inside the fifteenth episode of outsourcinglive, i interview a well-known internet marketer who's built a six-figure business after quittinghis job as a general manager in mercedes benz. he shares how he uses outsourcing to leverageand create multiple businesses as well allowing him to work part time. also, inside the quicktip, i review a job network site that helps you find filipino virtual staff. let's rollit! vo: welcome to outsourcing live podcast whereyou will learn to build a virtual team to run your business. and now, your host, tyroneshum. tyrone: hi everyone, itãs tyrone from tyroneshum.com.today iãve got really special guest on the
call today and his nameãs james schramko.and, i wanted to get james on the call today because iãve been speaking to james previouslyand heãs got a really, really interesting story that i wanted to share with you andwith my business here and also his business, we all like to look at creating a lifestyleand also looking at generating different types of passive income so i thought why not getjames whoãs also an aussie, from australia and also i wanted to share with you his storyso welcome onto the call james. james: yeah, thanks for having me. i know weãve met previously in the past ina conference and also sort of chatting over
facebook and skype a few times as well, iwant to let the audience know for people who donãt know who you are, maybe just give thema background story where you started from and how you got into internet marketing andwhere you are now? sure well iãveã–i started part-time likepretty much everyone else and i found it very, very difficult like everyone else. and, thefact was i was running mercedes benz dealerships in my dayjob. it was lots of stuff and itwas quite intense job and i figured that i should be going to apply my business skillsto the internet marketing side of things realizing that the internet gives you a lot more opportunityfor automation and for leverage, i just found it so hard and i tripped away with it forseveral years until finally i could break
free for full-time work. my goal was to matchmy income which since i was on $300,000 a year which was quite objectiveã– yes. and that was about 2 years ago, i quit myjob then. and, ever since then the internet business has been growing and sort of ledto other opportunities as well. as you know, hardly any business understand internet marketingso iãve got myself in a position now where pretty much anyone i want to work with ishappy to collaborate or give me equity in their business, or profit share thatãs whyi joined forces with them. so thatãs a bulk on my business now, itãs getting involvedwith businesses and turn them into more profitable
business using especially internet marketingskills. nice, so what led you to create what youãvecreated right now because obviously youãre on a pretty good income back in working atmercedez and i think a lot of people would probably envious of you because you get todrive nice cars too and show nice cars as well. so what was the reason for the change? well, ahh you know if you rate any of thesecashflow type youãd realize that having a job isã–pretty much just stalling your life.you know, i was kept at $300,000 i couldnãt make million dollars a year doing that job.i wasã–i had no equity in the business and it didnãt work for me when i was workingfor the business. the day comes that you stop
working for the company, your income stopsand thatãs not a good solution for anybody so i would suggest that the only true freedomcomes from having your own business. i wanted to have more income, i wanted to have morefreedom and i wanted to be in control because youãre not in control when someone else istelling you what to do and when you have to work for other people and thereãs no waycan possibly automate it and leverage it unless you get some form of equity or become a businessowner. so that was my driving course. absolutely. well thatãs really amazing. ijust wanted to ask you maybe make a quick comparison so as for people out there, howmany hours a week were you working inã–or in your job at mercedez benz? how many hoursare you currently doing right now?
well towards the end, i was doing aã–probablyabout 50-60 hours a week in my full-time job because i was in the general management roleso iãve managed to widdle it down a bit from 70 and i was doing about 3-4 hours a day onmy internet marketing business on top of that, 7 days a week. wow. so i was probably pulling some pretty heftyhours but i could see the light in the tunnel. and if you fast forward that to now, whenyou consider things like sleeping inã– we love that. and you know, doing things like writing andbiking and non-work activities, iãll probably
be pulling in about 4 hours a day on my internetbusiness. so the main change was i dropped my full-time job and became a lot more productivewith my internet marketing. and a lot of people will probably go wow,how did you do that? and i know itãs probably going to be more than an hour long to be ableto talk about that and get into details. but i think youãll be really cool just to maybeshare with them how briefly in your story leading up to becoming where you are rightnow to be able to go from 60 hour a week down to 4 hours a day at most. i mean thatãs somethingthat you choose to do. can you notã–can you do after work in your business now? yeah because of the business model and thestrategy that iãm using, i am working more
than i would have to do and it also comesback to what sort of income level you want to grow your business. so if i was happy justto make 3 or 4, $500,000 a year, i could probably work for 30 minutes a day because i have about12 different businesses that iãm operating at the same time and each one of them is a6-figure business. so if i wanted to pay it down to some of the more active ones, thenit would reduce my work. for example, i have a mastermind group, it takes me 2 hours perweek and it generates in excess of $150,000 a year. so if i just wanted to do that, icould work no more than 2 hours a week. the reality is iãm building a 7-figure empirehere thatãs on its way to 8 figures so iãm well into the ones now for the million dollarplus turnover, and my goal is to get to $10m
a year. for now, iãm prepared to pour into 4 hours a day. ah, how did i get to that scenario? iãll give you the very shortestversion. nice. i became an affiliate, i built websites sellingsoftware and i got very good at the whole affiliate thing offering bonuses, creatingfree newsletters, getting traffic to it from forums and blogs and articles, and payperclickand search engine optimization. and then i created products that helped people do thosethings and then i became i guess an information marketer and built up my customer base slowlyand steadily full of buyers. so i just always focused on buyers and after i got that, youknow every step of the way i was able to lock
in that sort of profit and then add extraservices and extra pricing levels. so i built a membership community which is one of thestaple businesses i have, and thatãs very, very profitable business. and from there iwas able to leverage into masterminds, mentoring and then finally building a sort of doingbusiness deals where i can assume companies and do them over and sell them basically.itãs been an escalating hierarchy. and you said that itãs taken you roughlyã–howlong ago? was that you said since you left job, itãs about 2 years, how long has ittaken you to get to where you are now? i think iãm up to about 5ã–5 probably comingup to my 6th year now. 6th year on this. thatãs great. i just wantedto ask you as well, if we take a step back,
you said you started off with affiliate marketingand you started to also promote different affiliates something like that for anyonewhoãs really just looking to start out and whoãs wanting to create like a lifestylethat youãve created for yourself, what would you say something that you could recommendthem start off with this likeã–obviously because youãve done quite a lot there and thereãsquite a lot of things that youãve got in your business, something just starting outwould like to know what would i do first? i think every single person watching thisshould learn how to sell. if you look at all of the most successful marketers and businesspeople, they are able to sell. and for us weãve called it copywriting but if you canlearn how to sell if you can compel people
to take action, regardless whether itãs yourproduct or someone elseãs you can make it attractive for people to move forward, thenthat is skill that is going to translate in everything you do whether itãs on your salesletter or your blogã–excuse me. all right. never answered the phoneã–and thatãs probablya fundamental skill. okay, and on top of that obviously you havenãtdone all this yourself have you? i mean have you got a team thatãs back and behind youto help you do all these stuff as well? yep, like most people i started by myselfand thereãs only so far you can get. one of the first things i outsourced was articlewriting because i really donãt like writing
articles, iãm a very slow typist and itãsnot my core skillã– that's me too. and thatãs it so you know as soon as i needthat out, i did the numbers in my head. i thought well if i get, if i pay extra to havethem written then i can make more than that in commission i should be doing that. andthatãs where i really started to grow my business and then from there, i outsourceda help desk which allowed me to provide more services because service-related businessesrequire more support but theyãre also more profitable. then i started outsourcing design,because iãm not a good artist that canãt use photoshop and it was ridiculous for meto spend this time trying to learn how to
create banners and stuff when i can just paysomeone to do it. then, i eventually moved into having other people build my websitesand run my payperclick and now i have teams all around the world. iãve gotã–a whole team in india who do justtraffic and search engine optimization, i have a team in the philippines who do everythingfrom transcriptions, design, website construction, content, traffic, backlinks, optimizationconversions, analytics, videos, and account creation, they do everything. and, i havea designer in the uk and i have an article writer in australia and i have an event manageras well who helps me prepare workshops because there are high-profit items right for productcreation and also for customer appreciation.
and, thatã–that into the business, you justneed to have support unless you plan on working 22 hours a day. absolutely and no one likes that right? no i thinkã– i think most. you know even ifyouãre passionate about it and you love it and you happened to do the work, you stillwant to leverage the work that you do. you wanted to be the highest value activity atall times. i know you write about that, you talk about the 80/20 rule and parkinsonãslaw and itãs always that same thing. jay abraham talks about it too. the best and lastpurpose for my time is toã–is to be the strategist and the marketing guy, thinking of how i canleverage all of my resources in better.
exactly, i totally agree with you on thatone because i think we all have the potential to do it. itãs just the question is, no onereally likes to sit back and think about things at times to be able to get other people doit and once you can leverage that and take out whatãs in your mind because thatãs thebiggest challenge i think. itãs getting whatever is in your mind, putting it down on a computer,or mind map whatever you want to do and finding a team to be able to execute basically tobe able to get the work done for you. yeah i think thereãs two parts to that tyrone.one is for new people, they say what would i outsource because they donãt actually knowwhat the right things are. thatãs one of the big challenges, it took me a long timeto figure out what the right things are. and,
once you know what youãre supposed to bedoing, once you figured out a way to convert and make profit then you feel like a frustratedartist like how can i get more of this out? how can i be doing ten times of this you know. once you know the trick that makes the moneycome in, you want toã–you want to do as much as you can like for example yesterday, i bought34 domains from somebody that are all around the same product and topic, now i canãt waitto have these developed and up there and getting the traffic design. now i can make money fromthem, thereãs no question because i already half a dozen websites in that exact same marketso the big tipping point is knowing how it works. and for some people, they might haveto it themselves originally to get that profit.
as soon as you get to a point where you canmake $1 turning to $1 plus something, you know a dollar ten or $2, thatãs when youshould outsource like crazy. because for most people, the big is the chicken and an egg.you know, iãm not going to outsource so that i make big profit but you want to make bigprofit until you outsource. exactly. if you want to get into the high, high incomebracket, youãre going to have to get someone else to do some heavy lifting for you especiallyif you can do some other trials, if you can get a high income back from a low investmentin what it cost to get it done, you should be doing it as much as you can.
absolutely, and i totally agree with you onthat one. ifã–a lot of people do struggle with starting to outsource which is what italk a lot about. and, i think the thing is, is that i always have it like look, if i startit all over again and i was to run my business from scratch again, the first thing i do isto find teams around me to get the work done because i know iãm lazy and i know that ihave always wanted just to sit back, and just look and enjoy. but when you want the workto be done, youãve got these teams around you where they can allow you to sit back andjust all you have to do is thinking and strategizing everything in mind which i can say what'shappened to you quite, quite very, very fast and leverage very, very quickly as well too.
well i've more or less re-created my old jobbut with all the good things and all that you know. the bad deeds were not having controland having to drive off to work everyday in suit and - well look at you now. yeah that's right. so i've re-created thatleverage of having a team rather than doing it on my own terms and that's probably themost important element of freedom is doing something because you're driven to do it,because you're passionate about it and because you enjoy and it gives you the choice to dothat. that - that's fantastic. i also wanted tofind out as well, with the lifestyle that
you've created now that you've got a leveragedbusiness, and you've successfully outsourced a lot of the things that you've got and alsoyou're living a lifetsyle, what are the things that you enjoy in life at this point in time? really quite simple - i'm collecting mountainbikes in some reasons. i'm trying to ride everyday or every second day. it's a 9.3 kilometertrack around my area here that i like to ride on and i go with friends and - you know, that'ssomething that i just didn't - i didn't get to do that before. i was really trapped inthe office. the other things that i like, i like to sleep in. i don't wake up until9:30 or 10 o'clock and i like to walk down to my favortie coffee shop in a t-shirt andjust sit there when all the rush has gone
and just skim through the paper and - enjoy.just skimming through my iphone and just have a look at what's going on and then plan myday. then i just come home and i do something thatwant to work on. and the other thing is - you know, you can stay up as late as you want.if you're in the zone or you want to do a project of something or whatever you know,there is no start or finish time so it's completely up to you. i particularly enjoy that flexibilitybecause you know what it's like sometimes you're on - you're on and if you're not on- you're not so i also like to just pull out that couch behind me and grab a book and justread the book. i get books delivered by ___ from amazon.
you know, i try to read a book everyday ortwo at the moment and again, it's something i have a passion for that i just didn't havethe opportunity to do before. by the way with the new ipad that's come out,it's been out for a few months, quite a lot and also the amazon kindle, do you use anyof those tools with - for reading or do you use that for business as well? ah, i do use my ipad for business but i don'tuse it for reading. i think we got more apple here than the local apple shop. tell me about that i'm looking at it rightnow. basically i - i would take my ipad out toa meeting if i'm doing a business with somebody,
i would use it to just go through basecampbecause it's a bit bigger than the iphone and it's a little more convenient than takingthe macbook pro you know, setting up the dongle at all that sort of junk. so i think the ipadfor me as a business tool is most useful for basecamp and also for skimming through myforum and just checking emails. but - the other thing you know, if i want to take oneof my children off to horseriding or to piano or whatever after school then i can just useit in the car for half an hour while i wait. so it's sort of my portable - device justto hook in. you know, i'll check facebook or twitter buti'm not really connected to the internet for the whole day anymore. people who know mewill know that - you know, i log into facebook
or twitter once a day or twice a day. i'mnot - i'm just not sitting on it the whole time looking to utilize my time there. i'msort of switching off more than i've ever switched off before which is the other greatthing. so just by having these portable devices it doesn't mean you have to you know, havethem grafted to your body. absolutely, i think also too, creating a lifestyleis - it's great to have all these tools and also the communication with people but it'sget to be limited to certain extent. like for me, a lot of guys ask me where am i onskype and i'm not on skype. people was messaging me and saying tyrone are you there and mostpeople know that i'm invisible because i don't want to be chit chatting or anything unlessi have meeting e.g. like with yourself. but
i try to stay connected through facebook andtwitter and all those other forms and still focus on productivity because once you getonto playing around with those things, it's very, very distracting if you don't controlyourself but it's a very, very good tool to use for those things. also too, i wanted to find out a little bitmore about any upcoming projects that you might have as well too. you've been very successfulwith setting up a lot of your businesses there. have you got any new projects besides theone that you said - 32 domains that you bought, any new upcoming seminars? i have a million projects. just - the stuffon top of my head, i have a - let's see. well
a little bit of my affiliate at the momentis directed to training my filipino team. we're moving into local business marketing.you know, a little bit more detail i've been doing that for - oh geez - four years. andyou know, a lot of people are now coming to the market saying it's hot in this and that.i mean i really know how it works and i'm automating the whole thing. i'm having themapproach clients in special way, get the business and then fulfill it automatically so i thinkit's doable and i think that's big part of our growth. i'm also developing public host with thousandwebsites at the moment for the domains that i've bought for the last six months. and someof them are very premium domains and we're
building out the websites and then we're turningthose into businesses. so we pick the best ones and we'll collaborate with an offlinebusiness and then probably sell the entity so that's another project. hmm. i have a live event coming up in a week anda half which is very exciting because i've got my best sort of friends and experts whoi collaborate with who are flying from overseas to share information in that and i'm veryexcited because i got experts like john carlton, ed dale - yep.
and people who supply the products that iuse like the guy the runs my shopping cart called josh anderson - oh yes. and - you know, mark rhodes who's a ppc expertso we've got some really good people coming to that. we'll record those events and mynext project after that would be to manage the launch of the days from it. i've also got my mastermind group, it's goingvery well it's in it second phase now. i think all wrapped that up it's called silver circleand people are getting astounding results from it that's why we do our weekly callsand i think that's basically tapping straight
into my experience and i'm able to live throughtheir businesses as well so i'm quite enjoying that. and - well we've got an seo business that'sgrowing quite rapidly and we have web development company and - the affiliate marketing, i'vegot a few sort of surprises there too. i've got a number of products and strategy arounddeveloping that out as well trying to automate and leverage that as much as i possibly can. so that - the first test of that went reallywell. it could make $1500 in the first few days of launching it and it's pretty muchcompletely done by my team. so - where i could go and make a lot more money myself, the wholegoal is to try to get it done by someone else
and when i can spin a few plates at once thenit works. at the moment my filipino team is sitting at somewhere around 15 people so igot enough depth there to continue that and to grow it now than sort of measurable ratebecause they're getting very skilled. that's awesome. can i - i know you've gotso much going on there. it's - it's unbelievable how some people can - like some people who'sstarting out even thinking how does james juggle all these things all at once? basecamp. that's what i thought. that's a very good tool for organizing thingsbecause you can segment projects and you can
invite in people who relate to that projectonly and you can set tasks. i mean at the same time, i have five 101 mentoring clientsand we're using exactly the same process. we set action steps and we do weekly reviewpoints. and - business growth is automatic when youdecide on the objectives, you set the action steps, and then you measure that, it's easyto manage that. with an ipad and basecamp, you can pretty much run a business these daysfrom anywhere. i've heard about that. i think some peopleare trying to do that or show that they can do and i think it's possible very, very muchso right nowadays with so much of this technology that's available. it's amazing. i'm blownaway by how many projects you're able to do
at this point in time. i mean some poeplelike to focus and i can see that you like to have spread of things going on at the sametime. just - awesome. yeah i would say i'm a generalist and it'snot for everybody but bear in mind in my last job i have 72 staff and i've been managingpeople and a business for at least the last 15 years. so it's - it's definitely a skillset that i possessed that not too many brand new internet marketers are seem to share. most of the people i help struggle with systemsand growth and especially when they're trying to outsource, a lot of people who've had nomanagement experience really struggle to have
good relations with ther team or with theirsupport group. [dog barking] sorry about the dogs there. that's okay. [dog continually barking in background] so i think that's definitely for me, it'sjust sort of - it's as easy as riding a bike. so - haha. yeah. so it's -
that's a pretty good dog. well we don't need a dog all around here. ah before we finish up james, is there anythingyou'd like to share with the audience as well like how can people get in contact with youand as you mentioned you've got a seminar that's coming up, is that still open for peopleto join in or is that closed right now? yeah, we actually ranged the limit about 2days ago. if someone wants to come and they might want to contact me maybe on facebook,but it's - it's at capacity. we'll only hold about 220 seats in the room and i think we'reon 219 so i've closed it off. we always sell out our events, we're not trying to get 600people and that kind of thing. with 20 experts,
we actually have you know, there's one expertwho have 10 guests which is very rare and they'll stick around for the whole event. so - you know we didn't make this call totalk about the event but - yeah i just thought - and we need to only run this once or twicea year now because they take a bit of effort to put together and i also want to make themvaluable. absolutely well you definitely provided alot of value in this call and for me, i've even learnt something as well from you soi'm keen to take on some more of your stuff as well down the track.
all right well james, thank you so much forcoming onto the call today. it's been an absolute pleasure to be able to find out a lot moreabout what you do and also talk about your lifestyle as well and if anyone wants to getin contact with james, what's the best place to get you on? go to internetmarketingspeed.com and that'sone of my primary blogs and jump on that list there because that's where i would send outmy new projects or my new products. and you know, there are no autoresponders on thatthing. you'll not going to get belted every five seconds in the inbox. you'll probablyhear from me once every couple of weeks or once a month.
the other place of course is facebook. i'vegot a page up at fbjames.com, that will take people straight to my facebook page. so ipost information there, i've got a fan page as well for the silver circle where i'm postingtips each week after our calls. i'm just getting some of the good little golden nuggets andputting them on that page for people on there. from what i get, people are enjoying thatcontent. well i know i am everytime i listen to oneof your postings or also check out your newsletters, i'm blown away by the amount of informationyou're able to provide so thanks very much for that. yeah it's awesome to catch up and i'm prettysure my dog's enjoyed it too.
haha, defiintely. what was your dog's nameanyway? ah we got a few here. there's pronto, bunnyand - reese. and max. actually we're naming them someone else and that's what the ___is all about. territorial wars going on here. we learn a lot about - animal behavior withhere having more than one dog. yeah i know well my partner and i have beentalking about getting a dog so probably we're considering it right now. well at least she'll have a chat with my wife,she does know a lot about them. oh definitely i'll get her onto it. awesome. all right well thanks very much againjames.
it's time for the outsourcing live quick tip.inside the quick tip, i want to share with you a review that i did on a site called onlinejobs.ph.and this particular site is basically the job board or job seeking website which attractsmostly filipinos from the philippines and that allows them to be able to post theirresumes online for you to go and search and find them. so if you're looking to hire fulltime or part time or just a casual filipino staff, this could be a potential website foryou to check out and have a look. it's very similar to bestjobs.ph and whati recommended previously as well. the difference is that this was designed by an american internetmarketer who actually put this whole stuff together and has refined it a little bit more.and it does have a ton of resumes here which
can be overwhelming if you don't know whatexactly what you're looking for. now i did a review on this site just to give you somepros and cons about it and to give you some comparisons to see and to show you what'sthe benefits and also the disadvantages of using a site like this. i personally haveused it and it has worked out 50/50 for me. but the reason why i'm recommending it toyou and to show this to you is to give you another option if you're not successful withother job websites. so you can actually access this site at www.onlinejobs.ph.and also too as i mentioned i did do a review on my site and you can check out the reviewthat i've done as well which gives you in-depth of what i've reviewed inside and you can accessthat at outsourcinglive.com/onlinejobsph-review.
and inside there i'll go through and takeyou through in the back and actually i show you how i go about finding candidates insideand how it brings. and furthermore, there's just a few extra tips that i give you andlet you know what's good about and what's not good about this site and you can makeyour own decision whether or not you should use this site as well. so it's just basicallyan open opinion so that way you can get an idea. all right if you've got anymore comments onthere, feel free to leave it down below in that video and also let me know if there areany questions as well. now, if you like more resources like thisone, you can find them inside mass outsource
mastermind along with video tutorials andstep by step instructions showing exactly how i use them. to get a 30-day no risk trialmembership to mass outsource mastermind, simply visit freevideoset.com. until next time, iwish you success in your quest for outsourcing.
