Internet Marketing Q&A - Issue 8

It’s time to answer another set of questions from my readers. You’re in that group, so you get the benefit of the great questions your peers ask me.

A lot of people wonder why I do this. There are really three big reasons…

First, I care about whether you succeed or not. Internet marketing really isn’t rocket science…once you know what you’re doing. Before you “get it”, though, it helps a ton to have somebody actually answer real questions that real people ask along the way.

Second, even after you’re an “expert”, it’s great to get new ideas from other people. You never know when an answer to a question will press just right button in your brain…and boost your profits.

Third, I get literally thousands of emails every week, and it’s impossible to answer them all. So I set up this system to help me manage email better, while still giving you the information you need.

So read on, and I hope you enjoy the learning.

————- CURRENT ISSUE ————-

Sooner or later, every person into Internet marketing hits a bit of a roadblock. That roadblock is time. We all have only 24 hours in a day. We need to spend some of them sleeping, and it’s good to spend some of them not working on your Internet marketing business.

But many wonder how they can use their time better, increase their productivity and get more stuff done so they can have more time for other things. I’ll give you some tips in this email.

1) I’ve heard outsourcing is a good idea, but it’s expensive. Is there some way I can outsource without spending a lot of money? (asked by Javier Stransky)

ANSWER: Good question, and it lets me explain why most people think about this the wrong way.

Most people just getting started in Internet marketing have more time than money. But they consistently ignore the value of their time.

Your time is worth something. Let’s say you work part-time on your Internet business, but you have another job to help pay the bills while you’re trying to grow your online income. And let’s say you get paid $10 an hour for that job.

Now, if you have to work, say, three hours to write a really good article to get traffic to your site, how much is that article worth? That’s right, $30. What if you could hire somebody to write it for $10? That’s a pretty good deal!

The point is, your time is valuable. If you spend your time working on your Internet business, you don’t have that time to work in your other job, which costs you lost income.

Having said that, though, I realize outsourcing costs, and that you have other things to spend your money on too. That’s why I recommend using freelance sites like Elance.com.

Those freelancing sites let you post a job and get bids from lots of freelancers. You don’t have to accept a particular bid. You can look at the ones you get and pick which one you’ll accept. If you find two that look equally good, but one bids less, you can save money on your outsourcing.

Remember, the cost of outsourcing isn’t really the money you spend on it, although that counts. You also have to consider the value of your time.

2) Okay, I’m sold on the idea of outsourcing to save time, but I’ve never done it before. What kinds of things can I outsource? (asked by Lonnie Pelosi)

ANSWER: Just about anything that somebody other than you can do. That means the list is very long, but here are some ideas.

You can definitely outsource almost any writing task. That includes

* Writing articles to drive traffic to your site

* Writing ebooks to sell from your site

* Writing reports that you offer for free to attract subscribers

* Writing emails for your subscribers

* Writing blog posts, or web pages

But writing isn’t the only thing other people can do for you.

If you’re not a technical person, and you don’t like dealing with setting up websites, you can hire somebody to create minisites for you. That might save you a ton of time, and get you to the point where you can profit much sooner than if you do it yourself.

Or let’s say you just bought a great script to help make your site management easier…but it takes some skill to install. You can go to a site like ScriptLance.com and hire somebody to do that. It might take them minutes, whereas it could take you hours.

And some of the things you can hire somebody else to do are even more obvious.

For example, are you a graphic artist? Probably not, so it makes really good sense to hire somebody else to create graphics for you instead of spending a ton of time trying to learn Photoshop or something.

You might pay $50 up to a few hundred dollars for the graphics you buy, but trying to do it yourself might cost you days and still not get you the graphics you need.

3) I’ve been working myself to death on my Internet business. How can I figure out how to work more efficiently and spend more time with my kids? (asked by Jamie Seekins)

ANSWER: I know the feeling. I can remember times when I forget the last time I slept. And I can definitely understand wanting to spend more time with the kids.

The key to figuring out how to work more efficiently (and profitably) is to figure out what you spend your time on when you’re working on your Internet business.

You might keep a log of what you do every day for a week or two, then check it at the end to see if you see any common tasks or patterns.

This exercise does two things for you:

1) It lets you see if there are common things you do that you can outsource.

2) It lets you see which activities make you money, and which don’t.

It’s smart to focus your time on what brings in the most money for the least amount of effort. That should get your personal attention. You can pretty much outsource everything else eventually.

You might not start being able to outsource everything, but you’ll probably end up being able to if you focus your time on money producing tasks.

For example, let’s say you that you have a few hours a day to squeeze in on your Internet business after you get home from your day job and put the kids to bed. Your log shows you that you spend about two hours of that time writing articles to get traffic. They’re not great articles, but they bring in visitors.

Once you know that, you can hire somebody to write articles for you and spend that time on other tasks that put money in your pocket.

That’s a simple example, but there are others. Keep your log for a week or two and they’ll probably jump out at you.

4) I really can’t afford to outsource much at the moment, so I’m wondering if you have any tips for how I can work more efficiently in general? (asked by Kurt Slavik)

ANSWER: Efficiency is a skill, just like any other. That means you can learn how to be more efficient. It really takes two things:

* Paying attention to what you’re doing so you can see where you’re losing time

* Having a plan that focuses you on the most important things first

In my answer to the previous question, I talked about keeping a log for a while so you can see where you’re spending your time. That lets you know if there are things you can outsource.

But it also lets you know if you’re wasting time. I don’t mean that to sound negative. We all have a tendency to waste time! It’s easy to let time slip away and wonder where it went.

For example, let’s say your log tells you that you’re spending hours every day on email. That’s a huge time waster. If you absolutely have to do it, then do what you have to do, but you can probably cut back the time.

Once you’ve trimmed the time wasters, make a simple plan that focuses you on the most important things first. This is as simple as a to-do list with two simple rules.

First, the items on your to-do list have to be in order of importance. You should put ones that make you money near the top!

Second, starting at the top, you have to finish each item before you move on to the next one, if at all possible.

That’s not a fancy plan, but it’s the basic one time management experts like Brian Tracy talk about all the time.

When you get right down to it, working efficiently is a choice, and only you can make it.

———-

All right, that wraps it up for this time.

If you like getting answers to questions like this, ask your own question! You can submit your question by filling out the simple form at:

http://www.michaelrasmussen.com/questions/

Every couple weeks or so, I’ll go through the questions and pick out 5-6 to answer in an email to people on my lists.

Your questions are what will make this email helpful, so please keep them coming. I can’t guarantee I’ll answer your question, but if the same question gets asked several times, I’ll try to answer that one. So don’t think, “Somebody’s probably asked that already.” Maybe so, but it’s worth asking anyway.

All the best,

Michael Rasmussen
CEO, BulletProof Marketing, Inc.

P.S. If you know any Internet marketers who would enjoy this article, just send them an email with this link:
http://www.michaelrasmussen.com/internet-marketing-qa-issue-7

About the Author

Michael Rasmussen is a successful Internet Marketing Consultant and author of many top-selling eBooks. Michael has been marketing online since the early days and he knows what it takes to make money and succeed online. Stop by his Web site and subscribe to his Free monthly newsletter full strategies and techniques for successful web site promotions that can help YOU! Go to http://www.MichaelRasmussen.com

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