Internet Business and Hiring QnA
We start with a couple of questions on the hiring process, and finish with an answer from Rick Porter about buying a website.
Question: Hey! After reading a previous article about hiring and filtering out people not following instructions, I knew I wouldn’t get a response to my email. But I was interested to see what would happen anyway.
I understand the whole testing/systems side of it and it also being a way to cut down on the number of applications you have to consider, but I also wonder whether it could be a “cutting one’s own nose off to spite one’s face” case as well?
What if there was actually a great candidate/offer in an email which was not read because it was immediately deleted?
What if someone couldn’t actually get access to a fax machine (although I can see that it would then be a test of initiative to get access to one) but had a genuinely great application?
Is this me being terribly soft and giving people the benefit of the doubt? Does one have to really adopt such a black and white process?
Answer: The answer is yes, you are being soft, and yes, it does need to be that black and white. At least in my world.
Feel free to hire anyone you want, anyway you want. There’s only one way to find out if you’ve made the right choice.
For me, if someone cannot follow instructions, then they and I are not going to get along very well in a work relationship.
It’s that simple.
With ETR, II, and Turbulence Training, I don’t have time to repeat myself or hold people’s hands.
The team I have right now is incredibly capable and independent.
They all have glowing resumes AND can follow instructions.
I am strongly against rewarding people when it is unearned.
“That which is most satisfying is that which is earned. Anything received free of charge is seldom valued. You can’t get something for (from) nothing. The price is too high.” – Kekich Credo #38
In addition, all it takes is a simple google search for “send a fax for free” to find a way to send a fax for free from your computer.
Some applicants figured this out. It shows ingenuity. I appreciate that.
BTW, here’s some cool feedback from someone who used their own test in the hiring process.
“Craig, last weekend I had a few blogs hacked and needed a great resource to take care of them. Our normal vendor was totally unreachable, so I went out to oDesk and put my posting up, and ended the posting with “to be considered for this job, please make ‘security’ the fifth word in your reply.”
I had 12 or 15 responses–only one guy got it right and he was AWESOME. Ibrahim R. on oDesk, if you ever need a blog cleaned out. His memorable first line: “ha ha ha ha ‘security’.” Love it. Thanks for the awesome tip.” Pascal
Question: Hey Craig. Thanks for the info but for me, no matter how simple it is broken down. The idea of product creation just seems beyond me! I guess I will just keep trying to bang that affiliate drum until I am confident and skilled enough to make my own product.
All the best! – Cam
Answer: Hey Cam, thanks for the question. It’s a tough one for me to answer because personally I have more ideas for products than I could ever complete on my own – or with an army of product creationists.
This should be really easy for an expert in their industry.
You really have to look at “What’s missing in the marketplace”.
What problem can you solve?
Once you identify that, create a simple outline, fill in the blanks, and the product is done.
It literally should not take you more than a weekend to get 75% of the product done, whether by writing or by filming.
You can do it, I know you have it in you.
Question: CB: This week you’ve made multiple mentions of having a vision. This is something I’ve lacked for quite a while, but you really got me thinking about it. Thanks for making me get off my a#% and finally writing one. As an accountability exercise, here it is:
“Cumulatively across our marketing services, education and certification of other tax professionals, and my private practice, I will have a direct impact in saving American taxpayers at least $1 BILLION over the next 5 years.”
If it’s not audacious, it doesn’t count, right? -Jassen
Answer: Jassen, this is fantastic. Great to hear. I encourage EVERYONE to have a vision, written down, and reviewed on a regular basis.
Question: Hey. do you have any experience in buying product related aged domains? I have a chance to buy an exact long tail keyword domain related to my product for $1800 that gets 12,000+ exact searches a month.
My gut says do it, but I have never done anything like this before. -Jared
Answer from RICK PORTER: If you can convert off the keyword it could be well worth it. Other factors to look at are what is the domain age and are there already aged backlinks to it?
Also the factor to consider is how close of an exact match or near exact match to the product could you get for a brand new domain, plus look at the auctions to see what might be out there.
This is the tool I use to buy all my domains and I’ll be using this for our group network
=> http://registercompass.com/
If it was a good domain and you have a product that will surely convert from the keyword you could quickly make his money back.
It really depends on how you use that domain. Personally, I wouldn’t spend $1800 until I looked at the other options
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Until next week, if you have a question, please post it on the blog here:
=> http://www.InternetIndependence.com
To your success,
Craig Ballantyne
We can do better.