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When a corporate rockstar turns into an entrepreneurial coach with more than an 80% success rate with his mastermind groups, you need that guy on your podcast. That’s exactly what I was thinking when I first came across Ellory Wells. 

 

Ellory was the exact person I needed to talk to because I’m currently a part of a mastermind group and am considering creating a mastermind group. With all of this in mind, I asked Ellory some questions that focused on what it takes to run a successful mastermind group. Our interview also took an angle towards fighting self-doubt which is natural but still evil.

 

 

Key Links From This Episode:

 

http://www.theexitstrategybook.com — Ellory’s book

 

https://www.ellorywells.com — Ellory’s website

 

http://www.thesuccessprinciples.com/ —Jack Canfield’s book gets mentioned in this episode

 

www.ellorywells.com/marc — Ellory’s mastermind guide 

 

 

Learn:

 

—How to run a successful mastermind group

 

—How to get the best out of people

 

—How to avoid self-doubt

 

—How to transition from the corporate world into an entrepreneurial sensation

Adam Houge is an author and a beacon of hope for self-published authors. The status quo view of self-publishing is that it’s hard to make money and sell books. Adam proved both of this myths wrong by selling 2 million of his self-published book.

 

Adam’s initial motivation wasn’t to make money. He was more focused on spreading his valuable content and getting his books into the hands of as many readers as possible. He wrote a religious book in the midsts of a series of medical bills and retirement from his day job. This is the book he wanted to spread. After writing 100+ books (not a typo), he’s now done just that—spread his message. In this episode, he discusses how he found the time to write 100+ books. 

 

Adam also talked about overcoming the 30 day drop off in sales after your book gets published. He doesn’t just get sales in the short-term. His books continue generating sales years after they were published. We also talk about keywords and categories, Amazon’s SEO.

 

Adam treats us to a mini course on all things Kindle marketing. If you’ve got Kindle books that you want to promote, listening to this interview will greatly help you with your efforts.

 

As always, our guest shares his favorite inspirational quote, and much, much more.

 

 

Key Links from the Show

 

www.thefanbaseformula.com – Adam’s Training Course for Authors

www.adamhouge.com – Adam’s Personal Site

 

Learn:

 

– How to keep sales up on Amazon Kindle

– Why Keywords and Categories are so very important

– How to make your book reach the right people

– Adam’s best learned career lesson

– What most authors get wrong when first publishing

– Adam’s favorite inspirational quote

One of the best decisions you can possibly make for your business is to outsource some of the work to freelancers. The more work you outsource to freelancers, the more time you have to commit towards other opportunities.

Some people turn away from outsourcing because of the costs associated with making the switch. Others want to outsource as much of their work as possible but find themselves limited by their budgets. Regardless of your current status, you need to expand your freelancer army. The more tasks you delegate, the better.

Here’s how you expand your army of freelancers:

 

Everyone Gets A Legit Part

Before you even think about hiring another freelancer, you must ensure that you have legit tasks available. A legit task is a required task but also a time-sucker that you don’t enjoy. Scheduling social media posts, creating pictures, and editing podcast episodes were some of those tasks I needed to outsource.

While I outsourced those tasks the moment I got the chance, I have never thought of hiring a ghostwriter, outsourcing training course creation, or outsourcing the email broadcasts. I enjoy those tasks. If you don’t enjoy any of the tasks in your business and are desperate to outsource everything, then you are in the wrong business.

When I want to hire another person to make my life easier, I assess everything that I do in a given week. What are the tasks that I enjoy? What are the tasks I want to get off my back? Which of those particular tasks take up most of my time?

These are the questions I ask myself before I post a job and eventually look through the job applicant’s cover letters. With clarity on my requirements, I can rest assured that my life will be made easier.

If you don’t have this clarity, you risk hiring a freelancer for the wrong reason or hiring someone who won’t meet your expectations. The result is an intense level of stress that will suffocate your “extra time” you got from hiring the freelancer.

 

Gradually Grow The Freelancer Army

If you go right out the gate and hire a dozen freelancers, you’ll get overwhelmed. Gradually growing the freelancer army means growing it at a consistent pace that makes sense for your brand. If you hire too many freelancers at once, you’ll have a difficult time communicating with everyone and getting on the same page.

Outsourcing different tasks will save you time, but hiring too many freelancers creates a new problem. Now you have to manage them and ensure that your freelancers are as effective as possible. Outsourcing management to a manager will make your life much easier as your freelancer army grows, but when you start out, you are the manager.

Once you feel comfortable with every freelancer you’ve hired, you can then expand and look for other options. The more comfortable you become with your freelancers, the quicker you can look for someone to fill your next job.

 

Don’t Rely On One Freelancer

A common mistake people make is to assign a super VA. This “super VA” can apparently accomplish any task you give him/her. Most people who find themselves in the super VA position will take on any task you give them to please you and make more money.

Relying on one freelancer to get everything done in your business is like relying on one musician to play all of the instruments at the concert. It won’t end up well.

Instead of relying on one freelancer, you must hire more freelancers who specialize in certain areas. I hired my first freelancer to help grow my Pinterest account. I didn’t hire that freelancer to edit my blog posts. I needed a different freelancer for that job.

People can do anything, but not everything. Don’t act like your freelancers can do everything because they can’t. Putting that unnecessary workload on an individual freelancer will create more stress for both of you (subpar work combined with your recent hire desperately trying to please you in so many ways).

 

Reinvest Your Time Wisely

Here’s how you actually get to grow your freelancer army. Every other tip at this point has been laying the groundwork for this one moment.

If you hire someone to schedule your social media posts, you need to know and remember two things:

Cost per hour

Number of hours this person will work for you each month

Let’s say I hire a social media manager who gets paid $10/hr. This social media manager works for two hours per day.

I pay this social media manager $600 every month.

To continue working with this social media manager, I MUST make at least $600/mo to balance out my expenses. If I make $595/mo with my extra time, then I’m losing money and my current path doesn’t make sense.

At this crossroad, you have three options:

Fire the freelancer

Look for a less expensive option

Reinvest your time more wisely

When you hire a freelancer to save yourself time, you must be prepared to make more additional money than you’re spending on that freelancer.

 

Look At Costs And Results

Not all freelancers are created equal. Some do the job to near perfection while others miss a few things. Every month, I make it a point to assess all of my freelancers.

I identify what work is getting done and how much it costs me.

If I’m happy with the work and am getting a good ROI from reinvesting my time wisely, I keep that freelancer. If a freelancer strains my budget or doesn’t get the job done, I have a decision to make.

If the expensive freelancer does a phenomenal job, keep that freelancer if your business still aligns with that person’s work. Never give up good freelancers because those are the ones you don’t have to worry about. If you feel like your freelancer would catch you during a trust fall, keep that freelancer on your team.

 

In Conclusion

Growing your freelancer army is a numbers game. If the decision makes financial sense and you make more money with your extra time than you spend to save that same amount of time, then you made the right decision.

Each month, monitor your freelancers’ progress to determine whether you’re still making the right decisions or if the landscape has changed.

What are your thoughts on building a freelancer army? Have any tasks you’d like to outsource? Have any tips on acquiring more freelancers? Sound off in the comments section below.

Aaron is an online writer, contributor, publisher and guest blogger. I first learned about Aaron in a funny but awesome way. Aaron was looking for teens to feature in a SUCCESS Magazine article. My friend Ulyses Osuna tagged me and I learned about the opportunity. I submitted my story in a powerful way, Aaron and I got to talk a while afterward, and the rest is history. He’s now the latest guest on my Breakthrough Success Podcast.

 

Aaron has written for some of the most prominent websites such as The Huffington Post, Mashable, Business Insider, SUCCESS, and many more. Like any entrepreneur, Aaron had his low point which he discusses in the episode. He then developed a love for blogging, and guest blogging in particular. This love for guest blogging got him on those prominent websites I mentioned earlier. He talks about how you can land your content on those websites too. 

 

While this story sounds glorious, Aaron has faced rejection after rejection. In fact, his tagline is “Let’s Get Rejected.” He occasionally posts on Facebook about how his article got rejected on many websites, but then one website took his idea (and most of his articles end up raking up some SERIOUS engagement).

 

Key Links from the Show:

http://iconicontent.com/ – Aaron’s website

http://www.copyblogger.com/author/aaron-orendorff/ – Aaron’s CopyBlogger page

http://buzzsumo.com/ – One of Aaron’s go-to tools

https://www.google.com/trends/ – You can use this tool to analyze trends. In this interview, you’ll discover why Google Trends can literally transform your content brand.

http://iconicontent.com/guest-posting-course/ – Aaron’s guest posting course. Take it if you want to learn Aaron’s big secrets on web domination.

 

 Learn:

– Why the snowball effect is important but doesn’t ensure anything

– The right way to build relationships with editors

– 3 mistakes people commonly make with submissions

– Aaron’s advice for having a breakthrough

– How to write content that gets approved

I’ve known Joe Parys for a while, so I was delighted when I learned he agreed to be a guest on my podcast.

Joe and I created two Udemy courses together and have been interacting with each other ever since. I’ve viewed him as a mentor on Udemy and I’ve asked him questions throughout my journey on that platform.

For anyone curious (and eager to get a big discount), these are the two courses we created together

 

• Develop A Winner’s Mindset: The Power Of Positive Thinking

• Boost Productivity & Get Amazing Results On Social Media Now

 

 

Now I have him on my podcast to discuss how he made a six figure income on Udemy in 2016. While this alone is impressive, the cool part is how he achieved this goal.

On January 1, 2016, Joe declared his goal to make six figures selling his courses by the end of the year. Before that, he barely made $10,000 from his courses and had no idea how he would make six figures.

We talk about how he made his big transformation in this episode just in time for the excitement of a New Year. People set New Year’s resolutions all of the time. Joe talks about how to accomplish them even if you don’t know what you’re doing quite yet.

But Joe has some other insights up his sleeve in this episode. We talk about some of the tactics he used to get more sales for his courses and expand his Udemy student base.

At the end of 2016, Joe was rapidly approaching 200,000 students throughout his courses. That’s not bad for someone who only had 22,000 students just 366 days ago (2016 was a Leap Year. Remember that? I didn’t).

 

Key Links From The Show:

joeparys.com – Joe’s official website.

udemy.com – The site Joe publishes his training courses on

udemy.com/user/josephparys – Joe’s Udemy profile

 

Learn

– How to optimize your descriptions to boost sales

– How to increase student engagement in your online courses

– The pros and cons of using a site like Udemy VS hosting your courses

– How to accomplish your New Year’s resolutions (for real)

 

Subscribe to the Breakthrough Success Podcast on iTunes and Stitcher. If you genuinely enjoyed this episode, I would love it if you could leave a quick review for Breakthrough Success on iTunes, Stitcher, or both.

In our latest episode, I am joined by Tom Corson-Knowles, an entrepreneur, publisher, and author of 20 bestselling books. Listen in as we discuss his career, and as Tom drops some super valuable information on success as a writer.

 

Tom had a different dream than his classmates, and wanted to be successful for his quality of life and to make a change in the world…rather than working crazy hours at a Wall Street cubicle. He had a clear vision and set his sights on it.

 

Tom talks us through his start and how he became a bestselling author. Tom discusses how we should model our way to success and wants us to avoid a devastating mistake most people make when they publish their first book.

 

Wondering how to get people to buy your books? Tom goes deep into this question within the episode. You’ll also hear about “thinking time” and many other lessons that will help you become a more successful author and entrepreneur.

 

Key Links from The Show:

 

www.tckpublishing.com  – Tom’s Publishing Company’s Site

www.ebookpublishingschool.com – a free Video tutorial on publishing

www.publishingprofitspodcast.com – Tom’s Podcast

 

Learn:

 

– Tom’s 3 Keys of Authorship

– How to run a business and still have time to write

– Tom’s best lesson learned during his career

– To model success on those who you consider successful

– How and why to create a great team around you