Archive for the 'Software Portal' Category

6 Killer Outsourcing Secrets to Save You Time and Make You More Money

Thursday, March 26th, 2009

Early on my online business career, I was a jack-of-all-trades.

  • I was the webmaster

  • The telemarketer
  • The banker
  • The accountant
  • The copywriter
  • The traffic specialist
  • The butcher
  • The baker
  • The candlestick maker
  • And on and on it went

If it needed to get done, I had to do it, as I was a Solo-Preneur, a one man money making machine.

Then I learned how other successful people were saving time, making more money and having more fun than I was. The secret to their ‘leveraged’ lives was outsourcing.

They had webmasters, copywriters, sales staff, virtual assistants, secretaries, and so on.

Instead of working so hard IN their businesses, they were now ON their business, freed up to dream up and implement new product ideas and create new revenue streams.

In my online experience, I have found 6 killer outsourcing techniques that have saved me time and help me make a lot of money. I would like to share them with you in hopes that you will benefit from them like I have.

1. Outsource Secret #1 – Use 24 Hour Recorded Message Lines

Do you have a lot of people calling you, asking you the same questions over and over, that a website explains? What if people cannot get online? I create 24 hr recorded message lines where people can dial in, even if it’s 2:43 am and they can get educated robotically and elegantly about my company, offers or specials.

Real Estate Agents can use this for updated home listings and showings, put the 24 hour message on the back of a business card, with a shocking headline, so people will call it.

Mine reads:

“Discover how a 35 year old former youth pastor from Minnesota earned over $700,000 in less than two years, and how he goes on vacations saving up to 75% off without coming home broke! Free 24 hr rec. message – 866-486-7465.”

Network Marketers also use 24 hour lines to talk about their company, product and compensation plans instead of having to do one on one presentations.

2. Outsource Secret #2 – Hire a Webmaster/Site Designer

I used to make my own sites, and I had to figure it all out by trial and error, many hours of frustrations.

Don’t you hate it when you get the site all finished, but there is one quirk that is keeping you from publishing it because you have an error in your code or shopping cart, which you cannot figure out how to fix?

You can’t publish until it’s fixed and you begin to panic!

I have been down that road too many times, and it kept me from launching my sites on time.

When I learned this outsource secret the companies I used got my sites keyword optimized, submitted and found in the engines.

The did the design work and coding, I just wrote the copy to be on the site.

I have over 20 #1 listings now with certain keywords related to my niche market.

3. Outsource Secret #3: Hire a Virtual Assistant to Work for You

This one is an amazing time saver.

I used to answer all my own calls and now I delegate/outsource to a team of virtual assistants who handle all my phone work for me.

They do customer support, give out information, and even help by doing a little over the phone selling for me too.

At about $15-25 an hour, Virtual Assistants, don’t get paid by the hour, they get paid by the minute, as an independent contractor, so you don’t pay them taxes, employee benefits, or insurance/health care. What a money saver and time saver, and guess what? You are not ripping them off doing it this way as that is how the Virtual Assistant Niche markets itself to people like you so they can get business.

4. Outsource Secret #4: Use Outsourcing Network Sites & Communities

Ever heard of the “lance.com” sites. Like elance, freelance, writerlance etc.?

These website groups do a lot of busy work for you at great low prices which you arrive at through a reverse auction.

You tell people your project, whether you need a script made, software made, or a program, and then someone will tell you how much they will do it for, and usually the lowest priced bidder will win, and build your project or service for you, and you keep the master rights, like you built it yourself.

Many of the top internet marketing money makers outsource all their projects this way.

5. Outsource Secret #5: Hire a Customer Service Division

Many solo-preneurs, or small business owners are swamped with customer support and answering questions which take them away from the important tasks like dreaming up new products and services.

Why not outsource your customer support with companies like Kayako.

Do a Google search for “outsource customer support” and you’ll get a ton of listings from great companies eager to serve you and act as an extension of your one man show and make you look like a fortune 500 company.

With some minimal training, they can be answering support emails and building knowledge bases for you to answer your company’s frequently most asked questions.

Outsource Secret #6: Create Your Own Affiliate Program

The days of the one man salesman are over.

Many people earn a living online who don’t have websites of their own.

They are affiliates, and they are marketers who know how to penetrate niche markets with messages that get read, and create buyers for YOUR products.

Affiliates bring buyers to your sites for you.

Create a program where you pay affiliates 50% or whatever you think is fair and they will sell your product, advertise, and create sales for you. You will not need an advertising budget now.

So, here are 6 simple outsourcing techniques that when followed, can most definitely save you time, save you frustration, and help you make more money with less effort. Delegate your business from the outhouse and work your way up to the penthouse.

Jeff Mills - EzineArticles Expert Author

About the author: Jeff Mills is a very successful internet Entrepreneur who has sold over a million dollars worth of products online in the last 3 years. Jeff has a complete 14 page Outsourcing report that shares the entire secret outsourcing resources he uses and recommends to others and is giving it away free at http://www.whoisjeffmills.com/outsource-it.html Learn more about Jeff Mills at http://www.whoisjeffmills.com

Anthony Loeff nonprofit worker is testing digital tools for blind people

Saturday, August 2nd, 2008

Recent versions of Microsoft Windows come with the rather basic Narrator. Screen readers can be assumed to be able to access all display content that is not intrinsically inaccessible.

While Apple Mac OS X includes VoiceOver, a more feature-rich screen reader. Screen reader choice is contentious: differing priorities and strong preferences are common.

Access technology such as screen readers and Screen magnifiers enable the blind to use mainstream computer applications. Comming month medical volunteer Anthony Loeff is writing about screen readers for people who are blind Screen readers are a form of assistive technology potentially useful to people who are blind, visually impaired, or learning disabled, often in combination with other AT such as screen magnifiers. Linux distributions for the blind include Oralux and Adriane Knoppix. Later versions of Microsoft Windows include an Accessibility Wizard and Magnifier for those with partial vision, and Microsoft Narrator, a simple screen reader. The console-based Oralux Linux distribution ships with three screen-reading environments: Emacspeak, Yasr and Speakup. Increasingly, screen readers are being bundled with operating system distributions. This interpretation is then represented to the user with text-to-speech, sound icons, or a braille output. Near 9 percent of those deemed legally blind, by any measure, have no vision. The rest have some vision, from light perception alone to relatively good acuity. The open source GNOME desktop environment long included Gnopernicus and now includes Orca. Experimental approaches in sensory substitution are beginning to provide access to arbitrary live views from a camera.

Only a small fraction of this population, when compared to the sighted community, have Internet access.

There are also open source screen readers, such as the Linux Screen Reader for GNOME and NonVisual Desktop Access for Windows.

Most legally blind people 78 percent do not use computers. The latter developed in part by Knopper who has a visual impairment. A persons choice of screen reader is dictated by many factors, including platform and the role of organizations like charities, schools, and employers.

The movement towards greater web accessibility is opening a far wider number of websites to adaptive technology, making the web a more inviting place for visually impaired surfers.

A screen reader is a software application that attempts to identify and interpret what is being displayed on the screen. The Macintosh OS also comes with a built-in screen reader, called VoiceOver. Nevertheless, using a screen reader is, according to some users, considerably more difficult than using a GUI and many applications have specific problems resulting from the nature of the application. The primary audience for such applications is those who have difficulty reading because of learning disabilities or language barriers. Further functionality remains limited compared to equivalent desktop applications, the major benefit is to increase the accessibility of said websites. Web browsers, word processors, icons and windows and email programs are just some of the applications used successfully by screen reader users.