 Hey everybody, J.R. Fisher here. Happy Wednesday. Welcome to Wednesday, the 21st of October. Man, look, the past two years, do you guys feel like it's just like zoom by here? Hey, make sure you're using that chat box. Tell me where you're from, what you're doing, what's going on. We're going to have a great session today. I'm going to give you some insider secrets that I learned in the long years. It saved me so much money over having employees and you're going to love it. It's going to be fun today. And also, at the end of the session today, I do have a free course. It's a $97 course. You'll be able to find it in the description. It will not be there now. It won't be there now, but it will be once this video is posted. If you haven't subscribed yet, please do me a favor. Subscribe. Hit that big button down there. It's red. When you click it, it'll turn gray. When it turns gray, you are subscribed, but you still won't know about the videos because you have to turn on bell notifications. There's a little bell that's going to pop up next to it like this. You want to ring the bell and you want to click turn on all notifications. That way, when I go live like right now, or if I upload a video, it's going to notify you and you don't have to go to my channel and look to see if I've done something new because it will actually tell you. Like I said, guys, don't forget to use the chat. Let me see here. Let me put something in here so we can get this thing going. Put in the chat where you're from, what you're doing, and a little about yourself. Boom. Just like that. Look at that. Look at that technology. I'm on Facebook. I'm on YouTube and I can talk to you guys and that's pretty awesome stuff. Now, let me tell you something. When I first started selling online, and we're going back to 2009, I had to get employees. I think it was in 2010 for my warehouse. And back then, what you did is you went out and you ran an ad online or you ran an ad in a newspaper and somebody would come in and you would interview them and you would hire them. And it was really that simple. And nowadays, it's a whole lot easier. It's a whole lot easier because you don't have to pay all the money. You don't have to run the ad. I'm going to go through all the steps with you and where you can find these people in just a second. But I mean, like if you were to hire somebody in the United States now, even at minimum wage, you're going to be paying probably $20 an hour because of all the taxes and unemployment insurance and all this stuff. Paul says, glad you're back. Thank you so much, Paul. I'm glad to be back. I can tell you that. I'm going to get to the gym today. One thing I haven't done, I haven't gotten back to the gym since I had the illness, but I'm going to get back to the gym today. Good to see you too, Paul. But it's going to cost you $20 an hour to hire somebody. Now, you could go overseas and let me explain something to you. I have people in all these different countries. I have people that work for me in India. I have people that work for me in the Philippines. I have people that work for me in Pakistan, in Germany, in Mexico, in Canada, all around the world. I have these people working for me, which is a really pretty cool thing. Singapore, I forgot to mention Singapore, because when you have these people in other countries, you can pay a lot less money and you avoid all this taxation. All this taxation that America makes you pay. And I want to walk you through some of those steps too. Let me grab some of my notes, guys, so I don't miss anything. There is a little bit more. See, here's how it works. When you're hiring people online, you've got to do more work up front. When you're hiring people one-on-one in America, let's say, you've got to do more work after you hire them. So it's kind of a weird deal, but I'll explain to you why that works out. So this gig economy that has grown over the years has really pretty much been amazing, guys. More than 56 million Americans freelance regularly. So you can hire people in the US too. That's not a problem. And they provide 72 million hours of freelance labor each week. So that's pretty strong. Now, I want you to understand freelancers first off. From doing whatever IT work you have to providing a flexible labor pool to supplement your company's staff, whatever it is, freelancers are really, really awesome people. There's a wide range of products and services and things you can hire people for to help your business run efficiently. And outsourcing a project may make sense when you don't have the in-house availability skills and success to handle it. So let's say you want to do some, let me give a secret. You want to do some, I don't know, graphic, graphic art. And I got to tell you, my graphic art has always been done overseas for all of my labels and all my products after my survival food. But let's say you want to do that. You want to do some graphic arts. And normally in a US business, you'd go to your graphic arts department where you're paying each person $70,000, $80,000 a year and go, I've got another project for you to work on. And I know you were just sitting on your thumbs prior to me walking in your room. And that's pretty much what happens because you got to hire these people and there's no work for them sometimes. But when you use a freelancer, you can say, hey, here's the project. This is what I'm going to pay for the project, whether it's by hour or by the project. And that's all you have to pay for. So in some cases, in some cases, freelancers are not full-time employees, like you would normally have a full-time employee. Now, I have freelancers that are full-time employees, quite a few of them, as a matter of fact. But it is important to recognize that while freelancers and employers both provide services to a company, excuse me, employees provide services to a company, there are key distinctions between the two of them. Freelancers aren't employees. They're not employees. And they don't receive employee benefits from companies that they work with. Now, that's beneficial to you. Not that I don't pay out benefits because I do. I allow sick leave, I allow vacations, I allow a lot of stuff that a lot of companies don't. But they're usually hired by the project and they're expected to report and withhold their own taxes within their own country. So it wipes out that section for you. Now, I have employees in the U.S. and I do have a payroll company that does our payroll and I have to do the taxes and all that. But I'd like to keep as many people off that as possible. The more people I have on that, the more it costs me. It's important to classify employees versus freelancers because they are different. So I can have a full-time employee in the U.S. and I can have a full-time freelancer, let's say in the Philippines or in India or whatever that work for me, which I do. But they've got to be classified differently. A freelancer provides specific services for a negotiated rate and time period. Normally, however, I have several that are full-time that work for me and they get paid weekly and they do their jobs. Freelancing is also not a permanent position in most cases. In most cases, companies will hire them for a few months and then they're off looking for another job. I hire a lot of people and they've been with me for years and years and years because that's what I need. I need a job filled and I need somebody always working in it. You need the proper infrastructure to support freelancers. So before you get into the freelance cool out there to start hiring people, consider whether your company has the infrastructure to support freelancing. You've got to help these people. It's not like you say, hey, you're going to do sales pages for me and you're off on your own and I'm just going to get sales pages every week. It doesn't work that way. You have to work with these people. You have to instruct these people. You have to give them some guidance, okay? Because otherwise they can't do their job properly. Now you've got to ask yourself, do you or somebody else in your team have time to hire and manage freelancers? It takes time to do this, guys. It's not like you're getting rid of some time. You're actually adding time because you now have to manage somebody. If the project requires collaboration, do you have the tools? Do you have the software necessary to make that happen? So once you answer those questions, I'm going to give you some tips to hire and manage those people and ultimately benefit from these freelancers, okay? Anyone of you listening to me right now, you can do this and you can save so much money. But before you hire and you've got to clearly define the project you need completed, okay? Do you have a budget for the project? I see a lot of people will post jobs on Upwork or Freelancer.com and then you know what they want to pay. Don't do that. Go out there and look what that particular job charges. What are people charging for that job? And then I want you to pay above that. Yes, pay above that. Don't be the lowest person paying out there because you're going to get the lowest room of workers. I want to be one of the highest people paying out there. What are the deliverables? What are you expecting these people to do? Are they completed video edits? Are they downloadables? Is it a webpage? What is it you're asking for? What level of expertise is needed to complete the task? I always go for a higher level. I want some people that are very experienced that know what they're doing. I want to see samples of what they've done. What tools or skills are needed for the project, okay? You need to provide that to them. If they have to have their own laptop, then they got to have a laptop, okay? If you're going to provide software for them to use, like I have different like video software, B-roll stuff like video blocks and all that, and they have access to all that stuff and they can use it. What tools outside of that are they going to need? Do they need to have their house set up a certain way? Do they need to have a phone system? Are they going to be answering the phones for you? And then lastly, what is the deadline? What do you expect out of these people? You know, it depends on the project, but sometimes I'll say, okay, I want labels done for some of my products. And I say, okay, three weeks and I need to have this done, okay? And this is one milestone. This is the next milestone. This is the next milestone. So the person may be, you know, send me a mock-up. And the second one may be I'm going to do revisions and then third one may be I'm going to do a final approval. And then, you know, the fifth one may be, you know, deliverable. You're going to send this to me. So if this sounds like a job description, it is. Okay, it is. It's a freelance job and a successful hire is important to your business. So you're going to have to put forth effort. You're going to have to do a really detailed list of what you want out of these people. You're going to have to say things like, you know, communication skills. Do you speak English? Okay. Can you communicate well with English? And how much communication you need with English? Like I have a guy who does my Magento website and he doesn't speak great English at all. Excuse me. But he doesn't need to. It's not necessary for him to do that because he's working on a website. Now, if I had somebody on the phone talking to customers, I would need a high level of English for that particular one, that particular job. Finding freelance talent is like finding employees with agencies and online postings and referrals and opportunities to identify talent. It takes some effort. I don't want to run over to that one of my 912. We're doing good. There's a number of popular freelance recruiting websites, including many where you can actually view available freelance or some sites offer detailed freelance or experience descriptions, work samples, client reviews. And I read these reviews. I really do. I want to know what is the issue with this person? You can also post your need in a professional group. So, you know, if you know a group, IT group or something like that, something on Facebook. Next thing you got to do is screen these people. Screen your potential freelancers. Finding the right freelance fit is as important as finding the right employee. There's no difference. There's no difference if they're coming into your office or if they're just logging on to their laptop. It's the same experience. You want to know that the freelancers have the knowledge, the tools, the mindset to successfully complete the project. You also want to know that they're motivated to finish the task. Now, I have different kinds of freelancers. So, if I go hire somebody on Fiverr or Upwork, I know I'm hiring somebody that does one-off jobs. I know that for a fact. But there are other websites. I have some people in the Philippines, and I use what's it called, onlinejobs.ph. Those people are looking for full-time work. They want to work every single week and get a paycheck. They want to work for you for months or years. So, that's where I would go hire somebody like that. Understand these websites attract different kinds of freelancers, too. Now, also, when you get different freelancers, I've found that different countries are better for certain types of jobs. So, if I need data entry, where somebody is just going to be entering data, I've found that Pakistan works really well. I hired people in Pakistan and had them for years who were entering my orders, and I have a lot of that stuff automated now. If I need IT work, work on my Magento website, or WordPress website, or something like that, I go to India. I've found that some of the best workers are in India. They are also for graphics. India is very, very good. Book editing, I found somebody in Mexico that was very good, and you would think, well, isn't that Spanish? Well, normally it is, but it was an older guy who is from the US and he's an expat living down in Mexico, so he was very good there. And then, you know, I have some social media, video editing things, and I use the Philippines for that. Along with phone work, the Philippines is really good. If you need people on the phone talking to your customers, I like the Philippines a lot for that. But they got to be trained. Okay, don't expect them to get on the phone and know everything about your company, know everything about you, do everything perfectly, and you didn't train them. You got to train them. You got to get them a guide. This is what I expect. Let's see, when I used a freelance in India and it was a lot of communication to get what we needed done. It can be. It can be depending on, you know, what you need to have done. And I appreciate you putting your comment in there, Paul. And guys, use that comment section. It doesn't matter if it's live or not. You can also put it in the comment section below the video once it's not live and it's just an uploaded video. Right now we're live, so you can use that chat section and ask whatever questions you want. Next up, pay them fairly. Now, I touched upon this in the beginning, but I almost want to overpay, okay? I want to overpay. I want to pay more than anybody else is paying. And the reason I'm doing that is because I'm going to attract the best people. The best people are going to want to come to work for me. Plus, they're going to feel more vested in my company. I don't want them to have a job where they're going, well, you know, I could go get this job tomorrow. I mean, this guy pays what everybody else does and if I don't like him today or I don't like what I have to do today, I'll just switch him to another company. You don't want that. You want a job where they go, man, this person really treats me fair. They don't work me to death and they pay me a really decent salary. You know, I want to work there. He treats me decent. That's what you want your employees' freelancers saying. Next up, on certain jobs, you want to have a contract, okay? Once you've found a freelancer for the project, have them sign a contract that clearly outlines the expectations, deliverables, deadlines and fees before their work gets done. I've seen a lot of people say, yeah, I'm going to hire this person for $150 and then the person comes back and says, well, you didn't tell me you wanted this, this, this, this. It's going to cost $300. So they didn't clearly communicate what the job was and what they expected out of this person. Should the freelancer provide regular updates for project progress? Don't assume, don't assume that they're going to do what you would do because they're not you, okay? So if you want a weekly update, if you want a daily update, if you want a report build out, let them know that up front because first off, if you hit them with that later on, they may go, well, you didn't tell me that up front. I don't want to work for you anymore, okay? So let them know up front what you expect and sometimes you have to alter things. I had one of my people sending me a report, a daily report on certain things and then I assigned a whole lot more tasks to them and the daily report became too much work so we got rid of that, okay? As long as they get their work done, they're happy with them. Will you only hear from them when the project is complete? Maybe that's the kind of job you have at them. Should things not go well? How do you end the contract? What do you do? You need to talk to them. And I always, when people screw up or make mistakes or whatever, which they will, don't sit there and think that nobody's ever going to make a mistake because you make mistakes, too. Everybody makes mistakes. Don't beat them up over it, okay? Just say, hey, man, this didn't work out. Let's try it this way and we'll get it right. You know? And I like to do that three times. The third time I get rid of the person, okay? If I have to tell them, you know, first time, hey, maybe I didn't train you right, maybe I didn't show you what you need to do. So that's the first time. And then the second time is like, hey, I told you about this before. Remember we talked about this. And then the third time is, hey, I don't think this is going to work out. I think, you know, we need to part company. So you have to have a pattern there. It's a three-part pattern that I use. And I've used that for years, even when I was hiring people one-on-one, which I ran car dealerships for years, and I hired thousands of people. But I always use that same thing because a lot of times when an employee is not doing what you want them to do, it's because you didn't communicate it well. So my next thing is continually communicate. Communication is essential to managing a project and building trust between you and your freelancers to help build that relationship, communicate with your freelancers throughout the project. Let them know what you see. Hey, and it's not always, hey, you screwed this up. This is wrong. If you see that they did something right, if you see that they did something good, let them know that too. Say, hey, you know, Mark, you did a really good job. Hey, Jennifer, you know, I really liked how you did this graphic. It was really cool. I appreciate it. Let them get some positive feedback too. Don't assume that all your feedback has to be negative. It doesn't, okay? And you want to create an open line of communication so that they can share their thoughts and progress and discuss things with you also, okay? They're part of your team. They're part of your company. They're helping you earn a living, treat them as such. Regular communication can also circumvent problems, okay? We don't want to have problems. We don't have to. Avoid micro-managing. This is a big one, I think. Whether you work with just one or an occasional project or several freelancers, you know, you don't want to micromanage them. Offer encouragement and feedback and all that, like onlinejobs.ph and a couple of other sites I use have this thing called a time, it's a time thing. And basically what it does is it monitors how much time they're working on your project and it sends you reports and it knows what hours they log in, what hours they log out. And I hate it. I hate it for one reason, is it sets up a disloyal situation. And what I mean by that is, if I hire you and you've got to log in and I want to see what hours you're working, that's just like saying, I don't trust you unless you use this, okay? Now, I'm going to be honest with you. I know for a fact, some of the people that work for me screw off. I know they do. I know they screw off. I know that there's times when they're supposed to be working and they don't work. And you know what? I bet you have done the same thing yourself. Would you want somebody looking over your shoulder all the time? Here's how I judge my employees. Are they getting the job done satisfactorily or better than what I expected? And if so, why would you check on them? Why don't you just leave them alone? You know, maybe they want to take a nap in the afternoon because they don't feel good, but they still got your job done. Why do you care? Why do you need to monitor somebody? The answer is you don't, unless you don't trust them. And if you don't trust them, why don't you hire them? You know, why did you hire the people? When I actually ran car dealerships and I had employees that worked for me, I had a standing rule and the standing rule was anytime you didn't want to come to work, you didn't have to. Anytime you wanted to leave early, you could leave early. If you wanted to come in late, you could come in late. All you had to do is tell me. But the key to this was you didn't have to tell me why. You didn't have to tell me your grandma died. You didn't have to tell me that you had a fever of 101. You could just say, hey, I'm not going to be there tomorrow. And I would say, okay, not a problem. Now you would say, well, JR, wouldn't they get out of hand to where people just quit showing up? If they did, I would fire them. It's that simple. But if somebody needs to take some time off for some, you know, mental tranquility or physically they're just worn out. Why would you ask them why? What difference does it make? Why does it make a difference? If they're at home watching TV and they feel okay, or if they're at home and they have a fever of 101, it makes no difference. They're still not at your place of employment. They're still not working. So that's my standing rule. So when people screw off that work for me, I don't mind as long as they get the job done. Now if they're screwing off and things aren't getting done, we're going to have a conversation. Okay, we're going to talk about that. And step in if necessary. If you need to help these people do the job, step in and help them. And that's another thing I want to get to. Don't hire somebody to do a job that you don't understand or know how it works, okay? You can't manage what you don't know. Now I'm not saying you have to know all your technical stuff on your website, but I am saying, you know, if you have a, let's say, I'll bring up Billy, hey Billy, or Mark, okay, who does sales pages. I will say this is what I want. This is what I expect out of this video. This is what I expect out of the sales page. And I know what I expect and I know how long it should take. And that's how you need to manage it. Because if you don't understand what that person is doing, you're going to ask too much of them or not enough of them. You don't want either one of those to happen. And then as a last resort, if people aren't cutting it, you know, you can fire them. You can get rid of them. They're not an employee, but if things become, you know, uncomfortable and things aren't getting done, your project's not completed, then you can just end the contract. It's over with, okay? Ending a freelance contract should truly be the last resort. I mean, I want to really work with people. And I fire very few people because I want to give them a chance. And I think they do want to do a good job. I think most people do want to do a good job. And I think most people screw off every now and then too, because we're all human. I screw off every now and then, right? And then provide rewards and recognitions. You know, I do decent raises over periods of time. You know, maybe once a year or something like that. Sometimes I've done it more, but you got to continually up the pay that people are getting. Okay? You got to make them feel like they are wanted. Okay? That's super important. Everyone appreciates being respected and thanked, but money also matters. Okay? If the project goes well, consider giving the person a small gift for a token of your appreciation, a tip or something. Offer to provide references. Positive reviews and more work in the future. The successful freelancer might even be your next, you know, full time hire. Okay? I've done that. Adding freelance labor to your company really takes planning and dedication and oversight, but that outside expertise and talent can really supplement your in-house team and add skills and expertise as needed. You want to treat these freelancers as people as friends, as family. Okay? They're not somebody for you to bark orders at. Okay? If you've never managed people, you may not understand that. You want them to feel like they're part of your family. Okay? And they should be, right? Because they're supporting your family. They're supporting your income. You need to treat people right. And that's one thing I've really seen when people hire freelancers, they don't treat them right. Okay? Let me look here. I've got, Tayan says, I have such a difficult time with accents. I'm from the upper Midwest. I just don't have a ton of experience with other languages or accents. Tayan, it's not just you. Everybody does. Everybody does. And some people who have an accent, it's thicker than others. My neighbor who's moving in next door is from India. And really nice guy. And I met him the other day. They're building his house now. And he's one of the executives at Apple. And he has an accent. But it's not much of an accent. Okay? I can tell he's from India. He looks like he's from India. And I can hear it in his accent. Now, my guy who works with my Magento website, I can maybe make out every third or fourth word. So we have, we have difficult times in conversation. So we tend to type out a lot of stuff. So sometimes you need to change how you communicate with them. So, you know, it bugs me when somebody says, well, everybody from India has got this thick accent. You can't understand them. No, it's different. It's different for every single person. Okay. Like my neighbor communicates extremely well. He's very articulate. You can hear an accent, but you can make out every single word. My guy who works with my Magento website. Not so much. Very difficult to make out what the heck he's saying. So it varies. It varies by country. It varies by accent. And the more you do it, okay, the more you talk to people from other countries, the better off you're going to be. So what did you think of today's session? Did you get something out of it? Do you understand stuff a little bit more? Do you see how you can save some money? You know, I can pay less money in India for a certified Magento developer because in the U.S. I'm gonna pay 500 bucks an hour and I pay him $20 to $25 an hour. Okay. Which is a lot of money in India. You know, I'm telling you, that's a lot of money where, you know, a lot of those people are making $0.50 an hour. And I'm paying 25 bucks an hour. So, you know, that is there for you. Somebody is hitting my phone. Why would they do that when I'm live? I just don't understand. Let me kill that. Sorry about that, guys. So yeah, freelancers are great. There's some great websites. I would recommend, let me put a couple of those in here real quick too. Where am I at? Where am I at? Streamyard. I would do, I think, Upwork.com. Upwork.com. Com. That's right. Oh, that's a comma. Wait. Upwork.com. I would recommend Freelancer. Lancer.com. These are all good guys. I would also recommend, oh, that didn't work. Let me try that again. Freelancer. There you go. Lancer. I gotta reach a long ways to get to the computer. Let's see. L-A-N-C-E-R.com. I like that one. I like Fiber. So let me put that in there. Fiber.com. I think that's a good one. Stick that in there. And there's a bunch more out there. But guys, if you don't have some freelance employees, if you don't have some people from these other countries, you're missing the boat. I can tell you right now in India, they have some of the highest technical people you'll ever see in India. They're really good at what they do. Why not hire them? Don't let an accent or something like that prevent you from doing it because you could overcome that with the way you communicate. Like I said, you could type stuff out. And they're very good about typing and communicating in English that way to do that. So I hope you enjoyed it. Paul says lots of great information. Where in Philippines do you look for freelance? My people are in Manila, but I don't really look where in the Philippines. I use, like I said, that site onlinejobs.ph. Let me put that in here because if you want Filipino people. Online jobs. But keep in mind, onlinejobs.ph is primarily people who want full-time work. So if you've got a part-time job or a one-off job, you could hire somebody, but you're not going to get the best people because that's not what that website is set up for. It's set up for people who want to find full-time jobs with a company. But I don't really, do you find it easier to communicate in the Philippines over India? No, I don't find one's easier than the other. It's once again, it's back to the individual. Some people in India are very, very articulate. My next door neighbor is, okay? He's an executive with Apple, so he's brought a little exception. But some people in the Philippines are very, very articulate. But sometimes I get customer support. I was on customer support the other day for Verizon, which sucked. And I spent like two hours on the phone talking to these people. And the first two people were the Philippines, and I understand most of what they were saying. And that's who Verizon hired. Where do you look for your graphic work? It depends, Paul. It depends on if it's a one-off project or if it's ongoing. If it's ongoing, I'm going to go to the Philippines. If it's a one-off project, I'm going to go to Fiverr or Upwork or something like that because those sites are known for one-off projects. So it really depends on the job itself. Where I hire my full-time people and where I hire the part-time people and where I hire project people, all vary. It all varies. It varies on the project. It varies on how long the project is. It varies on what I'm going to pay for it. It varies on how soon I need it. There's just so many different things. But those are great questions. Thank you so much for posting those in there, Paul. I do appreciate it. All right, guys. So tomorrow I will not be here. I got a doctor's appointment at 7.45. I'm going to be the doctor at 7.45 just to check up type thing, nothing going on. I got to get a new doctor or new primary care because I moved to Texas and we got new insurance. So you got to have a primary care and then you got to get your specialty doctor. No, no, no, no. Get all that stuff going. So guys, I really appreciate you being here. If you haven't subscribed yet, please do so. Hit that subscribe button down there. Hit it hard. Hit it hard. You got to hit it so hard it turns gray. It should be red if you haven't subscribed. Then once you do that, a bell is going to pop up. You want to ring the bell. Turn on all notifications so you're notified each and every time I go live or if I upload a new video. And guys, also feel free to put in that chat or the comment section if you're not watching this live. Any ideas you have that you want to learn about on online businesses and growing your businesses, put that in there. I answer all my own questions. Nobody's answering questions for me. So if you do post a question and you get an answer and I can't answer 100%, but I try really hard. It's me answering. Okay. It's nobody else. I sit down, you know, once or twice a week and I just go through all those. I do a lot of top to text. So if I mess up a word, it's because I'm doing talk to text. I don't type stuff out. I'm too slow. But that's what I got for you today. You guys have a great day. I'm going to try to be live on Saturday. If you're interested in me doing something Saturday, put something in the chat box, put something in the comment section. The more encouragement I get, the more likely I am to do it. So thank you so much guys for being here. You guys had an awesome day. I'm off to go to work.