Selecting a web hosting plan is a critical part of your online marketing plan. This is because your site entirely relies on the web host. I’d like to explore 3 different things you should consider before selecting your website host…

We recommend Host Gator as your website host

Website chat support is very important

First, only purchase web hosting that will provide chat services for all hours of the day, on every day. When selecting a web hosting company, the chat service function is very imperative because you never know when or how you might have a technical problem with your website that will need the attention of your web hosting company immediately. These problems can simply be handled if you utilize the chat function instead of going through numerous emails.

Not only is this a time consuming labor intensive task, but it is also not very effective when you have to take care of immediate situations. Besides, this feature is very good if you are new to the industry and you do not know what you are doing yet. When handling technical issues, it will always be a smart thing to have some kind of chat support.

What is their refund policy?

Secondly, checkout that hosting company’s policy for refunds. Be certain that you do have any financial hassles in the future. You should comb through the refund policy papers of your web host in detail and be cautious. This is because sometimes there might be fine print that you did not see. This could be a bad thing for you in the future.

If you have any questions, then get in touch with customer service. As them to clarify whatever you have questions about instead of just making assumptions. If you are going to use the refund policy as a means to test a service, then you have to make sure that your money is in a safe spot. It is no fun having to sit on the internet trying to get your money back because things did not work out they way that you wanted them to.

Uptime, loading time and bandwidth

Last, you must keep a watch out on your web host. Why do this? So that you receive everything that was promised to you in the hosting company’s package. You should look into things such as the uptime, the page loading time, the bandwidth that is used and other important things that should be monitored. If you suspect that something is not working properly or living up to your expectations, then let your web host know about it.

The sooner you take care of these issues, the better things will be overall. Even though there are numerous web hosts available, picking the right one that you need is very crucial.

The one task that all businesses have in common is promotion and marketing – but have you considered integrating online AND offline marketing?

Have you tried going offline to hunt for new business?

Recently, there has been a big interest in offline marketing, and using it to promote an online business. There is so much available offline, and we believe an extremely small percentage of online marketers have not bothered with it. Since a large number of people still don’t use the Internet that avidly, there is definitely an opportunity when it comes down to leveraging offline marketing to sell your online products.

Try the simplest resources and methods

Offline marketing is always about using the simplest resources and methods to deliver extraordinary results. Believe it or not, marketing with flyers is still a viable method. Every town and city has lots of bulletin boards in public places, and all you need to do is put your flyer up on them. Always remember to talk to the public about how much they will get out of your business or service. But do not forget to put your contact information or your website domain name. Once you’re done, simply tack the flyers to all the bulletin boards in your area.

Too much email

Obviously email marketing is still going strong after all these years. But, due to the popularity of email, one unfortunate consequence is we are all bombarded with too much of it. So what we are leading up to is to think about returning to regular postal mail for some things. So while this is not for everybody, it can be made to work for you. What you do with it will depend on your business and overall goals.

How you essentially capitalize on this will depend on your business plus your business objectives and plans. Some people are still finding that postal snail mail can work quite well for particular business models.

Hiring an offline sales force

Have you ever stopped to think about hiring an offline sales team to perform marketing for you? You don’t even have to pay them anything unless they make a sale. There are so many ways to get this one going, and you will need to carefully set up the infrastructure to accomplish this. Whatever route you choose to go with, as long as you have a bit of investment ready with you, this is an excellent method to market your online business and take it to the next level with the help of offline marketing.

In conclusion, online-offline integration is really not rocket science, especially when you’re setting your e-marketing plan in motion. We believe if you find your target audience offline like where they hang out, then you will have a better time of it. The only thing that you need to keep in mind is that if you want your offline marketing efforts to give results, then take it one step at a time and don’t rush in. The key to results is slow and steady wins the race and will every time.

There are many people who have made a lot of money in the business of Internet marketing. Then why haven’t you managed to grow your internet marketing business? It could be because you aren’t taking the right road to success!

Are you following the road to success?

You must be dedicated, passionate, and committed to your cause before you even see the results coming in. However, once you begin taking consistent action, there is no reason at all that this business model won’t work for you. You’ll actually be ahead of most of your competition if you can simply take the right action.

Stop allowing fear to keep you from reaching your goals

Stop allowing fear to keep you from reaching your SMART goals – that’s the first step you have to take. Don’t think in terms of failure or success but in experimenting to find your best path. Get excited about finding out what happens instead of dreading the results. This will bring in curiosity and make you more excited about taking action, rather than taking you away from it. One way to do this is to take that free report you’ve been meaning to create for your subscribers and give it to them just to see how they’ll react; treat it like an experiment and take note of the results.

Go beyond that inner voice that stops you

Procrastination is the one element that will make you lose sight of success. You could have the greatest idea for a product, which is ideal for your specific market, but if you do nothing about it , it will remain an idea. You need to go beyond that inner voice that stops you. Make yourself believe that by making the right move, you will succeed. But what is the best way to handle procrastination? Just take that first step. It does not matter that things will not be perfect. What is more important is that you took action.

It wasn’t as bad as it looked

Once you get started, you’ll come to realize that it wasn’t as bad as it looked. We generally make up bad things in your minds and create problems more worse than they actually are. This stops us from taking any type of action. Make your Internet marketing goals more important than any other goals. Make sure that no matter what, any kind of procrastination won’t be able to stop you.

Take at least one day off a week

The occasional day off is not a luxury it’s a necessity. Yes, not working or taking action on your online marketing plan can have a negative impact on your bottom line but working too much can as well. Take at least one day off a week to relax and let go. Doing this gives you a perfect opportunity to let work go, enjoy time with friends and family, and maintain your work-life balance. Your ability to find the road to success, surprising as it sounds, may very well depend on your ability to take the occasional day off.

It might not be the easiest thing in the world, especially when you’re starting out; but when you start enjoying the benefits of taking consistent action, you won’t stop. The beauty of learning to take action is that it helps you build success upon success, which becomes a continuous process, helping you reach a goal after goal. Now is the time to kick fear to the curb and see just how much you can accomplish by putting these straightforward steps to work for you.

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Our 69th podcast episode is an interview with Chris Ducker, founder of Virtual Staff Finder which is based in the Philippines. Chris is a specialist on virtual assistant hire, and we discuss the following in our conversation:

Chris Ducker

• Why the Philippines is a hot spot for outsourcing
• The longevity of the Philippines outsourcing opportunity
• Whether hiring a virtual assistant is similar to hiring a freelancer
• If it’s reasonable to expect your virtual assistant to do a good job for you working from home in the Philippines
• How much you should pay your Philippines based virtual assistant
• How easy it is to train your Philippines based VA
• How to communicate with your VA
• What software to use
• Whether you should share bank details etc. with your VA
• The future of outsourcing
• A few final tips on how to hire a virtual assistant

You can find out more / get in touch with Chris via his Virtual Staff Finder website.

Remember to subscribe to our internet marketing podcast for more great interviews and add your comments below about this interview.

Here’s the full Chris Ducker interview transcript:

00:00 David Bain: I’m joined today by Chris Ducker, founder of Live2Sell Group, now with 250 employees based in the Philippines. In January 2010, he launched the Virtual Business Lifestyle blog with an aim to become a virtual CEO himself, which he achieved by the end of the year. Chris, may thanks for joining me.

00:19 Chris Ducker: Thanks very much, David. It’s a pleasure to be here.

00:22 DB: The Philippines had a big surge in popularity for outsourcing in the past of couple of years. But I understand you’ve been living there for about 10 years or so. Can you perhaps give me a brief overview of your background and how you came to be involved in the outsourcing industry?

00:37 CD: Yes, sure. No problem. Well, I’ve basically been in the sales and marketing industries for about 20 years now and after a couple of personal circumstances hit me back in the UK, I went out to Asia and took a little bit of time off and just kind of regroup things a little bit in the late 90′s. And I visited Thailand, I visited Hong Kong quite a bit, and also the Philippines as well. And to cut a slightly long story short, I’ve eventually ended up in the Philippines in 2000 where I was basically doing consulting work for a number of different telemarketing companies and corporations and set ups. I worked with people like Citibank and HSBC and a few other larger corporations before I ended up setting up the Live2Sell group in 2004, based on about two years or so of being involved in the outsourcing industry, usually in a consulting role over here. So that’s basically the path that… You know, I could go in a lot more detail but it would be quite boring for your listeners I think, you know, what I had for lunch on a certain day and that sort of thing. [chuckle] But the fact of the matter is I was in the country for about four years before I actually went ahead and set up my own company. And the reason why I did that is because I don’t really… I’ve pretty much always been involved in entrepreneurial set ups and partnerships and joint ventures and things like that, but one thing that I found when I was doing my consulting work was that, I was nine times out of ten, I was pretty much left alone to do what I was hired to do. And I got to the point where I actually sat down and figured out that, “You know what I’m actually not only helping set up, or correct or run these companies but I’m fundamentally doing it all on my own. And why the hell am I doing it for someone else to make them all the money, when I can just do it myself?” So I sank whatever savings I had. I think it was at that time, I think it’s about $40,000 or something I had saved and majority of that came to me as an inheritance and set it up. And the rest as they say is history.

02:48 DB: Excellent stuff. So, why do you think the Philippines has suddenly become, probably not but certainly as far as you’re concerned, but you know, is a hot spot for outsourcing?

02:57 CD: Well, you know, it’s probably a combination of a few things. I mean it’s certainly is not a new thing over here. And outsourcing as a whole is not a new concept. It’s been around for a long, long, long time; a lot longer than a lot of people think. For instance, I remember working for a publishing company back in London in the early 90′s and they were outsourcing all of their IT set up. So they didn’t want to hire a full-time IT manager, or whatever the case may be. So they had people come in and set up the networks and do all these sort of things and they also did very similar things with things like accounting and bookkeeping. It was a pretty small company but very, very profitable. And I think one of the reasons why is because, although they probably didn’t realized it at the time, they were utilizing what I call the power of outsourcing behind not only keeping costs low but also then been able to focus on using outsourcing as a way to be able to grow your business. So I mean, it’s not a new thing. The Philippines has been on the map for about a decade. It started out mostly with the HR and accounting and things like that, but it is now the hotspot for everything call centre-related. India used to be the headlining act in regards to that stuff, but I think with a little bit of bad press and definitely the quality of the manpower in India dropping over the last few years, the Philippines has really started coming to its own, and is now fundamentally regarded as the destination of choice for anything outsourcing.

04:40 DB: Is the quality of the manpower available going to be there over the long term, do you think, for companies looking to outsource?

04:47 CD: It’s a very… That’s a very, very good question. And I think it’s not… I don’t think it’s going to be the same standard as it is right now five years from now. And I think the main reason why that is going to happen is because I’ve seen a bit of a decrease on kind of recruiting line-ups and recruiting guidelines and things like that with the larger companies out here. I mean, there are some companies here that have 4,000-5,000 seats on their call centre floor which for me, will just give me a heart attack. [laughter] The idea of having 4,000 or 5,000 people working for me. Don’t get me wrong. I’d probably love the profit share at the end of every quarter, but I don’t think that I would like the day to day running of the company. But I mean, yeah… I mean, these are guys that are big corporations. They’ve been in business for a relatively long time. They know what they’re doing and everything. However, what I have seen them do over the last couple of years is lower down their requirements. You know, three or four, five years ago, they needed somebody who is a four-year college graduate from either a Mass Communication or a Hotel management or restaurant management or travel and hospitality. You know, something where not only were the people are educated to that college degree level but they were educated fundamentally in an industry or an industry sector which sort of revolved around English speaking language. Now, these exact same companies are literally saying, “We don’t care what course you are on, we just need you to have completed two of those four years.” So you’re seeing how things have dropped. And the reason why things have dropped is because the sheer demand from the outsourcing planet here in the Philippines has increased so much over the last few years that they haven’t been able to keep the talent pool at the same sort of number. That’s the issue. And for me, personally, with 250 people working for me as of now, I honestly don’t think that particular company of mine is going to get a whole lot bigger. It might hit to 300. I’ve always had the number of 300 in my head ever since I started it, and I guess I’d still like to be able to get to that number if I can. But the bottom line is that I think any more than that, it’s going to become very, very hard to get good, really good quality people come through. We hire as a company, our recruiting procedures are very, very strict and stringent. So it’s going to get tougher and tougher, I think. But ultimately, I still believe that the Philippines will remain the number one, the number one choice, particularly when it comes to anything voice-related.

07:44 DB: Right. Right. That’s also because the history of people being able to speak in a really good level of English over there.

07:50 CD: Oh, it’s huge. You know these guys are educated from kindergarten level — or as we would say in the UK, primary school level or whatever — and from that age group all the way up to and including college mostly in pure English. So it’s… That combined with the fact that it’s a very Westernised country anyway. You go to a 20-screen multiplex cinema, 18 of the movies that are showing are going to be American Hollywood blockbusters. And then you’ll have a couple of cheesy local comedy flicks you have playing on the remaining screens, which are atrocious. [laughter] I’ve only literally sat for a couple of them and they’re just seriously not worth the celluloid that they’re printed on.

[laughter]

08:45 DB: Well, tell, quite a few listeners, they’ve had experience hiring excellent workers from sites like oDesk or maybe even Elance. Would you say that this experience is quite similar to hiring a virtual assistant or is it entirely different?

09:00 CD: Well, I mean, oDesk and Elance and other places like that are good. I believe they’re good for getting people that you need on a per project basis. The sheer idea of putting a, I guess, with putting a profile online to try and get work and have all these people contact you is just too much… It’s just too much for most people to handle. They’re going to… Particularly in a developing country like the Philippines, they’re just going to get anything that they can get their hands on, literally. Which will 9 times out of 10, will mean that they will end up biting off more that they can actually chew and taking on board too many clients because “I want to make the money.” It’s very common, right? It is what it is. So, you know, I think that they’re great. They’re really, really great for finding people one-off projects. Let’s say, you need a logo designed or you need an intro to a podcast recording or voiceovers. You need some video work done or you need to find somebody to build a 100 links to a new website from good quality sources or whatever the case may be. That sort of or type of work is perfect for things like Elance but I believe and I mean, you know…

10:25 CD: At Live2Sell, we set up a service last year which was called Virtual Staff Finder. And what Virtual Staff Finder — and I’m not going into a full blown pitch because it’s just not right — but what Virtual Staff Finder does is what we call we bridge the gap between entrepreneur and the type of virtual assistants that don’t want to work on a project-based work, that they want a full-time job, they want a steady income, they want to work for one person and one person only. And that’s why the Virtual Staff Finder service was set up because we had so many inquiries from people that wanted or needed VAs but for whatever reason did not want to hire us a company in regards to our service-provided VAs which run at around $1200 or $1300 a month, all in. But you know, these are people that are sitting in our office early, with our backbone, our management, our infrastructure and all the rest of it.

11:21 CD: With a home-based VA, they really are home-based. So the cost is a lot less. You can get a good quality general or virtual assistant for and from between $400 to $500. So it’s a fraction of our cost. So, you know, that’s why we set that up. And that’s the big difference. If you’re an entrepreneur and a business owner and you’re looking to try and find someone that you can work with and really, truly own as a member of staff for you and your company, it’s better to utilize a service like Virtual Staff Finder than it is to try and look for those people on Elance, because it’s just the atmosphere, the environment on one of those types of sites is just, for me personally, it’s not the right breeding ground for those kind of people.

12:06 DB: Is it reasonable to expect someone who’s working from home to actually do a reasonable job for you in a full-time basis?

12:12 CD: Absolutely. Yeah, without a doubt. This always makes people wonder why the hell I do this, but I actually have two virtual assistants myself, both of them are based in Manila. I’m down in Cebu, which is about an hour away from Manila by plane and is actually the fastest growing economic zone in the country right now. But I have two virtual assistants, one has worked for me for a couple of years, the other one has been with me for a little over a year and they both do completely different things for me. But the reason why I work with those home-based VAs is because there are certain things that I do as an entrepreneur myself that I don’t want to, shall we say, bring in to my office. Nothing bulgy but [laughter] for instance, I own a handful of niche sites that I work on and I don’t necessarily want people at Live2Sell knowing everything and anything that I do from a business standpoint.

13:10 DB: True.

13:11 CD: I like to keep things a little bit separate. And it also allows me to focus on different things at different times as well. So, if I’m in the Live2Sell office, I’m there for Live2Sell. If I’m working from home or another location, then I work with my other VAs or whatever the case may be. I work with those VAs because I don’t want to lose touch of what it’s like to work with a VA, because I am kind of regarded as, I guess — I hate to use the word expert — but people look to me for knowledge and experience and how-to in regards to everything when it comes to virtual assistance. For example, I have free e-book “Saving the Day, the Virtual Way”. It’s being downloaded well over 4,000 times in just over a year. And when you have that many people downloading a book like that, you know that there’s genuine interest out there for it. And I think the harsh reality here is that, if I was to not work with virtual assistants, I don’t think I could give people the kind of feedback and info and advice that I do even if I am, and have been in the outsourcing industry for a long, long time.

14:25 DB: You mentioned $400 to $500 a month. That sort of could have blown a lot of people’s minds in UK or in the USA. Is that a reasonable amount to be paying to get a decent quality person that you want to stay with you for a reasonable length of time?

14:38 CD: Yeah, it is. I know some people that pay $250 or $300 a month which I just think is just too tight. It’s tied… That’s backside. That is, for me personally, if you want someone to stick with you and not keep continuously looking for other jobs, you need to pay them what they’re worth. And you got to understand, these are home-based workers. They have no commute. They don’t have to go out and buy different wardrobe every three months and all the rest of it. So, there are distinct advantages of working from home not just in the Philippines but anywhere for that matter. Telecommuting has become huge in the United States. Massive in the United States. So, $400 or $500 a month here in the Philippines works out, at today’s exchange rate of 43 Philippine peso to the dollar, $500 is 21,000 pesos which is about 5,000 or 6,000 above the average wage for the country. So they’re getting paid very well right there and they’re working from the comfort of their own home and I think that makes a big, big difference. Not only that, but a lot of virtual assistants will be family-orientated. They might even be single moms and because of that working from home gives them that little bit of additional flexibility. If they need to do the odd thing here and there during the daytime, they can get it done and still get the work done and get paid at the end of the month.

16:10 DB: Okay, so outsourcing businesses should have no ethical issue whatsoever with paying $400 a month for someone like that but it’s a simple matter of fact that ultimately, as he says, that’s more than the average wage which is quite incredible.

16:24 CD: Yes.

16:27 DB: So, I heard you also have to pay or advised to pay, as part of their culture, to pay a 13th month tradition in the Philippines.

16:34 CD: Well, it’s… Because people are home-based, it’s not really required.

16:40 DB: Right.

16:40 CD: As a government-mandated corporation, Live2Sell certainly needs to do it. If we don’t, we’d get into trouble. But as a home-based setup, you don’t have to pay it. But I’m on the strong belief that if you have long-term in mind with working with somebody and happy with their work, then what the hell is an extra bonus at Christmas time? We’re talking about a few hundred dollars here, not a few thousands. So, I certainly pay it to my VAs and I suggest that if you’re happy with somebody and you want to keep them with you and keep them happy particularly around that time of the year, then it’s a very good thing. Generally you’re going to need to pay that around the 15th of December.

17:23 CD: Right. What about holiday and medical cover?

17:26 CD: Not really… It doesn’t really come in to communication or conversation rather. It is what it is. I pay my VAs the flat fee every month whether they worked the full month or not. You know, there had been times when people had been sick and I got an email and “Sorry boss, I can’t work a full day today. I’ll do everything I deem is a priority or urgency basis, but I’d appreciate if I could take a little bit easier today.” I’m a good boss. [chuckle] I’m not…

18:00 DB: Yes.

18:01 CD: I’m not one of those guys that sort of cracks the whip too much. I can crack it if I need to, but you know, generally, if… Unless I’m getting an e-mail like that once a week, that’s a different ball game. But I, you know, I believe I pick my people well, and I treat them well at the same time.

18:16 DB: Okay, good stuff. And what kind of training does a virtual assistant require? How easy is it to train them? How much time is required?

18:23 CD: Well, it really depends on the task. And I mean for instance, if you’re looking for something like a web developer, nine times out of ten, the people are hiring web developers because they don’t know how to do the work themselves. So, at that point, you need to hire somebody that’s very well trained and experienced already. But generally, the majority of the training that I see taking place usually comes down to the general VA role. And the general VA can handle everything from managing social media or accounts to online research, filtering e-mail, putting together key word research, and all that sort of type of stuff. And you know, as entrepreneurs, it’s sometimes a little hard for us to let go. We tend to believe that we’re the best at everything and nobody’s better than us. I’m sure you know what I’m talking about.

19:13 DB: Absolutely.

19:14 CD: Yeah and it’s one of those things and… You know, I did a post on the blog awhile back called Ending the Entrepreneurial Madness, and I talked about everything from getting notes down and out of your head from ideas, right way to micromanaging, and all the rest of it. And I’m a strong believer that, if there are certain things that you want done in a certain way, then you need to tell somebody, or train somebody, or give them the tools they need to be able to train themselves up. And one of the things that I utilize a hell of a lot is videos. And I mean if you want… If you want to teach your VA, say, how to install WordPress onto a server, you can go to YouTube and find a video showing you how to do that. You can go to YouTube and find a video showing you how to do pretty much anything nowadays. I’m sure there are certain things that they don’t put live. [chuckle] But I’m pretty sure that the majority of the stuff you might want your general VA to do for you, there’s probably a video on YouTube right there. So, I utilize YouTube a lot for that sort of type of thing.

20:17 CD: But you can also do audio training and screen casting, and things like that as well. One thing I’ve started to do quite a bit also is share my screen via Skype, which you can now do. So, that way you can get on the audio, and speak with each other at the same time as you’re showing them how to do this, and how to do that, or where you want something placed on a website, or whatever the case may be. And I think, generally speaking, as long as the communication doors are open and you’re talking and you’re communicating properly, then training is not as much of a headache as you might think it is. Now, if you’re going to hire someone that hasn’t got a lot of experience, expect to do more training, obviously.

20:59 CD: But I mean with something like Virtual Staff Finder, for example, majority, in fact not the majority, all of our virtual assistants with Virtual Staff Finder are experienced people. They’ve got at least, usually around a minimum of about a year in regards to experience of working from a home-based setup, or working with people overseas, and things like that. And that’s another reason why I believe the service is so valuable for entrepreneurs because it means that they don’t have to spend so much time kind of micromanaging and training people particularly at the beginning of a relationship. So, yeah, it’s one of those things. But, you know, it can come down to everything from teaching people how to put together a document for you, or telling them what fonts or colour you want used, and things like that. There’s just… There’s a lot of things involved. And I think that it… A lot of the time people get a little bit scared about the idea, or sitting or having to train somebody, but you’d be surprised how smart some of these little cookies are. They’re pretty damn good at what they do nowadays.

22:10 DB: So, what kind of level and style of ongoing communication do you recommend having with your virtual assistant? Would it be a case of catching up on Skype once a week, an e-mail once a day, or more involved than that?

22:23 CD: I think it comes down to the person. Like I say, the entrepreneurs are tough buggers. I mean [chuckle] we… You know, we don’t like to let go a lot. But I, yeah myself included, I used to be an incredible micromanager, I mean, really bad micromanager and that stopped a couple of years ago and I slowly but surely took myself away from a lot things. And like you said in the intro to the podcast here, you know last year, I fundamentally removed myself from my business on a day to day basis. And I couldn’t have done that, obviously, if I hadn’t stopped being an amazing micromanager. But I think, you know, it really is a personal preference thing. A lot of people like to get a daily report, some people are happy with a weekly, kind of touch base phone call, but I think it also comes down to the type of work somebody’s doing for you, as well. If they’re doing a lot of revolving tasks, and a lot of tasks that are changing from day to day then probably a daily report of some sort is a good idea. But if their building a website, for example, then you don’t need a… They… You don’t need to know that they added three pages that day, and created three icons or buttons, and things like that. You just want to know that this is a four week project, this is where we are today, and this is where I want to be in four weeks. Give me a daily, or give me a weekly up to date kind of report as to where you are to make sure that we’re on track. So, you know, that sort of type of thing.

23:45 CD: But for me, personally, I get a daily e-mail from both of my VAs every day. But they are literally bullet point, six seven point e-mails. And you know, I can scan them within a minute, both of them. And if there’s anything I need to react upon or reply on I can do it immediately. Just write in a reply and bam, bam, bam. Done. Over and done with. But again, these are people that worked for me for sometimes so they know how I like things done and things like that. So, I think at first when you get going with somebody it might be a nice idea particularly from an entrepreneurial mindset standpoint to maybe get a daily update for the first week or two. But after that I suggest that you take it off the gas a little bit and try to take yourself out of the day-to-day side of things a little bit.

24:30 DB: Okay, so not necessary to micromanage your virtual assistant. What about software and systems? What software would an entrepreneur find most useful? I mean if you could possibly get two or three better software that are good resources for people to perhaps manage time or use for perhaps storing documents, sharing documents, and maybe communicating a little bit more effectively.

24:52 CD: Sure. Well, you know, a lot of people like to utilize project management systems. I have played around with two or three of them. There’s one called Hive Desk, there’s another one called Huddle which is a UK company, then also one called Basecamp. Now I favour Basecamp, which you can get at basecamphq.com. It’s done by the guys over at 37signals who are incredibly smart people. And why I like Basecamp is because Basecamp is very simple to use. You can… Never used it before in your life and within half an hour you know exactly how to navigate it and utilize it and all the rest of it. So, for me, Basecamp is probably the best project management system. In there you can post new projects, milestones, to-do lists. You can even message each other, share the odd file here and there, and it’s a very kind of simple, easily used project management system. When it comes to sharing documents particularly things like audio and video files, I used Dropbox which is phenomenally great. I’m a massive, massive Dropbox fan. I use it on all of my devices. I have it on my laptop, my computer at home, my iPad, my iPhone, across the board. I used it everywhere and anywhere. And I found it incredibly useful when I’m working on the hop, in other location independent places like beach resorts and things like that. I know that even if I don’t have my laptop with me, if there’s a report or a video I need to look or an audio file I need to check out quickly, I just can get straight into Dropbox and check it out by my iPhone and my iPad. So, it’s incredibly powerful, and free to start off with as well. And if you refer a few buddies you get small storage space as well. So, Dropbox is definitely another really good one. And, let me think of some more. I think Skype is a no-brainer. I think a lot of people are already involved with Skype. I’ve been on Skype for many, many years. And sometimes you can be kind of like a victim of its own success. You do get the odd choppy line here and there, but I think on the whole, Skype is a great, great piece of equipment to be able to use. I mean generally other than that I think it comes down to at that point personal preference thing. But those are the ones that I really use I would say on a day-to-day basis for sure.

27:20 DB: Okay, Chris. That sounds pretty great tips, thanks. What if it does not work out? It is not nice to talk about it, but is it difficult to fire and replace?

27:29 CD: No. I mean at the end of the day, people are home-based. And if you’re not happy with somebody just let him know. It’s one of those things unfortunately, you’re right, it’s not a nice thing to discuss but at the end of the day everybody has their, they run sort of lineup in terms of what they want from an employee. And if you’re not getting it, it’s best to remove that employee and replace them earlier rather than later. You know, simple as that. But you can go about it by just disappearing, I suppose, if you want or you can tell this person what the situation is and everything. I mean with Virtual Staff Finder we have what we call our 10-day promise where if for whatever reason the virtual assistant we found for you is not up to scratch for whatever reason, and again it differs from one person to another, and we will run through the entire process for a second time completely free of charge. And you know you can come to us and tell us that immediately as soon as you feel negatively about it. But we placed well over 70 to 80 of VAs now in the last 7 or 8 months. And we’ve done it literally handful of times. Some people are fastidious than others but fact of the matter is our sourcing setup and our testing setup is in place so that we do only get good quality people.

28:53 DB: What about things like security with different private login details like bank information. Is there anything that you wouldn’t recommend sharing with your virtual assistant?

29:03 CD: Yeah, anything moneywise for me is a no-no.

29:07 DB: Right.

29:09 CD: I think a lot of people are reluctant to give away that sort of info anyway. I certainly wouldn’t do it. I mean, it right the away down from my PayPal account, credit cards, bank. Come on, are you kidding me? No way would I ever give anybody my bank details. So, again, a personal preference part of thing. Some people have given their VAs the ability to use maximum of $100 or something on their credit card. I know some people actually overcome this by getting prepaid credit cards or debit cards where there’s 500 bucks on it and that’s what you can use if you need to purchase this book or that piece of software for me or whatever, which I guess is one way to get around it. But yeah for me anything financial for me is just off limits. That’s one of the things I will not let go off. Simple as that. As for passwords, there are things around like onepassword.com and lastpass.com that you can use where you can colloquial of your individual password which is one password and get your VA to sign in to all of those services which is one particular password, for all of those sites with one password. So it’s a lot easier obviously if at that point, the VA disappears or you fire them or whatever the case maybe. You just have to change one password not 25,000 of them. So simple as that.

30:35 DB: Okay, that is a great tip as well. What about other points? Are there any other points that prospective entrepreneurs looking to outsource should consider before making the first hire? Or is it a case of just going first and just jumping right in there with the toothpick first?

30:52 CD: Some people are happy doing that. And I guess sometimes it works out, sometimes it doesn’t. I think like anything else, anything business related. Before you do actually get involved with something, it is always a good idea to research and read up on it and really try and get to grips with the entire process from start to finish. I mean, again I hate to sort of try and go into a pitch here, but one of the reasons why I produce my free eBooks “Saving the day the virtual way”, was It was because I got all these questions on a very regular basis from people looking at hiring VAs for the first time and I just found myself writing one email after another with the same stuff. So I put the eBook together and, I mean, if any of your listeners or followers or whatever are interested, you can download the book directly from virtualassistantebook.com. And they’ll be able to sort of learn everything and anything there is to know about finding, hiring, training, motivating and working with a VA on a day to day basis. And again, it just comes down to a personal preference thing. Some people are, they have an immediate requirement. I mean you need to hire somebody ASAP. You haven’t got so much time to research. But if you got a little bit of time and you don’t mind doing a bit of research and reading, then that is always a good thing to do.

32:14 DB: Okay. And outsourcing internationally is probably still very much in ascendency. How do you see the industry changing over the next couple of years?

32:24 CD: I think it’s going to become a hell of a lot more mainstream than it is now, for sure, particularly for entrepreneurs and small business owners. Since the Four Hour Workweek book a few years back, there is definitely more and more people utilizing VAs now than they were before. And the VAs are nothing new. Tim Ferris did not discover virtual assistants. There’ve been virtual assistants working for ten odd years, you know what I mean? But I think what Tim did with a very, very good book was bring it to the mass; the mass community of entrepreneurs or savvy business owners that wanted to sort of try and leverage their time a little bit more and things like that. So ultimately, it will become more mainstream. I think that more and more markets are going to come in to play in certain countries as well. The Philippines right now does have the stronghold, but I see a lot of movement over in the Eastern European countries particularly with things like web development and iPhone Apps and things like that. And I just think that overall… We are all bang smack in the middle of the global economy now. People should not feel bad about utilizing the services of somebody outside of their own country, for two reasons. Number one, it’s going to save them money. And as a businessman or business owner, if you are not looking at the pennies and the pounds, they are not going to look after themselves, plain and simple. So that is the first reason you shouldn’t feel bad about outsourcing. The second reason is because it will help you grow your business, plain and simple. Because of the fact that you are leveraging your time, if you have to do all the things that you will give to your VA every day, there is now way in the world you could be able to strategize more, mind map more, spend more time with clients on the golf course, take more potential clients out to lunch and dinner and close more deal and produce new products and services and all the rest of that. Utilizing outsourcing enables you to incredibly leverage your own time. And as an entrepreneur or business owner, that is very, very important.

34:35 DB: So if you are an entrepreneur based in the UK now, then it will be no brainer if you are looking to take on someone else, the chances are it will definitely be an outsourced person based in the Philippines as opposed to unemployed person based in the UK?

34:50 CD: Well I mean, you’re saying no brainer, but for some people it wouldn’t be a no brainer because they might not look at it like that. For me personally, knowing what I know about the outsourcing industry… And again, I think it’s going to become a lot more mainstream two, three years now, certainly has done in the last two or three years. And it’s not necessarily just come down to the Philippines. Then there’s a lot of people all around the world that you could outsource work to. So I think just ultimately if you are a business owner and you are not utilizing outsourcing yet, it is just a matter of time before you do so doing it for a number of reasons.

35:28 DB: Great stuff. Well, you certainly given a lot of nuggets there. Are there any, maybe final tips that you don’t want to leave on?

35:39 CD: I think we’ve covered a hell of a lot in this interview actually. I’ve been interviewed a lot on this particular subject and I must say that with your questions we’re bang on. I think they are very relevant. And I hope that your listeners have been able to take or are going to be able to take away a lot from this chat because based on the type of readership that you have, I know that a lot of people listening in probably should certainly start looking outsourcing for sure if their not already doing it. But I think it all comes down to just getting your feet wet, above and beyond everything else. I think that if they haven’t been involved in outsourcing yet, have some fun with it to begin with. Hire somebody on Elance to… Whatever, phone ten of your friends up. Or maybe send twenty or thirty e-mails to invite them to a dinner party, or a barbecue, or something like that, or just have a little bit of fun with it to begin with and test the waters out a little bit. Get someone to do some online research on a product, or a service that you might be thinking about buying, or utilizing. Just get your feet wet a little bit and when people are ready to take the bigger plunge, if they want to get in touch with me, I’ll be more than happy to chat with them.

36:57 DB: Excellent. Well Chris, many thanks indeed for joining me. It’s been a pleasure. Now if people want to find more about you, or your services, what’s the best place for, for them to go to?

37:07 CD: I think probably my blog is the best place. It’s certainly the most accessible for most people nowadays. So if they want to pop over to virtualbusinesslifestyle.com, they can certainly do that.

37:18 DB: Excellent stuff. Thanks again.

37:20 CD: No problems. Take good care David.

In recent years, the online advertising industry has grown quite a lot, and it keeps growing more and more. If your website is part of a niche in which you find your contenders running outspoken ads from their promoters, it just illustrates that even you have a chance to interest advertisers and earn money from your own site.

Are you trying to attract advertisers?

Conversely, there’s some sense about why advertisers don’t go after each and every website; they wish to make their investment on the ideal website, one that has a pursued flow of visitors that would be fascinated by their products/services. It’s your responsibility to position your proposal in front of them in such a way that they are pulled toward your site without delay. So just how do you attract more advertisers to your website?

Offer fixed pricing

When you’re managing a niche website which is directed at serving greatly targeted audiences, the normal eCPM advertising illustration doesn’t really work. eCPM is basically nothing the advertiser paying a price for every thousand times the ad is shown. This is the reason that if you’re running a niche site then it is essential for you to go for a fixed pricing model in which you request a monthly payment for an exact ad.

As an illustration, it could be something like “Button Ad on Main Page – $200″. This would also put the advertisers at ease on account that they’ll be paying a onetime charge and make out for themselves if they are receiving a fine return on investment. Therefore be sure that you aren’t ever aiming toward volume pricing on a niche site.

Offer long-term reductions

If you would like to retain your clients, provide them with money off in the instance they choose an extended contract. Conversely, before your do so, make the payment terms as comprehensible as feasible so that nothing goes so that nothing becomes ignored. The cut rate that you put forward shouldn’t be too much, but as an alternative sufficient enough to grab the attention of the advertisement. Seeing as your possible advertisers would desire to get the most ideal bargain, they wouldn’t think twice prior to picking the discount offer if they truly believe your site is worth it.

Get testimonials from existing advertisers

If you’ve had happy advertisers in the past that have gotten good results after advertising on your website then make sure you post their testimonials so that your potential advertisers can get an idea of what to expect. Give your best shot at asking for feedback from every one of your advertisers subsequent to them running their ad, in order for you to be able to utilize their testimonial in the future. Furthermore, ask them if they would happy to provide an audio, or a video testimonial, because these testimonials often carry more weight than the typical plain text based ones. There are lots of different ways that you can get great testimonials – for instance, check out the video testimonials for our 13 Pillars of internet marketing seminar.

You’ll notice that making the tiniest transformations and tweaks to your site and how you provide information will make a large difference. Your advertisers are the ones that are going to help you monetize your site, so focusing on them and giving them the best experience should be your number one priority – something you can’t ignore in your website marketing plan.

Expanding your internet business is all about doing your best at everything you do to make that internet business grow from its creation to the marketing strategy you use. But in terms of taking action and being able to put things into perspective, most online companies fail miserably. So how do you actually increase sales revenue and get the results you want? So how are you supposed to raise your profits and create more sales?

Are you doing everything you can to increase sales revenue?

Be a speaker

All of the profitable business markets have events in which people within the market niche come together. Examples of this include seminars, workshops, etc. The organizers of these events are always searching for people who love speaking and can give speeches that will teach others about these sorts of things. Why not be a speaker for these kinds of events if you have a good level of expertise? These events won’t just help you get in front of future prospects; it will also give you an opportunity to network with other professionals who might want to form partnerships.

Target a good market

It’s impossible to sell everything to everybody. It is very important that you figure out who your target audience is before you start to grow your business. If you think that everybody out there can use your product you are wrong. It is important to be clear about your prospective buyers before you can start working on your marketing efforts.

Create long term relationships

A profitable business is built on good relationships–the better you are at building them the stronger your company will be. Your primary goal has to be to add value and keep your relationship with your customers in good standing even after they’ve finished purchasing from you. It is a lot easier to sell to an existing customer than it is to find a new one so maintaining relationships with your customers helps you cut down on your customer acquisition costs. Consistent communication and the regular offering of additional value to your existing customers will only help you make those relationships stronger.

Don’t ignore networking

The Internet has made networking easy; your business needs to get out there and be exposed to the right contacts. What for? As a business owner your business success is built upon having good contacts. This is where you take steps to spread the word about what you are offering, form new relationships in the business arena and get the attention of the members of your target audience. You can start networking online and then slowly move offline and start creating contacts in your industry by attending seminars, conferences, summits, etc. Your objective should be to interact with people who are like you and so that those same people will notice your business. Read these business networking tips before you get started.

While there are many factors to growing a business, the essence of all of them is the same. All of those activities can be used together to help you reach your business and marketing goals and clear the way for your comprehensive online marketing plan.

Virtual team building can be difficult if you don’t know what you’re doing – that’s why we recommend using a service like Chris Ducker’s Virtual Staff Finder. There are more opportunities for speed bumps when working virtually as opposed to working directly. When people are not immediately around you, then you have to find a way to keep things moving forward regarding meeting milestones, etc. Remember that your ability to keep your businesses virtual team functioning at a high level will determine overall success.

Chris Ducker's Virtual Staff Finder service

Focus on quality

First and foremost, realize the value of having an effective team, and whether it’s global or local you need to focus on quality. It is great to talk to your team, and you should, but take care that you do not waste any time at all on the calls. To help out, you can even email them the important points of the meeting.

Your calls should take as long as they need to cover all relevant points. How the calls are structured may depend on experience, but you should allow people some time to talk. Anything else can be talked about via email, if necessary. So the calls are reserved for the more higher priority functions. So it is imperative that you know what you want to speak about, beforehand.

Lead by example

If you want your team to perform better and give consistent results, then lead by example. Quite simply, people will naturally look to you for guidance and other things, and even if you have a virtual team, you should be able to provide it.

People will sense how committed you are to them by your words and actions, so keep that in mind with your team. If you show and have all the right attitudes, then that will be infectious. The more you can work with your team, the better their overall performance will be.

Be open and crystal clear with your requests

When communicating with your team, if you want it be effective you will have to be open and crystal clear so everyone understands everything perfectly. The responsibility of effective and timely communication rests squarely on your shoulders since your team will be working remotely, which means that you need to provide them with all the relevant information including any changes that might be taking place in your company. If you want to make them feel even more responsible, then make them part of the decision-making process. For example, you can get your team’s suggestions and input on naming a product you are getting ready to launch. You will find things much easier in the long run if you communicate frequently.

Due to the fact that your virtual team will be the ones to make things happen in the end, your prime priority should be to manage them efficiently. Start your journey by downloading Chris Ducker’s top 10 tips on how to work with your virtual assistant.

It’s interesting to see how top Internet marketers test out various prices over a period of time, and end up making more by simply tweaking product pricing strategies. There are many factors involved in how well products convert into sales and the price is an important factor. There are certain things you should keep in mind as you work to find the best price for your product or service. I’d like to explore a few simple tips that are very effective for helping you determine the strategy and tactics of pricing.

Product Pricing Strategies - An essential element of the 4 P's, the marketing mix

Do your product offers more value than your competitors’ products?

Tirst of all, take the time to check whether your product offers more value than your competitors are offering. If your product is superior in some way, you’re justified in raising your price. But this step only works if you understand exactly how your product differs from that of your competition. Is your product offering customers better features? More information offered? Larger number of bonuses? Is the value of your product perceived to be higher? You need to know the answers to these questions so you’ll know what price will represent value to your customers.

Do you offer better features or extra quality?

Do you offer better features or extra quality over your competitors? If yes, you have the advantage of raising your price over theirs because you can deliver that extra value. You have the opportunity to stand apart from your competitors while simultaneously showing your prospects that your higher prices are still justifiable because of the higher quality. (According to the Social Times, product quality is one of the 5 overlooked risks for small businesses.) So those customers who are actively seeking higher quality products will be happy to pay the extra money.

Once you’ve set your price, be sure to stand by it

Don’t make the mistake of running too many sales. Holding sales sends the message to your audience that the product isn’t worth the original price. People aren’t going to be willing to pay full price if they believe they can wait a little while and get a better price instead. The better option is to set one price that you feel is appropriate for what your product has to offer. You do not want to make the price too high or too low. Once you’ve set your price, be sure to stand by it. Remember, your CPA will remain the same during a sale.

In conclusion, you ned to be diligent about watching the simple things can help to determine the right price to charge for your product. While there are plenty of reasons why sales might slump, you can alleviate some of them if you take care to work out your pricing strategy correctly. Use these tips to sort out your own product pricing at the very beginning of your website marketing plan and the results could surprise you.

Any online business person with good experience knows that joint venture marketing agreements have the potential to provide explosive profits. What makes JVs so attractive is the prospect of realizing terrific returns and ROI in the fastest possible time. The best part about joint venture marketing is that it doesn’t have to be limited and you have the freedom to experiment with it as long as your partner is fine. This article will talk about several joint venture mistakes that tend to happen all too frequently.

Should you shake hands on a joint venture marketing deal?

Are you familiar with your venture partner?

First, you have to be familiar with your venture partner if you want success. You must make sure that your partner has quality products and is credible. This is because your joint venture can greatly impact your reputation if you are using the wrong one. It is a necessity that you recognize how essential it is to get the correct partner. All in all, your reputation is of the most importance, which should be amplified great methods for venture partner down on your partner’s share no matter what.

There needs to be a relationship with the list

That is precisely why you have to determine the strength of the relationship between the list and the person on the other side – social commerce is one of the new buzz words of 2011. In order to make any type of joint venture successful, there needs to be a relationship with the list, or else getting a response from your endorsement email becomes difficult. A marketing email list by definition is supposed to be developed in terms of a good relationship, and if it is not then anything you send will just sound like any other sales pitch. That is why you really must be positive that the other half of the deal has a solid email list and that you’re connecting as well as marketing.

Sell towards buyers, not prospects

Finally, selling towards potential prospects instead of buyers is a waste of time. Quite honestly, if you are setting up joint venture marketing, would it be a smart move to give your partner a list of buyers? Prospects will always be prospects, since they don’t have a relationship with you. Once someone has made a purchase from you, it is probably a good chance that they will purchase again. Be certain that you target buyers and not prospects if you want to gain the most from your joint venture. You will truly get more of a response.

All in all, this summary proves that joint venture marketing strategies will be around for a long time. It is the easiest method for leveraging the assets of your partner for mutual benefit. In order to get the best joint venture over time, you must really practice and understand what you are doing over period time. But the key to success lies in taking consistent action. So go ahead and apply what you’ve learned in this article and don’t make any blunders that may prove to be costly in the long run. Remember that your online marketing plan relies on your being consistent so do not stop this action.

A little bird told me that Jeff Walker‘s due to start the pre-launch sequence for his Product Launch Formula training program.

Jeff Walker

If you don’t know what Product Launch formula is, it’s one of the most successful online marketing training programs in history.

Basically it trains you how to take your existing product or service – or a new product or service, and build a pre-launch sequence of events to give you the best possible chance that whatever you want to sell will fly off the shelves as soon as you launch.

Obviously if any pre-launch relationship building sequence if going to be good it’s going to be Jeff’s pre-launch sequence. That’s why you need to get on his list now. Even if you don’t intend to buy his Product launch Formula course when it launches, you’ll be able to learn an awful lot from his free pre-launch material.

If you’re still not sure whether you should get on Jeff’s list then you should listen to an interview I recorded with Jeff a couple of years ago.

I’m sure that the interview will show you that Jeff’s one of the good guys. He over-delivers and all of his content is QUALITY.

Just remember to subscribe to his updates here once you’ve finished with listening to the interview.