This is part 2 in a 3 part series. Read Part 1 here.

Consider getting a tech person. That is the #1 area that you should first look to outsource. So what skills should they have? when I first started looking, I had no idea.

I asked some of my colleagues who were doing it, and they shed some light on what’s worked for them. Here’s what’s worked for me, and with this range of skills, I’m confident your worker will be able to fulfill most if not all of your technical requests:

You could ask for a ‘Web Developer’. This title encompasses a range of skills. The main ones you’ll need are:

– Skills in coding php, html, css

- Web Admin experience

- WordPress experience

- Photoshop basics

- Good general Computer skills

- Willingness to learn

- Willingness to be trained on new skill sets

- Skills in editing Audio/video

- Ability to speak english well!

Let’s talk a little bit about the process of actually identifying the people we want to work with.

So definitely get help with technical stuff first. If you’re not tech savvy you’ll need help with uploading and creating web pages and things like that.

I would actually identify all the tasks that need to be done. You can go one of two ways: there are outsourcing sites that you can post task by task, so you can go to a site such as www.Guru.com or www.RentACoder.com and post that one specific task. People will bid on that in a reverse bidding process. Someone might start at $100, and someone else comes in at $80 and someone else comes in at $2.50 and you choose someone.

They do the task for you, and you pay them and you probably won’t see them again. If you’re smart you’ll actually work a little more closely with them and potentially get them on board for other stuff.

The other way you can do this is to go to a site like www.oDesk.com and they will actually provide a working staff member for you.

You’ll put in a proposal to have someone work for you for a set amount of hours per week and it’s an ongoing communication where you work with that techie on however many hours you set, at a set rate that you agree on, and you have that relationship from the start. That’s what I’d recommend.

As time progresses, you will find that different tasks pop up that might require different skill sets that a general techie might not be able to do. In those instances, you would then go back to one of those sites, be it www.Elance.com or www.getafreelancer.com and post another project.

In the past I found that people who can do a task really well, have quite a good skill set, are related to that area, so let’s say that I have a really basic task like I want them to install a blog plugin on my WordPress blog.

They would generally know a lot about WordPress. They will generally know how to do a lot of other things with WordPress as well. So before I post any other projects, I’ll actually ask that person if they would be able to do that for me. That works well.

In time, if you have enough work, they’ll actually work for you on a regular basis anyway. The beauty of it is, they generally won’t expect a set amount of hours like, “You have to give me ten hours a week or I won’t work for you” – they’re happy to work job by job, and you pay them by the job.

I think the most interesting one there is ODesk.com, which is where you can get someone who’s more of a jack of all trades employee arrangement.

I think ultimately that’s the best situation, if you can find a reliable person who is a jack of all trades in the tech field, so that you don’t have to continually post projects and assess people, because that’s a time consuming thing. That’s something you could outsource.

A lot of people who really start to get into this will outsource to a project manager who is really good at vetting people and using Internet technology to find answers to questions and say, “Listen, I want you to hire someone to manage my scripts for a membership site, I want you to hire my copywriter and I want you to hire the content writer for transcripts.”

So you just go through one person, who then becomes your connection for all outsourcing. It’s higher level thinking but if you begin with that in mind, it’ll help you.

Once you have your team going, it’s a great thing. But there’s a concern, and I’ve experienced this myself, with the contract workers, because of the relaxed relationship that you have with them. Sometimes they take a full time job and they’re no longer available, or their time gets filled up with so many jobs that they can’t fit you in.

How do you combat this sort of circumstance?

Due to the nature of the situation, it’s tough to be able to get around that, unless you can offer them something really solid on a long term basis.

At the end the day, if you analyze where these guys are, they usually tend to have a job where they’re nine to five and they do what they do with you outside of work, to supplement their income.

There are a few that actually do this full time. They have a small team of people that they work with, that they can call on to do certain tasks and you’ll pay them, then they’ll pay their people and make a bit of a cut on that.

Take an example from Mike Filsaime. He really looks after the people that he works with. He has a team of coders in Romania (Mike, if you’re reading, I hope I haven’t given away your secrets here!) and he’s basically given one head guy there some equity share in some of the sites that he’s involved with and that guy deals with all the Romanian coders.

He’s taken this to the next level, because he has a very successful business, but he’s fitted out an office there. He’s bought them all computers. He looks after them really well. He takes them out to events and he actually flies over to Romania from time to time to meet with them personally. That’s Michael Filsaime. Mike is a great relationship builder.

If you’re an affiliate or if you’re associated with him in any joint venture, he really looks after you. He creates a loyalty to him that you just wouldn’t want to leave. Who’s going to buy you a new computer? I’m not saying everyone can buy your techies a new computer, but what I am saying is you can try to create a more personalized relationship with them.

As a start, try talking to them on Skype. Most of them are on Skype. Get to hear their voices, get a feel for who they are as people. A lot of people would just send them an email and say, “Do this and report back to me when you’re done” or use chat. So there are small steps you can take to do that to edge things in your favor.

I don’t believe you could totally eliminate the possibility that they could leave at any time, and I’d always encourage you to have maybe two or three people who could potentially do the same task.

For example, if you’re doing a big launch, the last thing you’d want is your own lead techie to leave you two days before and you’d be completely stuck.

In the last post in this series we’ll discover more secrets to outsourcing and automation. See you soon!