muselife

p r e s e n t s

SOURCE
C O N T R O L

systematic outsourcing for the dangerously ambitious

1
david walsh
Start Here 4
Core Concepts 10
Mindset 11

Reason Why 13

Expectations 15

Necessity over novelty 17

Ethics, quality & a dash of ignorance. 19

Systems > Skill 22

An Ideal System 26

Starting Out 30
Anchoring 32

Horse first, then cart. 34

Outshoring, Conlancers, Offsourcing & Freetractors 48

Commitment 52

2
 Recruiting your workforce 57

Money 67

Geography 101 75

To source, or not to source? 78

Cubicle Ops: Outsourcing your 9 to 5 91

Operations & Arsenal 96

Workflow 97

Communication 99

Taskmastery 101

Arsenal 115

Wrapping Up 123
Resource Reference 125

3
Start Here

4
OUTSOURCING SCARES PEOPLE. Consider this your invitation into the
international player’s club.
If you haven’t already, you need to experience this
firsthand. Next time you’re in an eclectic bar or social
setting, casually seed the discussion with the “O” word.
With it comes access to a endless reserve of
You’ve just pulled the pin from a conversational live- human capital, a quasi-supernatural ability to
grenade - its explosion creating the most magnificent
work while sleeping, and an awe-inspiring
show of biased half-truths and uninformed, misdirected
fear you’ve likely seen since the last election. You’ll get means to progress at a pace wildly
rumblings of a crippling recession, tirades of patriotic
disproportionate to your capabilities.
rhetoric and the obligatory bigoted remark toward a
foreign country by someone who doesn’t even have a
What we have at our fingertips gives us a means to realize
passport.
absolutely any ambition bigger than ourselves. No skill
unknown, no problem unsolvable - there is nothing we cannot
There’s also usually someone like me, listening intently
make happen if we just know how.
with firmly held tongue, knowing there’s just certain
people that don’t respond well to economics and logic.
If you call yourself an entrepreneur &
If you and I are ever in the same place when that bomb
drops, I want to be absolutely certain it’s your eyes that
that doesn’t excite you, you aren’t one.
catch mine with an understanding wink - not your ears
that ring with sympathetic silence.

5
 Outsourcing, simplified.
There is something you love, something you would choose over all else.

Each day offers us 24 hours to do with as we please. Sleep demands some of it, but time sleeping need not be time lost.

To live extraordinary lives, we need to own our hours. The fewer hours we control, the less fulfilled we’ll be.

If we want to own our time fully, we need to stop doing worthless things.

The act of doing doesn’t make it important. Being the person that does it doesn’t make it important.

To stop doing something ourselves, we need to eliminate it or enable someone else to do it.

Always seek to eliminate first. If it’s not possible, we remove ourselves from the process.

To enable someone else, we need to unpack the strategies we use to perform. It’s often rather unconscious.

Once we know what we do and how we do it, we need to find others to do it for us.

To find the right person, we have to look in the right places and ask the right questions.

After we have someone, we simply communicate our needs and oversee the process.

All of this must be done systematically and without consuming more time than it reclaims.

It’s time to do this, and do it right. Your fleeting time hangs in the balance ... and that’s a loss you can never recoup.
6
Read Before Reading

7
CAVEATS & BLANKET STATEMENTS GIVING ME PERMISSION TO SAY
WHATEVER I WANT GOING FORWARD

It’s entirely possible that by the end of this you’ll think I’m A NOTE ABOUT ASSISTANTS
just another arrogant capitalist who doesn’t want to work
hard. It’s also possible you’ll think I actually know what Everything pertaining to virtual assistants (VAs) is

I’m talking about. specifically referring to assistants outside of the United

States. The domestic VA industry is thriving and I have
I’m not going to ease the blow of any hard facts. If you zero experience working with anyone in it. It should go
want to feel good, go watch Oprah. It’s time to get real without saying that experiences, rates, terms and any
and we’re summoning Dr. Phil. number of factors will differ by eliminating the jump to
another continent.
I find it insulting when statements are wrapped in that
warm blanket of delicate diplomacy so we’ll keep this very In other words, don’t call a firm in Virginia and flip out
simple and direct. when they aren’t quick to compete with the $2/hr offer
you saw on Elance.
I’m not a man of few words so this isn’t a short read - but
it’s only as long as needed to push my knowledge into
your head. I guarantee you there are points and
perspectives ahead that stand to save you not only
money, but countless hours lost to experimentation and
trial-by-fire.
8
What this is... What this isn’t...
A way of thinking about your capabilities A directory of virtual assistants

An approach to intelligent, systems-driven Rigid, finely-tuned, all-encompassing

outsourcing software that accommodates all scenarios

An adaptable set of resources and tools An excuse to suspend judgement and

which you can shape and extend to suit critical thinking as you start hiring
your situation
Focused on novelty, no/low-value,
Absolutely enough to do serious damage, outsourcing tasks
greatly multiply your force and efficiency,
and make money from it. A way to multiply efficiency in doing more
of something worthless to begin with

9
Core Concepts

10
Mindset

11
GETTING OUR HEAD RIGHT shoulders. With so much going on, it’s always shocking
how much time they have to remind you of just how
No system or software can compensate for the wrong necessary they are.
mindset. Without the right mindset, you won’t
experience the power you have in your hands with your
ability to outsource effectively. I’ll mention two ways of We aren’t making ourselves unimportant or
thinking that will not jive with what we’re doing: the obsolete. We’re simply maximizing the time we
employee and the prima donna. have to focus on what actually individuates us.

The Employee Mindset We each get the same 24 hours in a day and the average

Employees expect to be managed by someone else. person uses them very predictably. Your ambitions and
Outsourcing demands managing employees of your own. passions are anything but average, which is why we’re
Being an employee is fine, as long as you don’t actually adopting an equally ambitious system for ensuring there’s

think of yourself as one. time for both.

Since we can never technically increase the total time

The Prima Donna Mindset available to us in a day, it is absolutely critical that we use

There’s a difference between being the only person that the time we have intelligently. What could be more

can do something and simply being a person that does it. intelligent than distributing its consumption to others,

We all know one of these self-important diva types that leaving you clear to explore passions?

walk around with the world squarely on his or her

12
Reason Why

13
REASON WHY
Outsourcing for the sheer sake of doing it can feel like
taking up an instrument you don’t enjoy the sound of. At
every moment, you’ll be asking yourself why you’re
bothering with it. Eventually you’ll give up chasing an end
that wasn’t even compelling from the beginning.

Having a driving force, an underlying pursuit, as a “reason

why” is not an ideal - it’s a requirement. You need
something that relentlessly demands more of your time
and attention. Everything else needs to enrage you for
daring encroach on your time.

Menial, low-value tasks entering your reality need to feel

like your accountant walking in on you during sex - and
standing there stubbornly until you sign-off on some
paperwork.

14
Expectations

15
EXPECTATIONS Learning how to manage people is a life skill. Without it,
you will never realize your potential simply because you
Outsourcing is an extension of yourself and your core can’t take on as much and will take on tasks that are
capabilities. If you are disorganized, outsourcing won’t outside of your core competency.
change that. If your outcomes are undefined or
unfocused, outsourcing won’t change that. If you’re an If outsourcing is something you’ve played with and it
anal-retentive taskmaster that tracks every cent with ten “hasn’t worked” for you, you’ve done something wrong.
years of alphabetized receipts - outsourcing won’t change Yes, maybe your team/assistant disappointed you - but
that (though you’ll know precisely how much money you it’s your responsibility to manage the situation and
wasted finding out). replace them with someone competent. You run the
show - you are in charge now.
We each have glaring weaknesses and are less-than-
capable in some area. The difference between mediocrity
and excellence is not self-improvement - it’s brutal self-
awareness. In the same way that the first step in
addiction recovery is admission of a problem, the first
step to absolutely crushing it on a daily basis is knowing
what we shouldn’t be doing ourselves. Once we work that
out, it’s time to create a system that compensates for any
weaknesses and ensure certain activities are never
demanded of you.

16
Necessity over novelty

17
Once the media got a hold of it, personal outsourcing became a novelty. It turned from
DON’T HIRE A VA TO...
eliminating low-value business tasks to getting someone to stand in line for you at the post
office so you can use the regained time to send a Tweet about how someone is standing in line • Aggregate more blog

for you at the post office. posts for you to read

• Clean up a 10,000 entry

contact list for 9,950
We are not trying to free up time to sit around and read more blogs. We can’t get excited that people you never talk to
an assistant can dig up album artwork for even the most obscure albums in our iTunes library.
• Manage your fantasy
Assigning low-value novelty tasks to an assistant doesn’t change the fact that it’s low-value.
football league

The only thing worse than inefficiency and misusing time is paying
an assistant to maximize that inefficiency.

If you're focused on making money or supporting your lifestyle, forget about organizing your bookmarks, schedule your
own dentist appointment, and focus your assistants on the highest-value, income-producing tasks. Once you've effectively
automated or systematized those, you can start paying your VA to start ironically sending out 1,000 greeting cards on
Arbor Day.

18
 Ethics, quality &
a dash of ignorance.

19
We’re not here to argue ethics. If you’re reading this, you’ve LESSER KNOWN FACTS ABOUT
almost assuredly moved beyond misconceptions and are ready to
OUTSOURCING
act. I’m unfortunately unable to resist using this as a self-
constructed soapbox on which to share some thoughts. • Outsourcing funds terrorism
I came to know this from someone that was
Arguing the ethics of outsourcing is an exercise in futility on-par shocked to learn India is not in the Middle
with debating intelligent design with a hardened atheist, or East, nor are they a major supplier of the
getting the Bloods and Crips to settle it all on Family Feud. Yes, world’s oil resources.
you can try but making money is much more fun.
• Outsourcing is directly responsible for the
Everyone you’ll meet knows someone who has been affected by current recession faced by the United States.
globalization, for better or worse. Someone watched their job Further discussion revealed this person also
move to Beijing. Someone else had a nightmarish customer was not familiar with Bernie Madoff and still
service call with a man who’s real name was definitely not “John”. thought they banked with Wachovia.
People tend to form rigid opinions from limited experience or
• Outsourcing directly violates the laws of
information.
[unnamed major world religion].

These people shouldn’t make you angry - they should make you Ironically, this person was visibly intoxicated.

sad. Pay them no mind. The best revenge is outsourcing well. • You could likely add more unsolicited, well-
researched facts you’ve heard from co-
workers or relatives.

20
QUALITY IS UNIVERSAL WHY GO ABROAD? THINK OF ALL
The mere suggestion of non-American labor has a funny
THE BROKE COLLEGE STUDENTS.
way of grabbing the attention of any person in a room This is not complicated. At the end of the day, it costs our
that blindly assumes nothing of quality or excellence can friends in India or the Philippines less to go enjoy an after-
come from outside our borders. These are also the people work beer than it does for their American equivalent.
that won’t acknowledge a Toyota’s existence because it Dollar-for-dollar, we can derive more value by going
wasn’t assembled in Detroit. abroad for certain tasks than we can by hiring here.
Certain decisions are simply financial. National pride won’t
Quality, craftsmanship, efficiency, pride in your work -
pay your rent, and new American jobs aren’t created by
none of these things respect arbitrary national
entrepreneurs going broke on menial tasks.
boundaries. Italian wines, German automobiles, Swiss
watches - all of these things are what they are because We are a nation of hustlers, entrepreneurs and free-
people take pride in their craft. market capitalists. The American Dream, for lack of a
better phrase, moves us all to action, instills aspiration
Excellent work - wherever it comes from - depends on
and creates a strong undertone of discontent. Sometimes
your ability to create the proper incentives to inspire it.
you’ll find more consistency working with people in
countries that have a healthier respect for the status quo,
and can draw a tremendous personal pride from being in a
position of service.

21
Systems
> Skill
Systems are as reliable & predictable as human beings are not.

22
In the spirit of giving due credit, I want to be clear that I’m heavily channeling principles from Michael Gerber’s book The E-
Myth in the pages ahead. To not cite E-Myth for the sake of claiming never-before-heard concepts would equate to a
preacher omitting God from his sermons to ensure he isn’t pulling from the Bible.

Orchestrating a system allows us to reduce our involvement by turning what we do into processes and anticipating
decisions so we can empower others to make them.

“Orchestration is the elimination of choice at the operating level of your

business. If you haven’t orchestrated it, you do not own it.” - Gerber

Our system is the set of rules, tool and processes that make outsourcing worth the effort. Without a smart system around
it, outsourcing can steal more time than it saves. If every single situation is handled differently, or as if it’s the first time,
we haven’t improved anything - we’ve simply added more complexity and introduced new costs.

For the system to work, it cannot depend on any one person’s expertise or talent. Rather, it depends on process to create
results. To replace people (the first one being you) with process, we need to actually know what it is we do on a regular
basis. Once we break down the things consuming our time, we can realistically decide if our involvement matters.

23
SYSTEMS OVER SKILLS
Sometimes the simplest way to define something new or unknown is by drawing comparison to something known. When
we’re dealing with systems - and the notion of relying on them - it’s fitting to pit them in opposition to skilled people.

Imagine for a moment that you’re starting a business. You’ve seen successes and demand for growth is undeniable. You
hire aggressively and do so based solely on talent. You’re wagering your entire company’s future on finding and keeping
the highest level talent possible. You run the a company for a few years. Things are alright until your 3 top talents decide
to go start their own thing. Your 3 most loyal, profitable accounts then become their 3 most profitable clients. Without
your team, you suddenly can’t offer the results that built your reputation. This is where systems and people start to
behave predictably different.

• Systems don’t leave you for a better • Systems don’t care where in the • Systems don’t spend 2 hours every
paying system world they operate from week talking about the next episode
of LOST
• Systems don’t act in their own best • Systems don’t get pregnant and take
interest a year off • Systems don’t spend another 2 hours
every week talking about the last
• Systems don’t fear change • Systems don’t question their
episode of LOST
purpose, quit and go travel the world
• Systems produce predictable results,
• Systems would laugh at the idea of
untouched by mood or state of mind • Systems don’t only operate for 8 of
sleep... if systems could laugh.
every 24 hours each day

In short, people should not be doing what systems can. We are meant for more. 24
OUTSOURCING GIVES OUR SYSTEM A PROPER HAZING
I’m not here to bag on exceptional people. In my life, I’ve worked alongside and gained unshakeable respect for a lot of
people. It’s a deep respect for such people that I emphasize that there is no reason you should not pair those people with
intelligent systems & processes. The better your systems are, the less risk they face of being pulled away from the work
that gives them the highest level of fulfillment or utilizes their purest skill.

The first (and if self-employed, only) person you should start defining systems around is yourself.

Proactively replace yourself with smart systems now, or wait until someone does
it for you. Either way you look at it, a system is in your future.

Specialized ability can always compensate for absent or weak systems, but each time you work harder to make up for a
missing system, your foundation weakens. You create greater dependence on your ability to perform and maintain. This
is functional but not sustainable. It assumes you want to continue doing exactly what it is that you’re doing - indefinitely.

It’s time to design systems aimed at enabling the most unskilled of individuals to create acceptable results. Systems
eliminate the fragile dependence on specialized skill or knowledge. In other words - systems can remove you as a
bottleneck in your own processes.

25
An Ideal System

26
 Goal: Define a scalable, process-driven workflow producing
consistent outcomes with minimal intervention.

Think of the following as the Match.com profile of your outsourcing system soulmate. Not
your ideal assistant, but rather the system that will allow you to keep your assistants
on-task and on-schedule.

As you read ahead, feel free to start scouring your hard drive for a hot self-portrait and
begin mentally composing a creepy, over-eager first email.

27
NEWBIE-FRIENDLY USER-AGNOSTIC

Your system loves the new guy. Your system doesn’t care who’s using it.
Imagine if every new recruit to enter the United States Bad systems refuse to cooperate with anyone but
armed forces was trained differently. If it were entirely up specialists. Smart systems are indifferent to you and
to the discretion and style of whoever found themselves simply expect you do what’s expected.
in charge, we would not have a world-class national
Imagine if mirrors only reflected images of people they
defense - we would have a poorly run fraternity.
felt were attractive. We’d have more broken mirrors and
Thankfully I’m not more of a military buff - as this is likely
more demand for plastic surgeons.
where I would insult an entire nation by using them as an
example.
• You system is unaware of and indifferent to your VAs
personality, moods, location, language and level of skill.
• Your system clearly communicates guidelines,
expectations and terms to each new assistant.

• Your system minimizes dependence on you to repeatedly

explain your operations.

• Your system gets someone up and running immediately,

and ensures the results will be as close to the previous
person as possible.

28
MODULAR ORGANIZED

Your system keeps everyone on a need-to- Your system has obsessive-compulsive

know basis. disorder.
Not every assistant or new hire will need to handle every No more digging up old files. No more emailing
aspect of your life or type of task. When hiring a attachments back and forth. No more chaos.
researcher, the requirements and expectations are
Your system expects everything to live in its proper place
different than hiring a programmer, writer or freelance
and sets rules to ensure they stay there. It also needs to
designer. Your programmer doesn’t need your Amazon
go make sure the oven is off. Three times.
credentials and your graphic designer doesn’t need your
web server login credentials.
• Your system must keep any files, documents, credentials
and information in a well-organized, shared, central
• Your system must be modular and support only the
location.
necessary tasks of its operator.

EVOLVING

Your system learns from its mistakes.

• Elements of your system should track what’s been accomplished, what’s changed, and who changed it. As new scenarios
emerge, your system has a place to hold new rules to simplify for the future.

29
 End of free preview...

Ready to take control?

Get Source Control

www.getsourcecontrol.com
 David Walsh
David is behind Muselife, a community blog focused on fueling the ultramobile entrepreneurial
lifestyle through systematic product creation. He is the founder of Arsenal, an agile outsourcing
process consultancy. Presently, he’s immersed in the development of M6 System, pairing a
methodical six-part approach to muse/product creation with purpose-built tools to bring it to all life.

If you’re intrigued to dig deeper, you’ll find what you’re looking for at www.muselife.com/about/.

let’s have a meaningful twitter let’s have a lengthy email

140-character conversation @dvdwlsh exchange of words dw@muselife.com
let’s fuel that lifestyle you’re blog let’s get off the internet & do drink
working so hard to design muselife.com what our grandfathers did sazerac

muselife arsenal
DANGEROUS
AMBITION
154