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OURCC O N T R O L


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Start Here 4

Core Concepts 10

Mindset 11

Reason Why 13

Expectations 15

Necessity over novelty 17

Ethics, quality & a dash of ignorance. 19

Systems > Skill 22

An Ideal System

Starting Out 30

Anchoring

Horse first, then cart. 34

Outshoring, Conlancers, Osourcing & Freetractors 48

Commitment 52

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Recruiting your workforce 57

Money 67

Geography 101 75

To source, or not to source? 78

Cubicle Ops: Outsourcing your 9 to 5 91

O perations & Arsenal 96

Workflow 97

Communication 99

Taskmastery 101

Arsenal

Wrapping Up 123

Resource Reference 125

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Start Here

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OUTSOURCING SCARES PEOPLE.

If you havent already, you need to experience this

firsthand. Next time youre in an eclectic bar or socialsetting, casually seed the discussion with the O word.

Youve just pulled the pin from a conversational live-

grenade - its explosion creating the most magnificent

show of biased half-truths and uninformed, misdirected

fear youve likely seen since the last election. Youll get

rumblings of a crippling recession, tirades of patriotic

rhetoric and the obligatory bigoted remark toward a

foreign country by someone who doesnt even have a

passport.

Theres also usually someone like me, listening intently

with firmly held tongue, knowing theres just certain

people that dont respond well to economics and logic.

If you and I are ever in the same place when that bomb

drops, I want to be absolutely certain its your eyes that

catch mine with an understanding wink - not your ears

that ring with sympathetic silence.

Consider this your invitation into the

international players club.

With it comes access to a endless reserveof

human capital, a quasi-supernatural ability to

work while sleeping, and an awe-inspiring

means to progress at a pace wildly

disproportionate to your capabilities.

What we have at our fingertips gives us a means to realize

absolutely any ambition bigger than ourselves. No skill

unknown, no problem unsolvable - there is nothing we cannot

make happen if we just know how.

If you call yourself an entrepreneur&that doesnt excite you, you arent one.

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Outsourcing, simplified.There is something you

love, something you would choose over all else.

Each day oers us 24 hours to do with as we please. Sleep demands some of it, but time sleeping need not be time lost.

To live extraordinary lives, we need to own our hours. The fewer hours we control, the less fulfilled well be.

If we want to own our time fully, we need to stop doing worthless things.

The act of doing doesnt make it important. Being the person thatdoes it doesnt make it important.

To stop doing something ourselves, we need to eliminate it orenable someone else to do it.

Always seek to eliminate first. If its not possible, we remove ourselves from the process.

To enable someone else, we need to unpack the strategies we use to perform. Its often rather unconscious.

Once we know what we do and how we do it, we need to find others to do it for us.

To find the right person, we have to look in the right places and ask the right questions.

After we have someone, we simply communicate our needs and oversee the process.

All of this must be done systematically and without consuming more time than it reclaims.

Its time to do this, and do it right. Your fleeting time hangs in the balance ... and thats a loss you can never recoup.

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7

Read Before Reading


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CAVEATS & BLANKET STATEMENTS GIVING ME PERMISSION TO SAYWHATEVER I WANT GOING FORWARD

Its entirely possible that by the end of this youll think Im

just another arrogant capitalist who doesnt want to work

hard. Its also possible youll think I actually know what

Im talking about.

Im not going to ease the blow of any hard facts. If you

want to feel good, go watch Oprah. Its time to get realand were summoning Dr. Phil.

I find it insulting when statements are wrapped in that

warm blanket of delicate diplomacy so well keep this very

simple and direct.

Im not a man of few words so this isnt a short read - butits only as long as needed to push my knowledge into

your head. I guarantee you there are points and

perspectives ahead that stand to save you not only

money, but countless hours lost to experimentation and

trial-by-fire.

A NOTE ABOUT ASSISTANTS

Everything pertaining to virtual assistants (VAs) is

specifically referring to assistants outside of the United

States. The domestic VA industry is thriving and I have

zero experience working with anyone in it. It should go

without saying that experiences, rates, terms and any

number of factors will dier by eliminating the jump to

another continent.

In other words, dont call a firm in Virginia and flip out

when they arent quick to compete with the $2/hr oer

you saw on Elance.

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What this is...A way of thinking about your capabilities

An approach to intelligent, systems-driven

outsourcing

An adaptable set of resources and tools

which you can shape and extend to suit

your situation

Absolutely enough to do serious damage,

greatly multiply your force and eciency,

and make money from it.

What this isnt...A directory of virtual assistants

Rigid, finely-tuned, all-encompassing

software that accommodates all scenarios

An excuse to suspend judgement and

critical thinking as you start hiring

Focused on novelty, no/low-value,

outsourcing tasks

A way to multiply eciency in doing moreof something worthless to begin with

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Core Concepts

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Mindset

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GETTING OUR HEAD RIGHT

No system or software can compensate for the wrong

mindset. Without the right mindset, you wontexperience the power you have in your hands with your

ability to outsource eectively. Ill mention two ways of

thinking that will not jive with what were doing: the

employee and the prima donna.

The Employee Mindset

Employees expect to be managed by someone else.

Outsourcing demands managing employees of your own.

Being an employee is fine, as long as you dont actually

think of yourself as one.

The Prima Donna Mindset

Theres a dierence between being the only person that

cando something and simply being a person that does it.

We all know one of these self-important diva types that

walk around with the world squarely on his or her

shoulders. With so much going on, its always shocking

how much time they have to remind you of just how

necessary they are.

We arent making ourselves unimportant or

obsolete. Were simply maximizing the time we

have to focus on whatactually individuates us.

We each get the same 24 hours in a day and the average

person uses them very predictably. Your ambitions and

passions are anything but average, which is why were

adopting an equally ambitious system for ensuring theres

time for both.

Since we can never technically increase the total time

available to us in a day, it is absolutely critical that we usethe time we have intelligently. What could be more

intelligent than distributing its consumption to others,

leaving you clear to explore passions?

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Reason Why

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REASON WHY

Outsourcing for the sheer sake of doing it can feel like

taking up an instrument you dont enjoy the sound of. Atevery moment, youll be asking yourself why youre

bothering with it. Eventually youll give up chasing an end

that wasnt even compelling from the beginning.

Having a driving force, an underlying pursuit, as a reason

why is not an ideal - its a requirement. You need

something that relentlessly demands more of your timeand attention. Everything else needs to enrage you for

daring encroach on your time.

Menial, low-value tasks entering your reality need to feel

like your accountant walking in on you during sex - and

standing there stubbornly until you sign-o on some

paperwork.

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Expectations

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EXPECTATIONS

Outsourcing is an extension of yourself and your core

capabilities. If you are disorganized, outsourcing wontchange that. If your outcomes are undefined or

unfocused, outsourcing wont change that. If youre an

anal-retentive taskmaster that tracks every cent with ten

years of alphabetized receipts - outsourcing wont change

that (though youll know precisely how much money you

wasted finding out).

We each have glaring weaknesses and are less-than-

capable in some area. The dierence between mediocrity

and excellence is not self-improvement - its brutal self-

awareness.In the same way that the first step inaddiction recovery is admission of a problem, the first

step to absolutely crushing it on a daily basis is knowing

what we shouldnt be doing ourselves. Once we work that

out, its time to create a system that compensates for any

weaknesses and ensure certain activities are never

demanded of you.

Learning how to manage people is a life skill. Without it,

you will never realize your potential simply because you

cant take on as much and will take on tasks that are

outside of your core competency.

If outsourcing is something youve played with and it

hasnt worked for you, youve done something wrong.

Yes, maybe your team/assistant disappointed you - but

its your responsibility to manage the situation and

replace them with someone competent. You run the

show - you are in charge now.

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Necessity over novelty

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Once the media got a hold of it, personal outsourcing became a novelty. It turned from

eliminating low-value business tasks to getting someone to stand in line for you at the post

oce so you can use the regained time to send a Tweet about how someone is standing in line

for you at the post oce.

We are not trying to free up time to sit around and read more blogs. We cant get excited that

an assistant can dig up album artwork for even the most obscure albums in our iTunes library.

Assigning low-value novelty tasks to an assistant doesnt change the fact that it s low-value.

The only thing worse than ineciency and misusing time is paying

an assistant to maximize that ineciency.

If you're focused on making money or supporting your lifestyle, forget about organizing your bookmarks, schedule your

own dentist appointment, and focus your assistants on the highest-value, income-producing tasks. Once you've eectively

automated or systematized those, you can start paying your VA to start ironically sending out 1,000 greeting cards on

Arbor Day.

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DONT HIRE A VA TO...

Aggregate more blog

posts for you to read

Clean up a 10,000 entry

contact list for 9,950

people you never talk to

Manage your fantasy

football league


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Ethics, quality &a dash of ignorance.

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Were not here to argue ethics. If youre reading this, youve

almost assuredly moved beyond misconceptions and are ready to

act. Im unfortunately unable to resist using this as a self-constructed soapbox on which to share some thoughts.

Arguing the ethics of outsourcing is an exercise in futility on-par

with debating intelligent design with a hardened atheist, or

getting the Bloods and Crips to settle it all on Family Feud. Yes,

you can try but making money is much more fun.

Everyone youll meet knows someone who has been aected by

globalization, for better or worse. Someone watched their job

move to Beijing. Someone else had a nightmarish customer

service call with a man whos real name was definitely not John.

People tend to form rigid opinions from limited experience or

information.

These people shouldnt make you angry - they should make you

sad. Pay them no mind.The best revenge is outsourcing well.

LESSER KNOWN FACTS ABOUTOUTSOURCING

Outsourcing funds terrorism

I came to know this from someone that was

shocked to learn India is not in the Middle

East, nor are they a major supplier of the

worlds oil resources.

Outsourcing is directly responsible for thecurrent recession faced by the United States.

Further discussion revealed this person also

was not familiar with Bernie Mado and still

thought they banked with Wachovia.

Outsourcing directly violates the laws of

[unnamed major world religion].

Ironically, this person was visibly intoxicated.

You could likely add more unsolicited, well-

researched facts youve heard from co-

workers or relatives.

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QUALITY IS UNIVERSAL

The mere suggestion of non-American labor has a funny

way of grabbing the attention of any person in a room

that blindly assumes nothing of quality or excellence can

come from outside our borders. These are also the people

that wont acknowledge a Toyotas existence because it

wasnt assembled in Detroit.

Quality, craftsmanship, eciency, pride in your work -

none of these things respect arbitrary nationalboundaries. Italian wines, German automobiles, Swiss

watches - all of these things are what they are because

people take pride in their craft.

Excellent work - wherever it comes from - depends on

your ability to create the proper incentives to inspire it.

WHY GO ABROAD? THINK OF ALLTHE BROKE COLLEGE STUDENTS.

This is not complicated. At the end of the day, it costs ourfriends in India or the Philippines less to go enjoy an after-

work beer than it does for their American equivalent.

Dollar-for-dollar, we can derive more value by going

abroad for certain tasks than we can by hiring here.

Certain decisions are simply financial. National pride wont

pay your rent, and new American jobs arent created by

entrepreneurs going broke on menial tasks.

We are a nation of hustlers, entrepreneurs and free-

market capitalists. The American Dream, for lack of a

better phrase, moves us all to action, instills aspiration

and creates a strong undertone of discontent. Sometimes

youll find more consistency working with people in

countries that have a healthier respect for the status quo,

and can draw a tremendous personal pride from being in a

position of service.

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Systems> SkillSystems are as reliable & predictable as human beings are not.

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In the spirit of giving due credit, I want to be clear that Im heavily channeling principles from Michael Gerbers book The E-

Myth in the pages ahead. To not cite E-Myth for the sake of claiming never-before-heard concepts would equate to a

preacher omitting God from his sermons to ensure he isnt pulling from the Bible.

Orchestrating a system allows us to reduce our involvement by turning what we do into processes and anticipating

decisions so we can empower others to make them.

Orchestration is the elimination of choice at the operating level of your

business. If you havent orchestrated it, you do not own it. - Gerber

Our system is the set of rules, tool and processes that make outsourcing worth the eort. Without a smart system around

it, outsourcing can steal more time than it saves. If every single situation is handled dierently, or as if its the first time,

we havent improved anything - weve simply added more complexity and introduced new costs.

For the system to work, it cannot depend on any one persons expertise or talent. Rather, it depends on process to create

results. To replace people (the first one being you) with process, we need to actually know what it is we do on a regular

basis. Once we break down the things consuming our time, we can realistically decide if our involvement matters.

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SYSTEMS OVER SKILLS

Sometimes the simplest way to define something new or unknown is by drawing comparison to something known. When

were dealing with systems - and the notion of relying on them - its fitting to pit them in opposition to skilled people.

Imagine for a moment that youre starting a business. Youve seen successes and demand for growth is undeniable. You

hire aggressively and do so based solely on talent. Youre wagering your entire companys future on finding and keeping

the highest level talent possible. You run the a company for a few years. Things are alright until your 3 top talents decide

to go start their own thing. Your 3 most loyal, profitable accounts then become their 3 most profitable clients. Without

your team, you suddenly cant oer the results that built your reputation. This is where systems and people start to

behave predictably di

erent.

Systems dont leave you for a better

paying system

Systems dont act in their own best

interest

Systems dont fear change

Systems produce predictable results,

untouched by mood or state of mind

Systems dont care where in the

world they operate from

Systems dont get pregnant and take

a year o

Systems dont question theirpurpose, quit and go travel the world

Systems dont only operate for 8 of

every 24 hours each day

Systems dont spend 2 hours every

week talking about the next episode

of LOST

Systems dont spend another 2 hours

every week talking about the last

episode of LOST

Systems would laugh at the idea of

sleep... if systems could laugh.

24In short, people should not be doing what systems can. We are meant for more.


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OUTSOURCING GIVES OUR SYSTEM A PROPER HAZING

Im not here to bag on exceptional people. In my life, Ive worked alongside and gained unshakeable respect for a lot of

people. Its a deep respect for such people that I emphasize that there is no reason you should not pair those people with

intelligent systems & processes. The better your systems are, the less risk they face of being pulled away from the work

that gives them the highest level of fulfillment or utilizes their purest skill.

The first (and if self-employed, only) person you should start defining systems around is yourself.

Proactively replace yourself with smart systems now, or wait until someonedoesit for you. Either way you look at it, a system is in your future.

Specialized ability can always compensate for absent or weak systems, but each time you work harder to make up for a

missing system, your foundation weakens. You create greater dependence on your ability to perform and maintain. This

is functional but not sustainable. It assumes you want to continue doing exactly what it is that youre doing - indefinitely.

Its time to design systems aimed at enabling the most unskilled of individuals to create acceptable results. Systems

eliminate the fragile dependence on specialized skill or knowledge. In other words - systems can remove you as a

bottleneck in your own processes.

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An Ideal System

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Goal: Define a scalable, process-driven workflow producing

consistent outcomes with minimal intervention.

Think of the following as the Match.com profile of your outsourcing system soulmate. Not

your ideal assistant, but rather the system that will allow you to keep your assistants

on-taskand on-schedule.

As you read ahead, feel free to start scouring your hard drive for a hot self-portrait and

begin mentally composing a creepy, over-eager first email.

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NEWBIE-FRIENDLY

Your system loves the new guy.

Imagine if every new recruit to enter the United States

armed forces was trained dierently. If it were entirely up

to the discretion and style of whoever found themselves

in charge, we would not have a world-class national

defense - we would have a poorly run fraternity.

Thankfully Im not more of a military bu - as this is likely

where I would insult an entire nation by using them as an

example.

Your system clearly communicates guidelines,

expectations and terms to each new assistant.

Your system minimizes dependence on you to repeatedly

explain your operations.

Your system gets someone up and running immediately,

and ensures the results will be as close to the previous

person as possible.

USER-AGNOSTIC

Your system doesnt care whos using it.

Bad systems refuse to cooperate with anyone but

specialists. Smart systems are indierent to you and

simply expect you do whats expected.

Imagine if mirrors only reflected images of people they

felt were attractive. Wed have more broken mirrors and

more demand for plastic surgeons.

You system is unaware of and indierent to your VAs

personality, moods, location, language and level of skill.

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MODULAR

Your system keeps everyone on a need-to-

know basis.

Not every assistant or new hire will need to handle every

aspect of your life or type of task. When hiring a

researcher, the requirements and expectations are

dierent than hiring a programmer, writer or freelance

designer. Your programmer doesnt need your Amazon

credentials and your graphic designer doesnt need your

web server login credentials.

Your system must be modular and support only the

necessary tasks of its operator.

ORGANIZED

Your system has obsessive-compulsive

disorder.

No more digging up old files. No more emailing

attachments back and forth. No more chaos.

Your system expects everything to live in its proper place

and sets rules to ensure they stay there. It also needs to

go make sure the oven is o. Three times.

Your system must keep any files, documents, credentials

and information in a well-organized, shared, central

location.

EVOLVING

Your system learns from its mistakes.

Elements of your system should track whats been accomplished, whats changed, and who changed it. As new scenarios

emerge, your system has a place to hold new rules to simplify for the future.

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154muselife DANGEROUSAMBITIONarsenal

David is behind Muselife, a community blog focused on fueling the ultramobile entrepreneurial

lifestyle through systematic product creation. He is the founder ofArsenal, an agile outsourcing

process consultancy. Presently, hes immersed in the development ofM6 System, pairing a

methodical six-part approach to muse/product creation with purpose-built tools to bring it to all life.

If youre intrigued to dig deeper, youll find what youre looking for atwww.muselife.com/about/.

David Walsh

lets have a meaningful

140-character conversation

twitter

@dvdwlshemail

[email protected] have a lengthy

exchange of words

lets fuel that lifestyle youre

working so hard to design

blog

muselife.comdrink

sazeraclets get othe internet & do

what our grandfathers did
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