.Outsourcing is a huge part of many Internet marketers’ success. Much of the required work is tedious and time consuming. You may believe that you are not “ready” to outsource yet or that it’s “too expensive”.  Think again!

Sure, I suggest doing all the work yourself for a while. The main reason is that YOU have to understand the process somewhat before you can specify the job details exactly and know what results to expect from your VA (virtual assistant).  (Again, there are no shortcuts to success…you can’t just “pay” someone to do it all for you if you don’t know what you are doing in the first place!)

In most cases, those first thinking of using a VA won’t opt for a full time assistant. Instead, it’s common to “piece meal” the jobs out in the beginning. For this, I’ve had great success with oDesk.com. With oDesk you can find someone to quickly, efficiently, and inexpensively perform a number of tasks:

• Writing articles
• Rewriting articles
• Banner design
• Article submissions
• Transcriptions services
• WordPress

oDesk costs nothing to join. 10% of your payment to contractors is deducted for oDesk’s payment. The work is performed to your satisfaction before payment is required. Some contractors will require some money upfront for larger jobs however. I have never had a bad experience when using oDesk for temporary help.

The oDesk interface is easy to use…once you know how. Below are steps to make your first trip through oDesk easier and more successful.

There are two ways to find contractors. You can post your job description publicly with little filtering criteria or you can create your job description and privately offer it to select contractors for bidding. I prefer the latter method. Here’s how to do it:

Register for an account with oDesk and logon. Click “find contractors” and then click for the advanced search.

Change these selections in the advanced search:

writing and translation … select all categories

select feedback 4.5 to 5

select last activity 0-15 days

select english level 3 stars

select min hours billed 100

select tests: check u.s. english basic skills and english spelling …leave at 30%

Leave all the other filters as default.

Then sort the results by lowest hourly rate first. (I’m not being cheap, it’s just where I begin. I skip over the very low hourly rates however.)

Read the contractors’ cover descriptions. Read their feed back. Look at their test scores, past jobs, portfolio, etc. Find a contractor that seems to meet your needs. Omit those whose writing sounds a bit “klunky” in their written description….what they write there should sound near perfect to you.

Hover over a chosen one and click contact in order to request an interview via the oDesk inbox messaging

You’ll have to make the job description out then. Be as detailed as possible! Tell them exactly what you expect. For example, “…I need a person with very good English skills to write ten 400 to 500 word articles. These informational type articles are related to gardening and will be used for website content. SEO knowledge is required for optimizing the articles with the keywords. I will provide the keywords. I need this work done within 5 days.”

Name the job what you wish…blog writer, banner creator, or something…Make it invite only and not public.

Select approximate category and sub

Skills: select good English grammar

Give a detailed description of what you want…the more detailed the better.

Job type: hourly….estimated duration less than a month (you can rehire them if they are good)

After you create the job and request an interview with one person, you can go back and request a few more interviews and that job will be saved to use for them too. (You only have to do the job creation step once.)

I usually submit the job to 4 or 5 contractors for review. I’ll pick one or two who respond click to “request an interview”. Then we can message back and forth and I can decide if they are a good fit before I “hire” them.

I never commit a big job to a new person. I always create a very small job first so I can check out the person’s work. Then, if they perform satisfactorily, I’ll ask them about doing more work.

There you have it. Once you commit to at least some outsourcing for your business, you’ll be amazed at how things begin falling into place! Oh, by the way, besides using oDesk myself, I’m also their affiliate and get a few bucks if you sign up. But as you know, I never suggest a service unless I find it very useful in my own business!