Growing your business means hiring employees. It is part of the game. I was a big supporter for outsourcing for many years. I ran into issues with many of the outsourced staff lying, padding their hours, working on other projects when they were supposed to be working on mine, etc. So I fired nearly my entire outsourced staff and hired everyone locally.

My reason?

Having people in the same office would allow for “synergy” to take place and more would get accomplished in less time.

I was wrong again.

Watching movies at work, IMing friends all day or working on a personal MySpace page wasn’t exactly in the job description I laid out. So I’m back to outsourcing with the lessons that I have learned. I think I have it all figured out. I’m also going to completely rip-off lessons taught to me by Howie Schwartz. It’s okay, he said I could.

Key Point: The whole purpose of outsourcing/hiring employees is to move your stress onto someone else. When it becomes a stressful situation, you’re doing it wrong and you need to make an immediate change.

Problem: Where do I go to find people to outsource to?

Testing: I have tried nearly every single major outsourcing option. Here’s who I’ve tried;

Craigs List – Brad Fallon swears by it to find good local people. That may be true in a huge city like Atlanta. But where I live (an hour away from a major city) it just isn’t going to work. All I get are Spam replies from wannabe SEOs in India.

RentaCoder – I’ve had good success with RentaCoder, but their interface is so horrible that I’m dumping it.

Agents of Value – My experience was good at first, but then productivity fell off and I had no real way to measure what they were doing. I suspected my “dedicated” team was working on other projects as I started getting completed projects emailed to me that weren’t mine. “Oh, that was a mistake, my computer wasn’t working so I was using someone else’s.” Yeah, sure you were.

Guru.com – Let’s just say I had to do a major repair in my office because of my experience here.

Traffic Assistants – We had a major problem outsourcing with them last year, and tried them again under a pen name and the experience was just as bad. Poor communication, poor work, and it was very frustrating.

Solution: oDesk.com – Out of all the options I tested, only oDesk allowed me to see exactly what my team was working on at any given moment (randomized screen captures). They also have certification tests for applicants to take so you can measure their skills BEFORE you waste time interviewing them.

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Okay, so we have our solution to find good workers, now what? First things first. Howie’s mantra is Hire Fast, but Fire Faster. Remember this and live by it. If you don’t, you will regret it and your business will suffer. Your first and foremost loyalty is to yourself and your business. No one else. While that may seem selfish, it isn’t. Because if your focus is there, you and your business will thrive and thus, your employees and family will be well taken care of.

Let me get a question out of the way that is probably on your mind right now:

Question: What if the work is not being completed to the quality you expect?

Answer: That’s your problem, not your employee’s problem. If you are unable to keep your staff doing exactly what they are suppose to do then it is entirely your fault. You MUST take responsibility.

“But I don’t have time to baby sit.” That’s right you don’t, and you shouldn’t do that job anyway. You also can’t go out there and hire a project manager either. It doesn’t work. You have to promote to that position. Someone who has proven themselves as a loyal and dedicated worker to you.

Let’s say we have an affiliate website which has been built, but it’s not getting any traffic or sales. It’s important, but you have so many other things pressing your time it always is at the bottom of your list. Let’s hire a team to get the site into shape. Remember that since you are paying hourly, this doesn’t mean each person is going to work 40 hours a week.

Let’s say your budget is 200 hours per week for outsourcing. Instead of hiring five full timers (40×5=200), you could hire specialists and you can quadruple your staff size, while keeping your budget (10×20=200). Because if you hired a full-time SEO and suddenly they stop showing up to work, you have to start the entire process all over, however, if you have three “part-timers” and one doesn’t show, the project can keep moving along.

Once I started treating my outsourcing like I do affiliate marketing, things became less stressful (testing the market before fully committing to it). Here is how I hire:

STEP ONE: What do I need?

- an admin to take care of any server issues, logins, database setups, blog installs, etc.
- a researcher (keywords, articles, competition, etc.)
- a writer (articles, copy, blog, etc.)
- an editor (to ensure the copy is correct)
- an SEO (driving traffic)
- an SEM (manage the PPC)
- a programmer (if needed)

Okay, that’s seven positions. Let’s just take one of them for our example, the SEO.

STEP TWO: Post the job

You want to specifically state what you want, and if a candidate clearly didn’t read the job listing, reject them immediately. You are after STARS here and in the world economy, there are great and talented people who can’t find work. Here is an example job posting for an SEO:

Title: SEO Specialist

Job Description
We are looking for someone who is passionate about SEO and has the skills to propel our affiliate programs to the top using only best practices (white hat) methodologies.

Skill Set Needed:

* Passing grade in the Search Engine Optimization certification exam in oDesk
* Analyze website architecture, content, and make optimization changes.
* Understand the difference between a “traffic keyword phrase” and a “converting keyword phrase”
* Optimize various site components including copy, meta tags, page title/descriptions, internal linking, site map, compliancy issues, etc.
* Understand server admin issues such as .htaccess editing
* Follow proper SEO guidelines as set forth from the “Big Three”
* Monitor SEO performance with our custom tracking software
* Be able to provide innovation, key changes, and spot “problem areas” before they become problems
* Perform competitive analysis to stay one step ahead of the competition
* Improve knowledge of current SEO practices to develop and recommend new SEO strategies.
* Maintain awareness of various SEO resources and tools.

Qualifications Include:

* 3+ years involved with SEO including hands-on optimization and link building.
* A complete understanding of search engine trends and search engine algorithms.
* Must have working knowledge of HTML, XHTML, PHP, CSS, and JavaScript.
* Should be familiar with CMS, Shopping Cart and Ecommerce Systems.
* Possess excellent communication skills and is a cooperative team player
* Ability to manage multiple assignments and meet scheduled due dates.
* Experience with leading search engine ranking, traffic and analysis software.

The very first qualification is that they must take and pass the SEO test in oDesk. Now, I am a big believer that if you require a test to be taken, that you should take that test too. The reason? If your skill set in SEO is just average and you take the test and pass it, you should feel pretty good. However, how is your compassion going to be to an applicant who says, “I failed the test but I could do a real good job for you”? Exactly. You’re going to pass, because any SEO Specialist who can’t get a higher grade than you shouldn’t even be considered. There are too many others out there.

STEP THREE: Search for Prospects

Just as the best workers don’t look at the “classified ads” the best people on oDesk don’t always look for openings, as they are busy with their current projects. So it is up to you to seek them out. Use oDesk’s search to find the right candidates to invite for an interview. Since we want an “SEO Specialist” click on “Advanced Search” on the left side of the screen and input the following:

- Search for “SEO -asp -php -design” and I want “Search Titles Only” checked – that way I am only getting SEO Specialists, not a programmer or web designer who thinks they know SEO.
- Feedback score, choose “at least 3.0″. This way they have completed at least one project and their feedback was average.
- Hourly Rate: I put a minimum at $8.00 and a cap at $25.00.
- Provider Type: I choose “Individuals” as I have had far better experiences with individuals vs. working with a company.
- Last Activity: Within the last 15 days.
- Tests Passed: Choose Search Engine Optimization (I wish you could choose more than one here).
- Check “Is oDesk Ready”. If they haven’t done that, they aren’t worth your time.
- English Level: Leave this alone. This is a “self assessment” and all those I have fired because they couldn’t communicate in English all had “5 stars” here. It is meaningless.

I am only looking to invite 3-5 of the best SEOs to apply for an interview, so I must use my time well. I look at their Title. Are they a specialist, or are they good at many things (SEO, Word, Link Building, Accounting, Washing Your Dog, etc.) but an expert in nothing? The Title is key. All I want to see in the Title is SEO related info. This is a good test, because good SEOs write good, compelling Titles for webpages, so they should be able to do the same for themselves. Once you find a good prospect, click the link of their profile to view the details. Go straight to the upper-right section and look at the Hourly Rate, Total oDesk Hours, their Location, and the Current Assignments.

If their rate does not mesh with their location (i.e. $20.00 an hour in India doesn’t mesh, nor does $4.00 an hour in the U.S.) that is a red flag. The Current Assignments is key. If they have five or more, no matter how good they seem, click “Save as Favorite” and keep moving. They are too busy right now and if you hire them the experience has failure written all over it. Wait for a week or two and check again to see if they have opened up.

You should get between 10-25 additional applicants over a three-day period from your job posting.

STEP FOUR: The Interview

You want them to answer a series of questions. This will help you narrow down the list and you may learn a thing or two as well. Here is the list I send (make sure you remove the text in parenthesis before you send them onto your prospect):

1) What SEO tools do you use on a weekly basis? (I want to know how well versed they are in the market and an SEO’s toolset says a lot about them, the same way a carpenter’s toolbox does. This can also enlighten you on tools you didn’t know about).

2) What kind of strategies have you implemented to achieve at least a PR5 for a current client and what is the domain? (Run a backlink check on the site they give you with SEO Elite or another link analysis program. Are there shady links? Paid links? Link Farms? If it looks solid, ask them to put your name (temporarily) in the meta author tag, or place your name somewhere on the home page to verify they have control over the site).

3) What’s the difference between PageRank and ToolBar PageRank? (I love this question. If you get “Aren’t they the same?” end the interview immediately. They should know the ToolBar PageRank is delayed much like stock quotes are online, but Google measures PageRank continually).

4) How do you evaluate whether an SEO campaign is working? (Hopefully the answer here is conversions and not “traffic” or worse, “top ranking”)

5) Why does Google rank Wikipedia at the top for so many topics? (Great question which should produce insightful answers, but they should be aware of “authoritativeness” in the market).

6) Do a Google search on this candidate’s name (If you cannot find them, that’s a red flag. And if you cannot find them ask them why not).

7) Of the well-known SEOs, who do you pay attention to and who are you not likely to pay attention to? (I love this one. They should know the top SEOs in the US and UK, even if they are in India).

What industry sites, blogs, and forums do you regularly read? (This is a great question and they better rattle off less than a dozen or it is a warning that they spend too much time reading and not enough time working).

9) Tell me your biggest failure in an SEO project (good question – and if they don’t mention an actual failure, reject them. Everyone fails. I still fail).

10) In what areas of SEO are you strongest? (test these areas heavily to make sure they are really strong in those areas).

11) In what areas of SEO are you weakest? (make sure they actually admit to a weakness. Those who state I’m too organized or I have too much attention to detail are red flags. Everyone has weaknesses).

There you go. That should give you plenty of information to really get their worth, and not bury them with too many unneeded questions.

STEP FIVE: Test Project

Once you find someone you feel is good, the next step is to have them do a test project. The biggest mistake you can make is to give them the site you want promoted. The same reason you wouldn’t give your 16-year old the keys to your Porsche to learn how to drive. If you have a junk domain, use that one, or register one and assign them 5 hours to complete a certain task. Five hours is the maximum you use on a test project. Keep it short, to the point and measurable. You are testing not just their work, but their communication skills.

STEP SIX: Hiring

If they proved their worth in the test project, hire them. According to Howie, never just hire the exact number of employees you need, go above and beyond hiring a few extra. Staff can easily just disappear one day leaving you high and dry and a major deadline just around the corner. Never let this happen to you by keeping more staff than you feel you need. You can never have too many people.

Pay rate. Never hire someone just because of money. If someone charges $150.00 an hour but you make $500.00 an hour from their work, is it worth it? Of course. Conversely, the $5.00 an hour employee who drives you nuts and does nothing to increase revenue is a bad investment.

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Training
This is where every business owner gets frustrated. “I hate training, because I feel I do so much of it because turnover is so high.” Hmmm. Then do it just once and forget about it. I use Camtasia with a simple Plantronics headset to record the trainings. Keep them brief and to the point. Don’t ramble. When things change, you can just go into the file and make updates. This way, when someone is hired, they go through YOUR training without you having to spend time doing it yourself.

This is a big time saver and they also get you at your best instead of you being frustrated because you have to do “this stupid training with a deadline looming overhead.” This also removes the stress of turnover, as you can plug the next person in easily as the training is ready anytime … plus, if they have a question, instead of bugging you, they could reference the training material. You will wonder how you lived without it.

According to Howie you should train your employees so they are completely knowledgeable on what you want them to do. Don’t leave any detail unsaid or uncovered. Since it is in Flash, they can review it at anytime – even at 3am when you are sleeping. Training is never regulated to only the beginning of employment. Training should be ongoing and at least once a month.

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Retaining the Good Ones – Finding Your Project Manager
I mentioned earlier in this article that you can’t just go out and hire a project manager. You have to promote from within. Why? The project manager has to be a “workaholic” and share many of the values you hold close to you. And that information isn’t on a resume, nor will it come out in an interview. It will come out, during the first week or two of employment. Here are the qualities that I look for:

1) They show up. Laugh if you want, but in today’s market, having an employee/contractor who shows up every day and who is dependable is gold.
2) Displays a “Keen Eye”. Notices areas which are problematic and fixes them without being told. “I noticed the pages you asked me to edit had an old copyright date and didn’t have a link to your Privacy Statement. I took care of it for you.”
3) Meets deadlines. If a project is done by a certain date, it is done by that date or a reasonable explanation is given as to why it is late.
4) Offers Suggestions on Project Improvement. Communicates how a different approach could lend more traffic, conversions, revenue, etc.
5) Consistently Exceeds Expectations. They are low stress, low maintenance and high value.

Once you have found the one you’d like to become the project manager, approach them with the idea but don’t make them an offer. Gauge their reaction. If they have experience in the field and react with “I’d love it” or “That is my dream job” then proceed with the offer. If the reaction is “sounds okay” or something less then enthusiastic, then you may wish to pull back and wait for another to rise up.

Key Point: There is a very important part to this promotion. It does NOT come with a raise. As an employer, the biggest mistake I have made is giving raises based on performance. Take it from my experience. The only raises you EVER give are once a year and generally are to keep up with the cost of living. Instead, you offer bonuses based on performance. For example, I had a writer who wrote a tremendous piece of copy and the conversion rate was nearly three times better than when I wrote the copy. So I gave her a real nice bonus for it. Her reaction? “Can I write more copy?”

Here is why. The majority of the time when an employee is given a raise, at first they are very thankful, grateful, appreciative, etc. There is an upswing in productivity as they see their larger paycheck. But then reality sets in and they realize after having a very average and low-productivity week, their paycheck is the same size. It’s the same whether they work hard or “coast”. And most employees, unfortunately, choose to “coast.”

However, if you reward them with excellent work with a bonus, guess what happens week in and week out? They push hard to get that extra bonus. And you end up with a happier and more productive employee. I am a big believer in taking care of the people who take care of me, but there is a sense of “entitlement” which has seeped into the work place and employees feel they are “entitled” to a paycheck even though they arrive late, leave early, and do little in between. Gone is the strong worth ethic and “a day’s pay for a day’s work”.

Retaining employees is easy by paying them what they are worth, bonusing them for great work, praising them verbally and, most importantly, keeping your promises. And that is where the next portion comes in: firing. Did you know a lot of resentment is built up by good employees towards you when you keep poor performers? It’s true. According to Howie, top performers can fall to poor performers when you fail to keep a promise. It is their way of making things miserable for you until you fire them. While this is your fault because you didn’t keep your promise, I have yet to understand this mind set of the employee and why they would resort to this behavior as it just hurts them in the end.

Before we leave this subject, you may ask, “What about profit sharing? Is that a good idea?” It isn’t, and here’s why. Every expense you make will be mentally scored by the employee. If you go out and buy a Porsche, they will resent you as that just affected their profit sharing. A new hire? Same thing. That is money going out that they feel they are entitled to. Profit sharing breeds entitlement and second-guessing your decisions. It’s a bad idea.

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Firing – Do it Fast

Key Point: Before firing an employee, change the passwords they had access to FIRST and then fire them. Don’t do it the other way around.

As the episode in Seinfeld suggests, the best way to end a relationship is like taking off a band-aid. Just rip it right off. Yes, it is painful, but the pain is brief. Since oDesk takes random screen shots of the employee’s desktop verifying they are working on what they should be working on is a lot easier to pinpoint poor performance.

In fact, a programmer I hired I checked his screen shots in oDesk and saw porn. Yeah, you read that right, porn. His excuse? “I was waiting for the script to compile.” Nice. You only get paid while you work, not while scripts are compiling. You’re fired.

Howie’s advice is never feel bad if you have to fire an employee. If they cannot give you what they said they would there is no point in keeping them. It is hurting you and hurting them by continuing to employ them. Firing someone over money is never the right thing to do. If you have to cut back due to rising expenses, never fire the employee who makes the most. You fire the employee who produces the least ROI. Remember that.

Howie even suggests firing yourself if you feel that you are unable to do the job right. How do you fire yourself? Well, one way is to hire a project manager and let them handle the day-to-day issues without you interfering or meddling in their work. Keeping yourself on track as well as your employees can get stressful so walk away when you feel you cannot do it any longer or your business will suffer drastically. But make sure if you fire yourself from an area of your company, you have a person who is capable of succeeding in that position, and give them the tools to succeed, or you are just setting them up to fail.
There’s my blueprint.

I just arrived in San Jose for SES. Feels weird being back. You see, I was born and raised in San Jose … graduated from Branham High. I can’t believe twenty years after I moved away the airport is still as awful as when I left.

Due to my late arrival I missed the first day’s sessions, however I did attend the evening reception for all the speakers and exhibitors. I ran into Bruce Clay and had a great conversation with the folks at Enquisite. I’ll be getting a private demo of their software tomorrow which focuses on tracking the traffic coming to your site from search only. This way, you aren’t just “following the Long Tail” you are converting it.

Sounds interesting, but I will see if it actual can do what is claimed and it does what we all want: delivering data which is accurate and actionable.

More tomorrow …