Outsourcing work become a necessity in today’s business world. The realization that you cannot – and should not – perform all the tasks of running your business yourself is an important milestone on the path of every entrepreneur. Tim Ferriss – of 4-Hour Workweek fame – has taken this one step further and is outsourcing his life. His web site has several great stories on this topic.
A slightly different approach to leveraging other people’s attention is to have an intern program. James Brausch has the most successful intern program that I’ve heard of. Interns commit to working 3 hours per day, 5 days per week on James’ businesses. In return they will learn and improve their skills in copywriting, traffic generation and product creation.
His intern program has two levels. Level 1 interns receive their instructions from an autoresponder series and they report the results of their assignments to a level 2 intern manager. When an intern manager sees a pattern of excellence they invite the level 1 intern to become a level 2 intern. This selection process is extremely valuable and level 2 interns will be great candidates when a new paid position opens up.
James Brausch is very protective of his time and wherever possible he automates his businesses. The intern program is no exception to this. No interns have direct access to him; no secret phone number, no special email address. The processes James has setup have been tested over time and they are self-explanatory to anyone who can follow basic instructions. Sure some interns will feel that they need more hand holding, but that is part of the selection process. 95% of the interns typically do not perform the tasks assigned to them. You shouldn’t expect more of your interns and you need to design the intern program accordingly. The tasks that you assign to level 1 interns must not hurt your business if they are performed incorrectly or not at all, because that is what will happen 95% of the time.
The benefit of joining James Brausch’ intern program is of course that the interns get to see how a very successful Internet business is run from the inside; skills that they can directly apply to starting and running their own Internet business. But if you’re just starting out and haven’t yet made a name for yourself, how do you successfully recruit interns to work for free on your business? James will answer this question himself on Monday, along with many other questions on how to start your own intern program.
Post a Comment