Youtube video transcript
Hello, YouTube and a special hello to my subscribers. My name’s Phil. I’m the Income School student. And if you’re watching this channel for the first time, I’m actually a current Project 24 member. And that’s the program set up by income school.com. So a couple of weeks ago, I spoke about how I’d hired the first writers I ever hired in my life from Facebook.
So today I just wanna give you a bit of a, an update on what’s been happening with my team and a bit of feedback to tell you a bit about my experience with it. So the first thing is. I launched two websites in the last couple of months. And on the first site I’ve got about 10 response posts. And on the second site, I’ve got about seven which is, I think about six response posts and one staple post at the moment.
So overall that’s cost me. About $566 and 3 cents. So that’s about $33 or so per post. So that’s where I am at the moment. Those posts are very new. They’ve been up there for only a couple weeks, so they’re not ranking or anything like that, but I’ve certainly made a step in the right direction in launching these two sites.
So before I give you details of what happened next in the hiring process, I want to give you some tips and. Ideas about my experience with hiring writers, especially writers from Facebook. So make sure you do stick around into the end of this video, because I’ll be giving you some more sort of tips and ideas of what to do next in your hiring process, especially if you followed my tips from the previous video, but for now I just wanna talk about my, the main issues that I’ve had with my writers.
And some of the sort of kinks in the system that I’ve come across. So the biggest problem that most of my writers had was with the actual post recipe. So this is the way that I’ve been taught from income school by following their courses in Project 24. It’s how I’ve been taught to write posts. And it has a particular structure.
And a lot of this is not only to make it more user friendly, but it’s also to have some. Benefits from on page SEO. So the things that we include and where we include it is quite important, but this is not the way that most people write a blog post. And some of my writers have got a background in writing and many others don’t and they’ve really struggled with that.
So the main process was that I, they came to me and they applied for the job. I gave them two post titles. And then after that, I made a decision whether, or. Hire them full time. So most of them within the two posts, they really struggled to get it. So I had to give them a lot of feedback and I gave them a lot of examples and I created a whole nother video of myself explaining what it was in addition to the video that we are given in Project 24 to pass on to our writers that we’re hiring.
And I have seen that with the people that I’ve taken on board, most of them now are getting it. I can’t blame them because I wrote 10 response posts and it took me almost that long to really get the ideas into my head and to understand why I was doing and exactly how to do it. So the issue you’re gonna have is training your writers to write in the way that you need.
And the only way to do this. Is to preempt the issues that a lot of people had. So after working with the first couple of writers, the other writers that came and applied, I knew what to tell them and also did a little bit more research beforehand. So you can tell the writer exactly what you expect from the post, but it is a learning curve and you’ve.
That any writer from any platform that you hire, you’re gonna have to train them in some way. The other problem I had was that I’m just trying to get my seed in the ground for these websites. I’m just BA basically working off the idea. I’m gonna create 30 posts for both websites and then let them sit for a month or two while I work on something else.
And then obviously I’m gonna come back to them at that stage. I might still hire the writers, or I may be adding to those websites myself, but the idea is to get the seed in the ground. And with the post mix that Jim and Ricky from the income school recommend, I want about 10 response posts, 10 staple posts, and 10 pillow posts, just to get it spread across the niche and also to test the waters.
The problem I had is that with the two niches that I’ve created two websites I’ve created, I’ve only got 20 response posts. And what I wanted to do was to train up the writers. With each of them writing two response posts each, but I’ve. I had so many applicants that I ran out of repo response posts.
And for one of the websites, I’ve already mentioned, one of the websites is in the wedding niche in that, on that website in particular, I’ve got a lot more response posts that I gave to writers. And that was a bit of an issue. So when you have a lot of applicants, you may find that you’re pushing them into the deep end.
They may be writing very long posts with not a lot of experience. So it’s up to you, how you come up with that. What I chose to do is to pay for additional response posts in one of the niches, because I knew that eventually I would move on and have more posts anyway. That’s the choice. I. You may choose to get them to write the other posts, the slightly longer posts.
And of course it’s up to you to help and support them so that they don’t don’t waste your money basically. So that was one of the other issues running out. Post on my hit list because I was going through the hiring process. So connected to this. I had about 25 people apply, I think. And I sent out these post titles to them and said, this is what I want you to do.
So in many ways I did run out of titles cause I had about 2020. Response posts spread over mainly one niche because I wanted them to write the wedding niche first, the wedding website I should say first. And the problem is of those 25 people I’ve only taken. Five of them are on board at the moment.
And I would say about 50% of those people who went through the application process, watched the videos that Jim and Ricky provided us with in Project 24, came back with the secret words and then got their title. About 50% of them never came back to me. A few of them I contacted and there was one.
Said that she had fallen ill. Another guy had to relocate some other issues, it happens. It’s fine. But the problem with that is, what do I do now? I need to have some of those titles written. So it’s, I gave them a two week deadline. And after that I said that’s it.
Okay. Obviously you’re not interested. I’m gonna give that title to someone else. So sometimes you’ve just gotta say enough is enough. And what I’ve done now is I’ve added some of those titles back onto my list and they’ll be going to other writers. Another big issue to do with the writing style is that people go off.
The issue, is that the way that we write titles the way that we respond to queries, I should say with the Project 24 method is sometimes we have a query that could be answered in a word, maybe in a hundred words where we’re asking our writers to write more than a thousand words on those titles.
Sometimes it can be as many as two or 3000. Depending on the query. And sometimes people, especially my writers, they fluffed, or they went off topic a little bit. And it’s just a question of really reading through the post that you are given the writers give you, and just really going through with a fine tooth comb and just giving them clear examples of what they have done wrong, what they could have done instead.
And often it’s just making those suggestions and opening their eyes too. A different technique or different approach to writing. And you can see very quickly that they take on those lessons and they apply them to the next post. So when someone’s fluffing and someone has gone off topic, you’ve gotta tell them, you’ve gotta give them that feedback so that they don’t think that’s okay because for other types of websites, that would be fine, but it’s not fine for what we’re trying to do with the Project 24 method.
So another issue that I’ve been having with the writers is. A little bit with the tone. So it’s things like being a little bit too narrow with the approach of only applying the post, the answer to the gender that they are. If they’re a man they’re writing from a man’s perspective, if they’re a woman they’re writing from a woman’s perspective.
And the other thing is the classic. We most bloggers, what they want to do is when they’re writing. A blog post and they’re a small website. They write saying we think this, we advise, or we suggest cuz they wanna sound like a bigger organization. You don’t wanna do that right from the first person it’s you.
So if I say this, I recommend it’s absolutely fine. Not to be an expert. You can be that friendly neighbor over the fence or you can be someone. Who is doing the thing that you’re writing about and giving the advice just as I’m doing in this YouTube channel, I’m a couple months down the line further ahead of you.
And I’m talking about what I have experienced. So I had to tell my writers not to write, in fact, put it in the first person. So the best way to do this is to direct your writers to your about page. And that way they can write within your own voice, they know who you are and they know the kind of tone they have to.
In their articles. So this is really good advice. And it’s something that Jim and Ricky mentioned in their weekly podcast, in the project, 24 members area. And they mentioned that this week, I thought that was a great tip. So make sure that the writers know who you are, they’ve read your about page and then they will be better able to write in your tone of voice.
Okay. So those are the main issues that I’ve been having. I just wanna talk about some of the concerns I have for me personally, going through this process of hiring writers. So the main issue I have is that I feel it’s a little bit rushed. I feel like everything’s happening very quickly and I’m just a little bit ahead of the game and it’s, it is a little bit unsettling.
Feeling that kind of push you have to do things. So it is things like because I wasn’t sure if this would work, I egged myself on. And to be honest, I probably had a beer or two when I placed the ad because I was a bit, I’m not a very outgoing person to be honest. And I was worried about the backlash of putting an ad onto these Facebook groups and actually asking for help and mentioning how much I was gonna pay.
so I egged myself on, I wasn’t very well prepared. I didn’t have my hit list prepared beforehand. And then it was this process of going through the application process for the writers and trying to give them two response posts to see what they could do before. I actually had to hire them full time.
And it’s a little bit rushed. And then I had these 20 posts in about a week and a half that I had to go through and edit and give. And to be honest it took a lot of time. So if I were gonna do it differently, perhaps I would go through the process with one or two writers at a time, and then it wouldn’t have affected me so much with my other main project, 20 24 website.
I’ve done a, I’ve written a few extra articles on that this month, but most of my focus has been on hiring writers and editing what they’ve written and it’s a little bit rushed and there’s a lot of things happening. But I think with just better preparation, perhaps I could have avoided that feeling.
But it’s just something you should be aware of and, don’t make the same mistakes that I did prepare beforehand and maybe just do it on a smaller scale to start with, and then scale up with your hiring writers. Another thing I had because I rushed it a little bit was the search analysis.
I had a panic about a week in, and I’d already had about 10 articles written across the two. And I suddenly thought, oh no, maybe I’m overreaching here. Maybe I haven’t identified the low hanging fruit, the low competition, especially in the wedding niche, because that is tough. And I remember, I knew nothing about it.
Weddings really, I’ve done a bit of planning with my wife, but I haven’t really researched it much. And when you start seeing the same websites again, and then again and again, you suddenly realize, okay, they are the big boys. And I went back and just had a look at the same sites, always coming up in my, my, my search is for the keyword.
For the queries, sorry. And, I had to go back and check each of the 60 queries that I’ve chosen. And luckily, I would say for the most part, I had done the right search analysis. I had. Absolutely identified some low competition but hopefully high search volume sort of phrases.
So that’s the other thing again, it comes down to preparation, not trying to run before you may have to walk. So again, just take your time. A really interesting comment from Jim in the community. This. And it was on this topic of hiring writers and he said when you are hiring writers going slowly I in, in the beginning actually will make you faster.
So if you rush things, he said, it’s just gonna slow you down in the long run. But if you go take things slowly and make sure you’re diligent and your search. For writers, as well as your search for a hit list, it’s gonna, you’re not gonna have so many barriers later on and so many things to fix. So I feel that was a really good tip from Jim this week.
The other thing with this idea of having so much to do, was to do with feedback. So the issue I had was that with some of the writers, I needed to give them a lot more feedback and others. A little bit less, it depends on their approach, their tone and things like that. But what I did was I took all of the articles and I put them onto WordPress and then I started editing them, but I didn’t take very detailed notes of what I’d changed.
So I knew vaguely the theme was everyone was messing up the introduction to the post. But apart from that I couldn’t tell them exactly what I changed. So the best I could do is I sent them. To the published article and said, okay, this is what I want. And you obviously know what you wrote, but it would be better if I could take more time and give a little bit more detailed feedback to each individual writer rather than what I did, which was general feedback to everyone.
So again, that’s just a question of time and if you are dealing with fewer people at the same time, I think you’re gonna be able to do this much better. Now this week I’ve calmed down a little bit more, so I’m able to do that especi. The writers that I’ve taken on board. The other concern that I had was with the actual content of what was being written.
Again, it’s down to this idea being rushed, but I know that looking at some of the posts, a lot of that information was scraped and it didn’t really add to any of the posts that were already ranking. There’s nothing different. There’s nothing that adds to the user experience.
And that’s not what I. Why would I pay someone just to tell me what everyone else is telling me? That’s not what you want. So the only way to get over that is to do a little bit of research beforehand and give that research and those ideas to your writers. It could be as simple as just giving them some sub subheadings and some other topics to explore.
And I had to fix that myself. I had to. Back to the post, edit things and add information. So for the posts, most of the response posts I asked were around 1500 words. And I would say for each of those, I added another 500 to a thousand words just because they slightly missed. Some of the information that I would’ve included if I was writing it.
So if you do some research beforehand and give it to your writers, you’re not just gonna get scraped content. You’re gonna get actual user friendly content. That’s a little bit different and actually adds to the experience. Remember it’s not better, it’s better. It’s different. It’s better. If you can do something different to what everyone else is doing, you are more likely to attract those clicks and you’re gonna get those page views.
That traffic is what you’re gonna make your money from. So I hope you’re enjoying the video so far. There’s a lot more to come, so don’t click away just yet. Just make sure that you, if you are interested in what I’m saying, and it’s useful, don’t forget to subscribe to this channel, click on that notification belt and you won’t miss any of my future videos.
So now I want to talk about my worst moment with these writers and I had to fire the first person. I ever fired in my life. So it was a writer who I recruited from a Facebook group here in Taiwan. I had said specifically that I only wanted to have native speakers and they had to show that by putting their nationality in the title of their first email with a keyword that I gave them.
So this one writer sent me through their email with a hundred. Mini bio of their experience in Taiwan. And then I gave him a title. He went through all the video things. He said that he was from the USA and then he sent me back his post and I’d paid him and I’d sent him another heading because I was so rushed off my feet.
And then a couple days later I got around to editing his post and it was just. Terrible. It was like I’m an English teacher. This is my night job. And it was like editing something from one way worse students. There were so many grammatical mistakes. There were so many mistakes in the use of vocabulary and it was just unreadable.
And I spent probably a good two hours trying to turn what he’d written into something that would go on my website. So I had to contact him straight away and. I was just very clear of them. I said, sorry, man. It’s just your, you’ve got so many grand mistakes and spelling, mistakes and typos and things, and it’s taking me longer to correct it than it would to take me to write it myself.
Please do not write that second heading. I will not pay you for it. I felt really bad, but it’s my business. And when you find someone that is going to jeopardize your business, you gotta cut ’em out. As soon as you can. So if I hadn’t been so busy, perhaps I would’ve caught that in the first email, but looking back at it, his first email wasn’t as bad as what he’d written in the post.
So that was probably my worst moment having to fire someone. It wasn’t very nice, but it had to be done. Okay. So you’ve stuck around this long. So let’s talk about what you would do next. Gone through the application process of giving out titles and giving feedback and all of that. So what I did in the last week, I’ve onboarded five writers.
So what I did was I produced another video that just went through some of the ideas to do with mistakes that I’ve seen generally across the writers. So particularly that was with the post. I also gave a bit more insight into why we are writing in this way. So that was a video that I just hosted on a YouTube channel, hosted it as an unlisted video, and just gave them the link.
I also created an invoice in Excel, an invoice file where they. Just give me a list of all the headings and the type of post it was, and that way I’m gonna pay them on the fifth of every month. So for me paying them every single time is time consuming. So I prefer to just, spend one afternoon and pay all my writers at the same time for the work they’ve done the previous month.
The other thing I did. Create a Google docs or Google sheets file that I hosted on my Google drive. And then it’s got the heading, the type of post and how many words they need to write and also some notes. So in the notes, I’ve just given them ideas of what they should write for that post, some suggested subheadings and just directions they could explore.
So it’s basically the ideas that I have looking at the heading. Sometimes I did a little bit more. And I’m gonna add to that and improve that as we go through the journey together, my writers and I so that’s what I did. And then the other thing I did was I sent them a contract, which was more of an agreement and it was based on the template that we get in the project.
24. And it’s the one that they use in income school for their writers. And it was basically to say, this is what I expect. This is what you can expect from me. And we signed up, and that’s a legal document now, as far as I’m concerned. And I think everyone’s happier when it’s. When you do things in a more official way, basically.
So this is just some feedback after about a month of going through the process of hiring writers. So I’m gonna be releasing a lot more content and feedback and little thoughts on things like this. Hiring writers. As well as what it’s like to build a Project 24 style website. If that’s something that interests you, don’t forget to subscribe to the channel and hit the notification bell that way you’re not gonna miss out on any videos.
And also don’t forget to leave me a comment. If you’ve got any questions, please do ask them and I will get back to you. And if it’s an interesting question that needs a slightly longer answer, I’ll probably make a video for you as well. So thanks very much for watching and I will see you next week.