May 27th 'Seminars with the Experts' Call.

Jeff Mills and the Merits of Outsourcing.

The second “Seminars with the Experts” call introduced listeners to Jeff Mills, a Christian youth pastor turned high-powered Internet marketer. A decade-long cyberspace veteran, Mills has joined the ranks of the elite by offering clients high-end information products and coaching services.

Jeff’s topic this evening was outsourcing, an often misunderstood business practice that has gained popularity with both traditional “bricks and mortar” companies and internet entrepreneurs. Simply put, outsourcing can be defined as leveraging other people’s efforts, resources, and talents to achieve results that would not have been possible working on your own. While outsourcing's role varies according to the scope and overall business model in question, nobody should dismiss it out of hand without critical analysis.

Defining Your Role in Business.

According to Jeff Mills, the secret to online (and offline) business success is straightforward:

Find a great product, and then get it into other people’s hands as soon as possible.

He prefers selling high-end items, because they offer a faster route to significant income and wealth. Regardless of your Internet business model, Mills advises you to play the role of project manager, bringing together all the elements of success. Do not devote all your effort and energy on product creation.

“Why Shouldn't I do it All?”

Mills finds that new home-based business owners are enamored with doing everything themselves. While maintaining rigorous control over a project can be empowering and ensure quality, most Internet marketers end up overwhelmed by the workload and are unable to advance their business. In his own experience, Mills quickly adopted John D. Rockefeller’s philosophy in that respect:

"I would rather earn 1% off a 100 people's efforts than 100% of my own efforts."

To that end, he introduced listeners to three paths for business wealth generation:

1. OPI – Other People’s Ideas.

Perhaps the best example is teleseminar/webinar creation. Instead of doing all the research on a topic and presenting it to an audience, the host brings in recognized experts that do the work for “free”. As a result, your time is freed up to create more income streams, in addition to sharing the proceeds generated by the expert’s offer during the call.

2. OPM – Other People’s Money.

Leveraging loans, lines of credit, borrowed money etc. to create income. Donald Trump is perhaps the most famous practitioner of OPM.

3. OPE – Other People’s Efforts (“The less I work, the more money I make.”).

This is outsourcing. Mills asks us to simply extend our concept of personal services outsourcing (e.g. house cleaning) to business services outsourcing (e.g. software creation, website hosting, ghostwriting of articles, e-books etc.). In the case of published works, you claim the sole copyright and earn high search engine rankings through rich, resource box-generated backlinks. The emergence of virtual assistant (VA) services and help desks is another trend worth following.

There are reputable online (and offline) services that will write articles, create software, and handle all aspects of product development and promotion for a reasonable price. In fact, the low cost of labor for computer services in East European and Asian countries is what Internet entrepreneurs exploit to reap massive profits.

Outsourcing for the Bottom Line.

Jeff believes that a new entrepreneur’s major hang-up is the inability to ask prospects for money, even when possessing a superior product. Why? Simply put, most business people lack professional selling and closing skills. It’s not your fault – only 2% of the population has formal sales training or “natural” selling ability. So, if you doubt your selling skills, outsource them! Concentrate on marketing and hire a call center to close for you.

As an exercise, Mills suggests that people write down their daily schedules, break them up into 15 minute blocks, and determine what can be outsourced for immediate benefit.

Conclusion.

Today, there is growing debate over the merits of outsourcing, especially amongst people who question its transnational nature on moral and ethical grounds. Still, without dismissing those who bypass outside services, Jeff Mills' forceful case for outsourcing should be carefully considered.

After establishing himself in the Business Opportunities (BizOpp) niche, he has moved into Internet marketing training and coaching with great enthusiasm. His experiences have helped him develop a business mindset that embraces the smart use of outsourcing, and the will and determination to succeed.

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Rahul Majumdar is a full-time information marketer specializing in teleseminar reporting, article marketing, and information product creation.