#1 Can I keep my domain name?

Absolutely. Domain names (if registered under your name) can follow you through any web host, site publishing tool or content management systems. The only time a domain cannot be transferred is when the original web host or web design person/company plays dirty and holds your domain hostage by refusing to change where it points to or refusing to transfer to another registrar without payment.

Most of the time, this is not an issue and you will be able to keep your domain.

#2 What will it cost? What kind of investments would I have to make?

WordPress (.org) is open source software which means you won’t have any licensing fees. That does not mean there are no costs. If you’re coming from a platform like Blogger where you’ve never paid for hosting or in some cases don’t even have a domain name, then those are the two costs that cannot be avoided.

Beyond that, additional costs only come in if you decide to purchase a premium theme, hire a designer, buy premium plugins or purchase books and informational guides. If you think you might need or want these, it would be wise to set aside some money so you have room to play.

#3 Can I set up a test site while I move?

If you are starting fresh with a brand new domain the answer is yes. If your domain is currently going to the old site, most web hosts can provide you with a temporary URL where you can access and work on the site before flipping the switch.

#4 My pages are static HTML. Is there an easy way to transfer them into WordPress?

Alas, you may be disappointed here. While there is a plugin that could help, what you have to keep in mind, static HTML importers require your pages to be uniform and well formed. Hopefully yours is. Plan on spending some time to clean up the imported pages as some may look a little strange after importing. If you only have a handful of pages it’s probably simpler to just copy and paste.

#5 Will I lose my readers or content?

WordPress has many importers and converters to help you move your content. Chances are, there will be no loss. You’re more likely to lose some formatting than entire pages and posts.

As for losing readers, followers and traffic, if you were operating on your own domain before and keeping that domain, they will still find you on your new site. In that sense, you won’t lose your traffic nor links pointing to your posts. If you were using someone else’s domain like sittingonmybackporch.blogspot.com and now getting your own, you can’t have them follow you automatically. However, you can and should modify your old site to display a prominent banner to announce and advertise your new site.

#6 What will happen to the URLs of my old pages? How do I redirect them?

If you try to keep your page and post names as similar as possible, WordPress can attempt to guess and redirect people to the right place. Sometimes, the automatic redirect doesn’t work as it should. You can help it along by using a plugin called Redirection to specify exactly which pages direct where.

You should also make sure you have the ’404 Not Found’ error page set up properly to catch the pages that fall between the cracks.

#7 Can I handle this by myself?

That answer lies in what you know and how determined you are. If you know even a little bit of HTML or HTML/CSS, you’re in a better position. If you know a tad of PHP you’re head and shoulders ahead. If you know none of that but are very determined and motivated, yes you can, but be well prepared to face major frustration. Getting a guide, set of tutorials or connecting to a group of WordPress knowledgeable people will go a long, long way.

A blogger who attempted the switch all by themselves had this to say, “The problem is not the lack of free tutorials but too many of them! It takes huge amounts of time to separate the good and bad ones, and on top of it all, I didn’t even know what I was looking for. Save your sanity, get help.” Great advice from someone who’s been there.

Lynette Chandler is the web tech go-to-gal to marketers and bloggers online since 2004. She teaches them about WordPress, related web technologies and invites you to grab free training at http://TechBasedTraining.com/free-training/?&aff_id=XXXX

You’ve decided take the plunge and outsource some work to a subcontractor. So, you ask a couple of colleagues for recommendations and they suggest Susie Sub. They say Susie is a hard worker with a variety of skills and she’ll do an excellent job for you.

So you contact Susie Sub and agree upon a rate for your client’s project, sign a contract and you hand over the specifications. You expect Susie to have her work finished by the next week because of the glowing recommendations.

The next day, you email Susie for an update, thinking she might have some questions. As the project manager, you want to give her support. By that night though, you hear nothing back from Susie and start feeling a little worried.

You’re thinking there’s probably a good explanation. You figure she’s probably working so hard on your project, she’s forgotten all about email. She’ll answer your email the next morning.

The Problem

Three days later and you’re anxiously trying to contact Susie. You’ve called her, emailed her, tried to reach her in every way possible and there’s still no response.

Another day goes by and the client is asking questions, wanting to know how the project is going and asking for a few changes to the original project. You still can’t reach Susie and your stress level goes up, so you start working on the project yourself. You’ll have to work as fast as you can through the next day and night but aren’t sure if you can complete it by the due date.

Finally Susie emails you. She’s been visiting her friend out of town and there was no Internet. She did work on your project though and it’s all complete, right on time. You go through it, and the work is excellent. But she caused her so much stress that you almost don’t care.

The Solution

The moral of this story:

When you outsource work to a subcontractor or multi-VAs, always give a probationary or trial period to test if they’re suited to work with you.

A trial run would have helped you discover that Susie has a habit of not communicating during a project, even though she does the work, does it well, and does it cheerfully.

This situation may be difficult to handle and you need to make a choice. Either you can handle Susie’s silence because of her excellent work, or you’re going to be so stressed out by the absence of communication during the project that you can’t possibly work with her.

A trial period can also bring out other problems:

1. Work isn’t finished on time.

2. Refusal to follow your instructions.

3. Negative attitudes.

The Lesson

You may not notice all the problems during a trail period, but you can take quick action to address those that do, and possibly save yourself some headaches.

During the time you’re testing your subcontractor, make sure you are paying her. You may go ahead and sign a contract, including a provision for the trial period.

After a trial period is over, mentor your subcontractor and offer constructive feedback. The reason your colleagues may not worry about Susie is they’ve worked with her for years and know she always comes through. It’s important to tell Susie or other virtual assistant team members that you expect communication throughout the project. They may be happy to oblige.

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Maybe you love writing, but you’ve been hired to build a website and you’re so stressed out from trying to set up WordPress, editing the template, creating graphics that you feel sick. You haven’t had more than a minute to think about the great content you were so excited about when you took on the work.

Or possibly you were so excited that your ideal client hired you to design her graphics that you took on the job of designing the whole site as well. And now you’re spending hours on tasks that you don’t know how to do and regret accepting the project.

Perhaps hiring complementary subcontractors will help you.

Complementary Subcontractors

Some people hire subcontractors or someone from a multi-VA team that have the same skills as they do. This can help the service provide increase her productivity. For example, a writer might hire a team of writers so that she can take on more writing projects. Or a web designer might hire more web design subcontractors so he can churn out more sites.

While this is a common and effective way to produce more work, it’s not the only way.
You can also hire subcontractors with different skills that go along with yours.

For example, if you’re a virtual assistant who specializes in affiliate management, you might hire a graphic design subcontractor to create banner ads and a writing subcontractor who can put together email articles and blog posts for your client’s affiliates. You simply manage the project, making sure everything is up your standards and done correctly. Of course, this is only if you’re skilled with managing projects.

If writing is what you’re most talented at, you might hire a subcontractor as a project manager, along with a graphic designer and a web designer. You write all the content, the graphic designer creates all the banners and the web designer uploads everything to the client’s sites.

The project manager keeps track of the calendar and ensures that each element gets where it’s supposed to and on time. As the business owner, you need to oversee all the parts of a project and make sure everything fits together to produce the best project for the client. You also need to communicate with the client.

Overflow and Special Skills

You can also hire subcontractors to handle any overflow or excess work that you have. Perhaps you accepted too much work and it’s your busy season because it’s close to the holidays. You need to get articles, blog posts and banners created but can’t do it all alone.

Hire subcontractors who have complementary and similar skills so that you don’t get overwhelmed with all of the projects that you want to get to clients on time.

The great thing about subcontractors is they don’t have to do the same things you do. They can offer associated skills that will help you serve your client’s needs better, which will benefit the reputation of your business.

When your virtual assistant team is working together smoothly, you won’t need to worry about not getting tasks done on time and doing things that you’re not interested in. That’s one of the biggest advantages of running your own business-if you have too much work, or don’t like the work, outsource to someone!

There are several ways to make this system work.

Pay Per Hour or Per Project

First, you need to choose a payment method for a project. Are you going to charge your client an hourly rate or a per-project rate? You’ll also need to find out if your subcontractor is going to charge you hourly or by the project. A subcontractor should always be paid even if your client is late paying you.

Second, you’ll need to find out how much your subcontractors charge or will accept for the work you need them to do. This way you’ll know how much you should charge for your all of your services including project management, client communication and editing. Add these numbers together, along with any other necessary fees, and you’ll have the amount you need to quote the client (although I recommend adding a small contingency fee as well).

Remember to charge enough to cover your subcontractor’s fees, the time you have invested in the project and any overhead that might be associated with the project. After you figured out the total amount, you’ll need to make sure you sign a contract with the client and the subcontractor before working on a project. Your lawyer will tell you what should be included in the contract.

Sending Payment

Subcontractors or a virtual assistant team have different payment policies. Once the project is completed, some subcontractors invoice immediately. Other subcontractors invoice monthly or even weekly. Payment policies or methods should be mentioned during the first interview with anyone you’re thinking of outsourcing work too.

Another way some contractors may want paid is by selling you a certain amount of hours or tasks per month. She only works with you until the hours are used. This is a good arrangement if your subcontractor is completing tasks that aren’t directly related to specific clients or projects.

Come to an agreement ahead of time about specific payment arrangements. PayPal is generally used to pay online subcontractors. In some cases, you may be able to pay via credit card, or the subcontractor may accept checks.

A subcontractor with a small business may require you to pay your invoice immediately. Some larger operations though may allow you to pay your invoices 10 to 30 days after receipt. This information should be included in your subcontractor’s polices.

What If the Client Doesn’t Pay?

If your subcontractor is charging you for a specific client-related project and the client doesn’t pay, you may not want to pay your subcontractor.

This is an important subject and should be covered in your contract with the subcontractor. But even if it’s not, as the project manager, it’s not only your responsibility but it’s ethical to make sure you pay those you outsource too, even if you don’t get paid. It’s also your responsibility to ask your client for payment.

Treat your subcontractors well by following their payment policies and never under charge your clients. This will help make your business successful.

The time has come for you to make an important choice. You can either keep your business from growing further, or outsource some projects to subcontractors and add more people to your virtual assistant team.

It can be a difficult decision to go ahead and bring in subcontractors or keep the same routine of doing everything alone. After all, you’ve poured yourself into the business and you really don’t want to take a chance on someone else messing it up.

In some ways businesses can be compared to kids. They don’t stay little forever. Eventually, they’re going to go to school, get invited over for sleepovers and generally get taken care of by other people.

Likewise, you’ll need to learn to let go and outsource to a virtual assistant mentor or add people to your virtual assistant team. Let them handle some of the tasks in your business, including some of your client work. Of course, that doesn’t mean you should hire the first subcontractor you see and expect her to be a perfect fit for you.

10 Smart Ways to Subcontract

1. Understand that building a subcontractor relationship takes time. You need to get to know your subcontractor and she needs to get to know you to determine if you can work with each other.

2. Ask your colleagues or contact a virtual VA firm for recommendations before you hire anyone. A great recommendation will go a long way towards insuring that you’re hiring someone who adds value to your business.

3. Don’t be tempted to hire a subcontractor because they’re cheap. It may cost more but someone with a good reputation and expertise in the areas you need will benefit you in the long run.

4. References will give you lots of information about a person you’re thinking of hiring. If you find great reviews, you’re ready for the next step. If the references are less than ideal, you may want to find out why.

5. Check the potential subcontractor’s portfolio and website. If her own site isn’t up to your standards and doesn’t look professional, chances are, her work won’t be either.

6. Offering a trial project is one good way to tell if a subcontractor is trustworthy. Contract her to do one small project and see how she handles it. If it takes her several weeks to finish it, she may not be a good fit. It’s a good sign if she returns 30 minutes later and has really improved the article.

7. It’s very important that you both sign a contract. Include the amount she will be paid, allowances for increases in rates later on, a point at which the contract will be re-evaluated and specific instructions on what will happen if either one of you wants out of the contract. The contract should include detailed information on what happens if either one of you breaches the contract. Also, include a confidentiality clause. The contract should only be signed after consulting with an attorney.

8. Excellent communication is necessary for a good business relationship. Make sure that you provide clear instructions and that your subcontractor or multi-VA team understands your expectations. If a mistake does happen or there is a miscommunication, review the situation with your subcontractor so that both of you understand what went wrong.

9. You should evaluate all of the subcontractor’s work. The only way you’ll be able to ensure your company’s quality is to review the work yourself (unless, you’ve hired someone to work as a project manager and that person knows exactly what you’re looking for).

10. Always follow the instructions in the contract for termination. Sometimes a subcontractor doesn’t work out for a variety of reasons. Don’t take it personally, don’t insult her, but do give constructive feedback if she wants it. Also, don’t let one bad experience turn you away from subcontracting.

Follow these ten tips and you can grow your business from a single entrepreneurship to a company that runs well with teamwork and handles several clients and many projects effortlessly.

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It’s important to take great care of your list and make sure you evaluate it regularly, so you’ll know who you can depend on who you should avoid. This also lets you know if they’re looking for work or leaving the business.

Creating a Subcontractor List

1. Ask your colleagues for advice and recommendations. They can tell you what worked best for them to help you decide whether you need people with the same skills you have or complementary skills. Either way a subcontractor should add something extra to your project.

2. There are groups where you can find people with skills that can help you with projects and increase your business. For example, if you need a web designer, join a web design forum or Yahoo group and look for members who are willing to subcontract. You can also find skilled people listed in virtual assistant subcontractor’s directories.

3. A subcontractor’s performance and ability affects your reputation. While you can look for people who are new to the business for really cheap subcontracting, try finding more experienced subcontractors. The benefits to you and your company outweigh the cost.

4. Give each potential member of your list a trial run to see if they’re a good fit. This way you’ll learn whether or not the subcontractor has the skill set and level that you’re looking for. It will save you time and money hiring or outsourcing work to subcontractors or a virtual assistant team that works well with you.

5. Stay in contact with each subcontractor through e-mail or social media accounts such as Twitter, Facebook or Linkedin. You’ll keep up with how they’re doing and ensure they’ll think of you if someone asks for a referral.

6. Offering work or a project to your subcontractors occasionally will maintain the work relationship. Also, let them know they can contact you if they have any concerns or questions. Good communication is imperative for a successful relationship.

7. Let your subcontractors know about any new changes or updates with your business so they can keep track of you as well. Inform them ahead of time about any new upcoming projects. Give a specific date or they could take someone else’s offer before yours especially if they have multiple clients.

8. It’s important to add people to your list with different skill sets because you can accept a wider variety of tasks from clients. For example, if you suddenly find yourself in need of someone to perform a specific task such as web designing, you should have a second person on your list in case your first choice is already booked.

9. Every person on your list should sign a contract. This is a protection for you, so that they don’t take on work directly from your clients. A written agreement should be drawn up and signed prior to the start of any projects. You can do a standard agreement that takes into account individual project specifications.

10. Always be on the lookout for new people that you can add to your subcontractor list. Check virtual assistant organizations or use an intermediary service.

Building a list of subcontractors makes it convenient when you suddenly find yourself with too much work and not enough time to finish it all. A list will allow you to find the best subcontractors quickly and handle more projects and new clients with ease.

The right people on your virtual assistant team will help your business grow because you won’t have to turn away projects from great clients. Building a list of the best subcontractors means you won’t have to frantically try to find someone with the skills you need if you take on too many projects.

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While it is true that some clients may tell you they only want your work on their most important projects, this doesn’t mean you can’t contain a multi-VA team to get some help.

When a client tells you this, it’s your opportunity to explain to her the benefits of working with a VA or affiliate manager that’s capable of directing a virtual assisting team, instead of trying to do it all herself.

In fact, if your client is already outsourcing to you, there’s a good chance that she’ll understand the benefits of outsourcing. She may need to be reassured that subcontractors will give her projects the same care and priority that you do.

Benefits of Working With Your Team

1. Each member of your virtual assistant team is an expert in a specific skill. She only takes care of that part of the project and so she can give it her full attention and talent. Instead of undertaking all kinds of work, she is master of one that will greatly benefit your client’s business. For example, if one of your team members is in charge of creating graphics for your client’s site, she’s not going to be worried about the HTML, WordPress or hosting. She’s going to concentrate her full creative repertoire on the graphics task at hand.

2. Everyone will be able to produce their specific work at a faster rate with more talented people covering different tasks on the project. How many times, when you know you have a huge project to do, have you hesitated getting started? Or maybe, it takes it takes you longer to do the work. Some people get overwhelmed when they realize a huge project is due at a certain time. But with several subcontractors working on certain parts of a project, productivity is definitely increased.

3. As the project manager, you’ll review every piece of the project, so it will be double checked. Most people who work alone in the service industry don’t have the luxury of providing more than one set of eyes to check projects for mistakes, errors and other fundamentals.

Once your client understands that you are mentoring a team of people and not just allowing anyone to help with projects, hopefully she’ll come around. She’ll probably realize that your subcontractors also benefit her and that you would only let talented and creative people work for you. If a client doesn’t understand that you sometimes need help, perhaps it’s time to find a new client and let this one go.

Leading Your Team

Now that you have your client’s trust, make sure you are leading your team. Only hire subcontractors who you trust and know will do the best job. They should be capable of maintaining or exceeding your standards and expectations.

If you’re concerned about subcontractors or your virtual assistant team taking your client’s work, you can always give only small parts of the project to each subcontractor. This way they won’t fully know what it’s about. Don’t tell them the client’s name. Also, make sure your contracts include confidentiality and non-compete clauses.

Even though this advice is good, extra help isn’t the only thing that’s needed to grow your business. Instead, you need to look at hiring people whose skills are the same as yours or complement yours. You can often find skilled subcontractors at multi-VA firms.

Hiring Service Providers Like You

Hiring an accountant or bookkeeper will give you more give time but you still won’t be able to complete all your business tasks by yourself. It will eventually decrease the quality of your work.

A reliable subcontractor that’s capable of performing the same level of work you do is an asset to your business. You know exactly what you want done. You can mentor them with any specifics of your project. This will help with communication and help insure consistent quality for your clients. It also will allow your company to accept more work.

For example, if you are an affiliate manager, you may have enough time to write 3 promotional articles, create two graphics and answer a certain amount of questions in a week. Hiring a subcontractor will give you more control over your time and allow you to produce more work. At the same time, your subcontractor is also answering questions and creating articles and graphics as well.

Give a subcontractor a try and you can see how much more work you can get completed.

Hiring for Complementary Skills

Imagine the benefits of hiring a subcontractor with complementary skills?

If you’re a virtual assistant who specializes in website management, you might hire a subcontractor who is really good at writing. She writes the content and you add it to the website. Your client is happy and you know you’re developing a good reputation.

You could even expand your services to email marketing, article marketing and other areas of website management and Internet marketing. Your business will attract the attention of more clients because you’ll be offering a wider variety of services, which may put you ahead of the completion. This means an increase in your income.

Hiring Process

After you thought about the kind of qualities you want in a subcontractor, you’ll need to find the right person. This includes:

1. Asking for recommendations or references from your colleagues

2. Carefully studying portfolios of potential candidates

3. Interviewing subcontractors

4. Asking for and following up with referrals

5. Evaluating if you and the candidate’s personality are suited to work together.

6. Determining the subcontractor’s work ethic

After you’ve decided you want to outsource work to someone, even if they’re from a multi-VA firm, make sure you go through a trial period. There’s always a risk when you give someone the responsiblity of a project when you don’t know them well.

It’s vital that you and your subcontractor sign a contract. It’s a protection for both parties and lists details of responsibilities and expectations. It also gives a professional and fair way for either party to exit the contract.

You can find several sample contracts online – but an attorney who specializes in contracts should look it over for you to make sure everything is correct and legal. Following these procedures will help you make the right choice when hiring a subcontractor.

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More than Just Giving Instructions

Working with subcontractors requires that, not only can you give instructions, but you must also be able to give and take feedback and constructive criticism. Two-way communication is necessary for a successful business relationship.

As the project manager, effective communication with your client is also important for business success. You’re the middle man and if you can’t communicate back and forth, then the project is likely to fail.

For example, when you subcontract out a web design project, you will need to make sure you understand your client’s goals by carefully listening to them. You also want to make sure you use communication to explain this to your subcontractor in a way that they can interpret what you’re telling them In other words; you’ll need to be able to speak your client’s “language” and your subcontractor’s as well.

There are several ways that you can improve your ability to communicate with your subcontractors and your clients.

Clear and Organized

The first thing you want to do is make sure that all communication is clear, structured and conveyed effectively. While verbal communication may seem easier, written communication is more professional and more easily tracked, especially if you and your subcontractor never meet. Ways to communicate in writing include:

1. Email is often used to discuss business matters in writing. It’s also surprisingly one of the most unreliable. You’ll discover this first time a subcontractor fails to complete a project, and states that she couldn’t because you didn’t answer her questions in the email she sent three days ago – but you never received.

2. Basecamp is a project management software that’s beneficial for brainstorming ideas using an online whiteboard and also communicating via messages with your subcontractors and your clients. Each party in a particular conversation receives email notifications of updates. It conveniently lets you login at any time to see if there are updates. You can access the Basecamp website anytime you need too.

Once you have a system setup for the type of communication that suits your business, you’ll need to develop a communication policy for your company.

Staying Professional

When we work closely with people every day such as subcontractors, it’s easy to get frustrated and sometimes even angry. This can cause more problems so remaining calm and talking over things can help resolve misunderstandings.

One way to help you remember what to do in these situations is to have a communications policy. The policy needs to outline appropriate methods of dealing with various situations in which you might be overly emotional.

For example:

• How do you handle a subcontractor who you don’t hear from for a few days, right in the middle of a time-sensitive project?
• How do you handle a subcontractor who doesn’t follow instructions that you gave her, even though they are clearly written in your project management system and she read them and said she understood them?
• How do you handle a subcontractor who talks on the phone more than she works on the projects you gave her?

These policies can also include ways to show respect to your clients and how you allow your clients and subcontractors to treat you.

Follow Through

Regular communication with your subcontractors or VA team is just as important as a batter following through on a swing. If the batter stopped her bat as soon as she hit the ball, the ball would barely pass the batter’s box. (It’s called a bunt!) Likewise, if you don’t follow up on your communications, your team may not care as much about your business and may not do as good of a job for you.

So, give your outsourced team instructions and then request feedback. And when your team has followed through on your instructions, give them feedback. Tell them you appreciate their hard work. And then follow the process in reverse with your client. Follow through with your communication and enhance your relationship with your subcontractors, which will benefit your business.

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You may have already turned down clients when your project calendar filled up, sent clients to a colleague or tried to meet their needs and couldn’t fulfill their expectations. A professional subcontractor that complements your skills can ease the stress from these problems and help you stay on track.

Why You Need a Subcontractor Today

1. Subcontractors Can Take the Extra Work

A subcontractor can allow you more free time for other projects, which will increase your income. For example, let’s say you schedule twenty hours of work in one week for two clients. By hiring a subcontractor, you can schedule in two more clients or another twenty hours of work that week.

Even though it costs money to hire a contractor, you still make a profit on those extra hours you were able to schedule. Also, you’re not paying hourly or weekly wages but only for completed projects. You’re the project manager, quality control officer and client liaison. You assign projects, make sure they’re done correctly and communicate with both the client and subcontractor.

2. Subcontractors Can Add New Skills

Subcontractors or a virtual assistant team can help you expand your services because they may have specified skills. For example, if your virtual team specializes in writing blog posts for your clients, you could hire a web design contractor to set up new sites or change the design of existing ones. This gives you a broader range of services you can offer and a better opportunity to meet clients needs.

3. Subcontractors Mean Less Paperwork

There are several advantages of hiring subcontractors instead of employees. A subcontractor comes with her own office, her own equipment and usually previous training in different types of services. She often has her own service business and will ensure she keeps a good reputation by doing the best job she can do for you. A subcontractor is responsible for her own taxes, sets her own hours and is self-motivated. You only pay her for the work she completes.

The downside of hiring employees is they need to work from your office and you need to provide equipment and essential materials. While there are many excellent employees, you may also need to provide training because they’re not in business for themselves. You would have to set her hours and pay for the hours she’s on the clock even if she doesn’t do a good job. You’re responsible for withholding taxes, Social Security and taking care of all the paperwork.

Growing Your Business with Subcontractors

Hiring a subcontractor or a mentor with expertise can be a moderately low cost way to grow your business to grow your business. It benefits you, the service provider who gets the help she needs, and the subcontractor, and gets to work she and she needs.

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