. Here is the prize as it currently stands: - A platinum pass to Affiliate Summit West. - 2 nights hotel accommodations paid for at host hotel. - $500 Airfare Reimbursement. - $2000 to gamble on 1 hand of blackjack (can you handle the pressure?). - Roll with me at Affiliate Summit. - A pass to the Epic Advertising Playboy Mansion Party this fall. Very epic prize. It was a long road with many hours invested. To win, you had to write a post on your blog stating "why you should win the contest". 10 finalists were then selected by Shoemoney's staff. After that it opened up and the winner had to acquire the most votes over the course a 5 day period. In the end, I emerged triumphant with 43% of the total votes. Over the next two posts, I will give a break down of exactly what I did to win the competition. ### The Finalist Post First things first. Before anything else you had to get selected by Shoemoney's staff as a finalist. This meant a killer post. The first thing I did was assess the competition. I immediately understood that there would be no point attempting this thing half hearted. Just whacking up a useless post on my blog isn't going to win me a prize easily valued at $5k but it will deteriorate the quality of my blog and brand. So before even deciding whether to enter it or not, I had to do a quick analysis on reward/ratio. If I my chances of at least getting into the finalists were slim to none, I wouldn't even bother entering. That decision would be made solely based on the competition. In the end, there were 92 Comments with probably 70 entries to the competition. But when I made the decision to enter, there was less than 40 entrants. Firstly, this low number was very surprising. I guess that it was the holidays and what not probably meant less people were aware of the contest. Any way, I started reading through the other comments and was fairly shocked at what I saw. There were a number of entries that were 1 paragraph long, broken links and posts with clearly no thought put into them. Yes there were also a few good posts, but most of them were below par. Low numbers and low quality? Shit yeah, bring it on. When I first read the post there was two days left to enter the contest. Knowing that I had two days, there was no reason to rush the post. You should treat it like any other piece of writing you are trying to get right and write it out, let it sit, edit it, let it sit some more (something I usually don't do because it takes to long and editing is annoying but it definitely is the most effective technique). ### The Essay Approach When it came down to writing the post, the first question I had to ask my self is "What is this post trying to achieve?" this is something we all had to do in school when we were given one of those annoying questions and told to discuss it. What are you trying to achieve? Are you trying to argue a point? Solve a problem? In this case, the point was to be selected. To be chosen. So I started thinking about other types of documents that have a similar purpose. The first that came to mind was a resume, something I have lots of experience with as an ex-recruiter. A resume is a document you create so you are selected. But getting hirired for a job is not usually just from your resume, you need to do a good job selling youself to secure the position. This train of thought brought me down the path of a sales letter. Really the purpose of this post was to sell myself. Really, this post was to be a sales page. ### The Sales Page Post I am by no means an expert copy writer. But I know a little. I know what some of the key elements of a strong sales letter are. These include: - Telling a story - Building Trust - Emotional stimulation - Focusing on the benefits I started telling my story. People like dealing with people they know, so the more of a story you can tell the more trust you will build plus it makes for an enjoyable read. I continued with emotional stimulation by writing the post in a very casual manner and by sprinkling humour through the post. I then wrote a section on how I can give back and what the benefits would be of hiring me. Whether they are tangible benefits for someone like Shoemoney or not is irrelevant. They just have to be better than the benefits the other contestants were offering. Some is better than none. ### Additional Elements On top of the above elements which appear in every post I added two more of my own for this particular post: - An element to show I had done my research - A gimmick to stand out from the crowd If you see down the bottom of the post, there is a picture of a girl in a grey shirt with a CLICK HERE underneath her. This was not chosen by accident. Actually Shoemoney talked extensively about this picture in his video on Facebook advertising. By adding this element is showed that I actually knew who Shoemoney was, followed his stuff and paid attention. Plus it was slightly humours, at least I thought so anyway. The last was the tattoo gimmick. To be honest, this was chucked in right at the end. I was basically reading my post thinking shiit, I need a gimmick to close this deal and maybe more importantly, to win the votes. Sure I had a strong post, but it didn't jump out at you, there was noting overly special about it. If you see Donny Gamble's post he included the elf video and Danger Brown had a cool video of his own plus he was going to shave his head. These are two other fantastic examples of utilising a gimmick to get attention which resulted in both these guys making it to the finals. I don't know why I chose to get a tattoo. Basically I just thought it would be something that the judges would notice, people would talk about and it would make a funny story. No real reason besides it was a straight gimmick. ### The End Result Here is my winning entry. I probably spent a good 4-5 hours on it, possibly longer. Lots of that time was just reading it over and over correcting little bits and pieces. But every couple of times I read it I would get another big idea and chuck it in. As I said the tattoo idea didn't come until the very end, maybe the last or second last re-read so it definitely pays to do this. Next up securing the most votes. If this Business topic resonated, continue with Affiliate Summit West #ASW11 - Recap, Video and Photos.
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Bring on the Controversy
Vinay Patankar · 03 Jan, 2011 · Business
Electron plumber just released a post on his blog ripping into me for using Amazon Mturk as a marketing tool in the Shoemoney Affiliate Competition. Its true, I wont deny it. I did it. And kudos to him, we all gotta do what we gotta do to win and attempting to eliminate the competition is an age old strategy to win a fight. But the truth is, I didn't really have much of a choice... I worked VERY hard on this competition, not only on the entry post but also on gathering votes. I spent the good chunk of my New Years Eve and every waking moment hustling for votes until Jan 2nd untill I saw this... Those are tweets coming from a post on John Chow's blog. For those who don't know, John Chow is a very successful blogger in the Internet Marketing space whom I greatly admire and whos blog I regularly read. The only problem is, he has 118,000 readers!!! 118k wtf? that's like more than some celebrities. El Plumber was right. I am not a super star, I don't have the Alexa rankings to control the masses. I thought I had a compelling entry that would naturally attract votes, but in a situation like this that means jack. After all the work I did, blasting out to my lists, hanging on Facebook asking everyone to vote for me for 2 days straight, asking friends to post on their walls, pulling thousands of emails from every conversation I've ever had on Gmail and of all my social network connections. Even asking random girls in bars to vote for me on their smart phones. I thought I was doing pretty well and used a number of interesting marketing methods that I will post about later. While I cant see my votes, I can see the clicks from the links I was marketing and things were going pretty well. But now that a post had gone out to 120k readers the competition had been taken to a new level. After seeing the tweets, I started doing some investigation. Oh and by the way, its not just tweets, there is syndication and a whole bunch of other ridiculous stuff that happens when someone posts on a blog of that size. I wasn't sure if this was a legitimate friend-helping-a-friend-out post or if it was a brilliant paid advertisement (which I am not against by the way). I had read last years winners post as he talked about how he won the competition. He too had bought a post on John Chows blog to help him win votes. Here is his excerpt: > ### Enter John Chow > I’ve been following John and Jeremy for a long time. I’ve watched them compete against each other (to see who cold get the most RSS subscribers in an allotted time frame) and promote ZK in the Internet Marketer of the year contest. > It only seemed natural I enlist the services of John Chow and so I contacted him about the possibility of a sponsored post. It seemed like a good fit, the Shoemoney and Johnchow audience is similar and John Chow has a big following (71000 RSS subscriber and 51000 twitter followers). > I felt it would be a solid investment as it would likely bring in a lot of votes. I figured if I lost there would still be some value in the links from John Chow and some of the attention it generated. > Five bills later I had a post up on John Chow promoting me and I was feeling pretty good. > I almost when onto sponsored tweets and tried to buy a tweet from Shoemoney himself but I assumed he would decline in for conflict of interest reasons. Probably should have done it for the potential attention/linkbait anyway. Not sure if 5 bills was $500 or $10k but either way, that's lots to spend. And since John Chow's following is up significantly from last year, it would probably be even more expensive this year. I still wasn't sure if Donny had done the same thing so I dug up his post on John Chow's blog. ### This is what it looked like: ### Now see Donny Gamble's Post: Look familiar? After seeing this I thought F\*(%... I cant win this doing what I'm doing. As El Plumber said, I simply don't have a big enough following. But it seems that a media buying frenzy was about to begin. Technically speaking, if I had the funds I should have been able to buy advertisements all across the internet. Make Facebook ads with the criteria of "ages between 10-99" and plaster them up. Create PPC campaigns on every keyword and buy the front page of MSN. Buy spots on Google TV, hire a professional producer to make me an emotionally stimulating, NLP filled commercial causing people to emotionally connect with me and have a strong call to action to resulting in votes on promise of donating a billion dollars to starving children if I won... Unfortunately for me, I don't have those kind of resources.... There was no way I was going to win without some form of paid marketing approach so I started looking around at the different tools and marketing channels I have at my disposal as an internet marketer. I looked at various media buys, sponsored posts, sponsored tweets etc... But if I am going to be spending money on advertising, I am going to look for the channel that is going to bring me the best return on investment. The tool I chose is one that I have used a few times provided by Amazon. ### Enter Mturk Mturk or Amazon Mechanical Turk is basically a service where you can find people to complete a small task for a small price. You can have them do things like comment on a blog, bump up a post on Digg or vote for you in some competition. I thought about running a PPC campaign and paying anywhere from $0.10-$2.00 per click and not be guaranteed a vote. Sure if I threw enough money at it, I would get the same results but it didn't seem like something that a smart internet marketer would do. Why pay more for the same results? With Mturk, you can have an action completed for you for a set price. Depending on the difficulty of the action, you might pay anywhere from $0.05-$2 per HIT (Human Intelligence Tasks). Since this task was a very simple one "go to a web site and click vote" I created a campaign paying $0.05 per HIT. Not sure what Donny's ROI will be on his John Chow investment, say he paid $1000 and got 1000 votes (less than a 1% conversion) its still pretty expensive. I figured 118k readers, even if he had a 1% conversion that would be 1180 votes. So I structured the hit to be 909 votes, with fees that worked out to be exactly $50. Pretty good investment I thought plus I felt I had already done pretty well in the natural voting part, I just needed something to counter the big influx of votes Donny would get from John Chow. ### The Results? Firstly, nobody knows where they stand so its all very exciting. It's completely up to Shoemoney and his staff on how they choose a winner. I didnt do anything illegal, there are no rules stating what marketing tools can and cannot be used. But this isn't a democracy that is going on here so my fate and that of the other marketers lies in the hands of Shoemoney and his staff. I'm sure if someone had access to Oprah they would ask her to do a shout out for them. If that were the case all the Mturkers in the world probably wouldn't help. It is clear that the final portion of a competition like this is not about the quality of your entry, but about who you know, your ability to leverage marketing channels and the resources at your disposal. Much like business in the real world. All I can say is that I really want to win this competition. I needed a paid marketing channel to stay in the game and this was the most financially viable channel to use. Good luck to the other contestants, I hope your marketing efforts don't work as well as mine, but if I don't win, I hope you post about how you did so I can learn and grow. For another Business angle, read Social Network Shopping.
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Step by Step Guide to Hiring a Virtual Assistant (or How I Hired my First VA)
Vinay Patankar · 31 Dec, 2010 · Business
A few weeks ago I hired my first VA (Virtual Assistant) on OnlineJobs.ph. I have outsourced things before like development projects to Elance (now UpWork) and little bits here and there to Fiverr (which rocks, by the way, the amount of stuff you can get done for $5 is amazing) but this was my first venture into hiring a full time VA. For those who don’t know what a VA is, here an excerpt from Wikipedia: > A virtual assistant (typically abbreviated to VA, also called a virtual office assistant) is an entrepreneur who provides professional administrative, technical, or creative (social) assistance to clients from a home office. Because virtual assistants are independent contractors rather than employees, clients are not responsible for any employee-related taxes, insurance or benefits. Clients also avoid the logistical problem of providing extra office space, equipment or supplies. ### Task list Firstly I made a task list. I outlined all the things I knew I had to do on a regular basis and that I do not enjoy doing. When choosing the tasks you want to outsource there are a few things you should consider. The first thing should be what you dislike the most. The more you dislike the task, the more you should want to outsource it. The second is how much it will cost to outsource. You may hate copywriting, but if you don’t want to fork out tens of thousands to get your sales material written, then you’re probably going to do it yourself. For me, the things I outsourced for my first VA were: 1. Article Writing. I don’t mind writing (although I do dislike editing) but I can’t stand writing about the same topic over and over, rewriting articles and writing spun articles. And this is something that needs to be done over and over. So this was high on my list. 2. Creating profiles and submitting stuff. From articles to ebooks to software to slides. Submitting stuff is very time consuming and drives me nuts. 3. Social media profile building. Again, not hard just monotonous and time-consuming. There is more than enough work there for a full-time employee, and tasks like article writing can easily be expanded. There is never enough articles you are writing. ### Finding staff To find resumes I looking around the few of the job boards, but I found OnlineJobs.ph to be the best, \UPDATE: Another new one to check out is [Outsourcely\]. For my search criteria, all I did was type in “article writer” and sort by date so that the newer resumes came up first. When assessing the skills that your worker needs, always make sure you target the skill that will be the hardest to train in. For me, it's going to be much harder to teach someone how to write well than it will be to teach them how to submit to a certain site or use a certain social network so writing was the key metric I was looking for. If you are hiring a programmer, it would be their core language skill (PHP, Java) etc... Contacting Staff Before I started searching, I wrote up a quick email. Here it is below: Subject: Article Writing and SEO Position for Australian Company > Hi XXXXX, > I saw your resume on OnlineJobs.ph and I'm looking for a person who can do the following: > Job Description > - Article and Blog Post Research > - Article Writing > - Article Submission > - Web 2.0 website creation > - Ebook creation > - Directory Submission > - Wordpress Blog Updating > - Other Traffic Generation Strategies > I am looking for someone to work a full time position, working 9am-6pm 5 days a week, your local time. > Salary starts at $250 USD per month and goes up depending on performance > I am wondering if you are interested? > If you are, please provide the following: > - A full copy of your resume > - Examples of work you have done (Articles or Blog Posts) > - Your current availability Points included: - Job description - Working hours - Salary expectations - Request for more information I sent this email to ~20 people. This is the start of the screening process. Basically, you are trying to see how well they take instructions. I have already given some instructions here, and if they do not answer the above three questions correctly, they are instantly disqualified. Some people responded asking me questions, or with just weird answers, they were instantly disqualified. A few (about 7) responded with the correct information. Those that did, I moved on to the next step. ### Screening To screen my staff, I gave them a task to complete. Again, I got this idea from Tyrone’s Mass Outsource (no longer being sold) and I am SO glad I did this step. I wouldn't have thought of this myself, even though as a recruiter I have been extensively exposed to this method, I just didn’t think people would do it for me seeing how I’m not a big company with a solid reputation. But it was the best thing I could have done. Here is the task I gave them: > Hi XXXX, > Thank you for your response. > To make sure you are suitable for the position, I would first like you to complete a task for me. > Please send me an email at the point you start the task, and at final email. This way I will know how long it took for you to complete the task. > Below are the instructions: > 1. Write an article of 400-500 words on the keyword "Ecommerce Strategies" > 2. Use the following in the resource box: Finally, if you want to build an e-commerce store, you should watch the free video course on how to build an online store at eshopwiz. This will take you through the exact steps you need to build your own online store. > 3. Submit the article to the top 3 article directories > 4. Create necessary article and email accounts > 5. Forward me the directories and logins so I can check the task has been completed. > Note: > It is not necessary for the articles to be approved yet, I just want to be able to read them and see that they have been submitted correctly. > If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact me. > Kind regards, > Vinay This is what separated the superstars from the super\\\\\\\* people that looked good on paper that said they had all this experience doing exactly what I wanted either didn't respond to the task or came back with very silly questions. Only two completed the task and one was exceptionally better than the other. The idea is to give them detailed instructions, but not too detailed. I would give more details than this in a real project such as what directories to submit to, what secondary keywords to focus on etc... but for this task you want to see what they are capable of on their own. At this point, I had 1 candidate left. So I was pretty comfortable. But for the final step, I got on the phone with her. If I had two or three left I would have done the same, but I think getting it down to three is the target I will have in the future. ### The Phone Call I have done phone screenings thousands of times as a recruiter so this wasn't really anything new to me. What I really wanted to get a feel for was her living situation and her motivation for taking the job. Plus I wanted to weave out gaps in her resume. Without going into too much detail, green lights are things like ‘family’ and ‘long term’ with good reasons that they left their previous jobs. Red lights are ‘need money’, ‘no family’ and ‘first time’ as these show lack of stability and experience. After she ticked lots of green light boxes, I offered her the position on the phone and she started the next day. The whole process happened over 3 days. And so far she has been great! Hiring an outsourcer is something I recommend anyone who is in a position to do, do. It drastically increases your productivity, lifts your mood and adds more structure to your business. Related read in Business: My First Collaborative Ebook is Here!.
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I’m a Finalist!! VOTE NOW! :)
Vinay Patankar · 31 Dec, 2010 · Business
Hey there sexy people, It seems my entry for Shoemoney's crazy affiliate west contest made it into the top 10 finalists!!! Here is the mega awesome prize if you have forgotten: - A platinum pass to Affiliate Summit West. - 2 nights hotel accommodations paid for at host hotel. - $500 Airfare Reimbursement. - $2000 to gamble on 1 hand of blackjack (can you handle the pressure?). - Roll with me at Affiliate Summit. - A pass to the Epic Advertising Playboy Mansion Party this fall. Please vote for me \[ Vinay \] by CLICKING HERE # CLICK HERE # VOTE OR DIE # CLICK IF UR SEXY # SALSA IS AWESOME Related read in Business: How I Created an Info Product.
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