0:04

Welcome back to the Print On Demand cast this week

0:06

. We're talking about hiring your

0:08

first VA . Let's

0:11

get into it

0:20

.

0:20

Welcome to this week's episode of the Print

0:22

On Demand cast . Each

0:29

week , join the gnarly , travis and Josiah as they provide insight into the print-on-demand industry

0:32

and equip you with the totally tubular tools , advice and strategies

0:34

you need to achieve success and , hopefully

0:36

, have a few laughs along the way . Now

0:38

on to this week's totally tubular show

0:41

.

0:50

Welcome back , ladies and gentlemen , to the Print On Demand cast . It's great

0:52

to be with you . We hope you all had a fun and safe 4th of July and

0:55

joining me this week , as is every week

0:57

. Travis Ross from Make your Mark Design

0:59

. Travis , how's it going over there and

1:01

how are you doing after

1:03

a holiday weekend ?

1:11

Well , I think you're leading me up to something there , because you know

1:13

something that our listeners don't . That's true , but before we get into

1:15

that , I'd like to know what you did , because

1:18

I feel like mine's probably going to upstage

1:20

yours .

1:22

Probably , probably , yeah . So

1:24

I had some family in town . My cousin

1:26

and my nephew and his girlfriend were

1:28

here . They came from South

1:30

Carolina where he's currently going to chiropractic school

1:33

. So I picked them up on Wednesday from my

1:35

niece's place in Cheyenne and drove

1:38

down and just had

1:40

fun . Had fun . Thursday morning , I should

1:42

say . We went

1:45

and played pickleball for about

1:47

two and a half hours and had

1:50

a grand time doing that . Lots

1:58

of fun , of course , people listening probably know that I enjoy a good pickleball game . The night

2:00

before that , however , I did something that I wouldn't necessarily recommend

2:02

, but it was quite delicious . My nephew

2:05

and I went to In-N-Out and

2:07

we went to Chick-fil-A , and then

2:09

what we did was we combined the two

2:11

, and so what you're looking at there is

2:13

a double-double with a spicy chicken

2:15

patty inside

2:18

of it , so like a combo

2:21

.

2:21

But it was delicious .

2:23

I don't recommend it often or ever

2:25

, but it was . It was really good for

2:27

that one moment in time . So , wow , that's

2:30

what we did wednesday night . And then thursday went

2:32

over to my in-law's place

2:35

. My mother-in-law was out of town , so

2:37

it was just jason and I and josh

2:39

and carly and some of the fam playing games hanging

2:41

out and the golf course across the way

2:43

does fireworks there , um

2:46

. So we're in a good , uh , pretty

2:48

close in proximity to that . So went

2:50

up and watched that from the

2:52

deck that they have there and , uh , I

2:54

will say , listening to ray charles

2:57

, america the beautiful and chris stapleton's

2:59

star spangled banner while fireworks are

3:01

going off is probably

3:03

some of those patriotic moments you'll ever have . So

3:05

I highly recommend that for your fourth of july

3:07

playlist next year because it just

3:09

it makes everything hit a little bit different

3:12

. But um uh , travis

3:14

, how was you ? I know I set you

3:16

up earlier . You

3:18

were supposed to be at lake jackson , but

3:20

then , uh , either nerve

3:22

endings and or just you know . But then either nerve endings and or just you know

3:24

life back problems . They had

3:26

other , other plans for you .

3:28

Yeah , yeah . So

3:33

I have like a reoccurring kind of back issue that I've had since my 20s actually

3:36

. Like usually I aggravate it like once

3:38

a year or so , sometimes twice a year

3:40

, sometimes you know less , I don't know . But

3:42

Wednesday day I

3:45

was picking up some like some packages

3:47

and putting them in my trunk and I noticed I was

3:49

like , oh , oh , there it goes . I can recognize

3:51

it now , and it's just sometimes it

3:53

varies in severity . And

4:08

so I was like , oh , that wasn't that bad . I , you know , I just need to take it easy and chill out . Well , that's

4:10

all good . And you know , fine , when it's not 4th of July weekend , that you've already planned to go camping

4:12

at a friend's Lake and then also do a show with your band

4:14

that you do every year on Saturday , um

4:17

, so anyway , we that night

4:19

. So that was Wednesday night , so that was the third

4:21

. We went in um , our town of

4:23

Erie actually has a ? Um , a

4:25

firework show on the third . So

4:28

I think honestly everyone's

4:30

like , oh , it's so people can enjoy . On the

4:32

fourth , and blah , blah , blah . I think it's cause

4:34

Erie doesn't want to pay their employees time

4:36

and a half to do it . On the fourth , so , um

4:39

, anyway . So we walked up to um

4:42

, kind of there's

4:51

like a as the town , as the we can , we can overlook the town by just walking to a

4:53

little spot kind of close to our house . So we did that . That was , you know , my back was like

4:55

oh . And then we sat down and I was like , oh , this doesn't

4:57

feel good , but it's what

4:59

you do with your family . So we did that

5:01

with

5:08

your family . So we did that . And then Thursday we got up

5:10

and got ready to go to a lake where our keyboard player has like it's like a . You know

5:12

, you're on a list and this is

5:14

the lake . They have like a permanent site

5:16

here and they let us bring out our , our

5:19

pop-up . But you can see there's

5:21

our pop-up right there , and then

5:23

this is their permanent camper

5:25

that they have there and it's all right on a Lake , it's

5:27

gorgeous , um . And

5:29

so we went out and set that up . And while I was setting

5:32

that up I realized I think I cranked

5:35

one you know lever

5:38

too many times or something and like

5:40

kind of aggravated my back even

5:42

worse than it was , and so I

5:44

was in pretty good amount

5:46

of pain . That Thursday night

5:48

we saw some people

5:51

shoot up some fireworks across the

5:53

lake and went to bed , and

5:56

the only way I could get relief was like laying

5:58

down . And so the next morning I was not

6:01

doing well . So I decided

6:03

to come home and thinking well

6:05

, I'll be able to rest , you

6:07

know , it'll be easier , because I got my bed

6:10

. And you know , um , I

6:12

don't know if that was the best idea , because all of a sudden

6:14

I'm at home and I don't have anybody to help me , right

6:16

, and uh , I pretty much

6:19

laid in bed all

6:21

day . Um , well , the rest of

6:23

that Friday , all day . Saturday , my wife

6:25

came home . Saturday night I had to

6:27

skip our gig at

6:29

um Lake Jackson , which , because

6:31

I , I , basically I couldn't walk . It

6:34

was really , really bad . And then

6:36

pretty much all day yesterday until the evening I

6:38

started getting a little bit better . Um

6:40

, yes , I've taken muscle

6:43

relaxers . Yes , I've taken steroids . Yes

6:45

, I've taken pain pills , all of that

6:47

stuff . Um , I don't know how well

6:49

any of it really helps , but the

6:51

the moral of the story is don't screw up your back

6:53

, cause it really sucks , especially

6:56

on a holiday weekend . Yeah , but

6:58

the cool thing was that , since my family

7:00

was out by that lake , so so

7:02

AJ has her place is like one lake

7:05

, over from Lake Jackson , which is where

7:07

this this was our sixth year

7:09

my band playing their 4th of July celebration

7:11

and they have the coolest

7:13

fireworks display you have ever

7:16

seen in your life and everyone's

7:18

like don't post your fireworks on Facebook

7:21

, no one's going to care , no one's going to watch them . Well

7:23

, if you're watching this on YouTube , I

7:26

promise you're going to like this . Um

7:28

, we cause my daughter actually

7:30

my , my two daughters and my son went

7:33

there anyway Saturday night and got

7:35

to see our band play without me and

7:37

also stayed through the fireworks , um

7:39

, and took this video . So go ahead and roll that

7:41

, josiah

7:46

. So they're like right under

7:48

where they're shooting these things off , like

7:51

200 yards maybe , and

7:58

so obviously it's just massive noise and you know , huge , huge explosions

8:01

and these guys I mean they put

8:03

thousands of dollars into this . So

8:05

this is obviously their grand finale , but

8:08

you got to wait for it because

8:10

there's something else that's going to happen . What's ?

8:12

going to happen .

8:18

How about that for a mini nuclear

8:20

explosion ? Yes , a giant

8:22

bomb . Basically they

8:30

do it every year and every year .

8:31

It scares the crap out of me .

8:31

You can feel the heat because I mean it's yeah

8:33

again , it's like you know , a

8:36

one and a half football fields

8:38

away or so , and it's this massive

8:40

explosion , you know mushroom cloud

8:43

thing , that just lights the whole sky up and

8:45

you can feel the heat . It's pretty . It's

8:48

probably illegal , but it's awesome

8:50

.

8:51

Okay , it's near water , so I feel

8:53

like they have a pass maybe .

8:55

Yeah , so we . I'm sorry , guys

8:57

.

8:57

Hopefully if you weren't interested in this , you fast

8:59

forwarded it , but couldn't

9:02

let this epic story

9:04

of misery and woe go

9:06

by uh without sharing it with y'all

9:08

no

9:11

, it's awesome , man , I'm glad you're back on

9:13

your feet , glad your family had a good time

9:15

and , uh , you really had to miss the gig and

9:17

the the mini , mini nuclear

9:19

explosion . But uh , so videos

9:21

are for so you can enjoy it by proxy if

9:23

you absolutely have to . But uh , so

9:26

, yeah , we'll go uh into this , into this week's

9:28

episode again we're going to talk about hiring your first

9:30

va , but of course , before we get there , there's

9:32

a couple more stops along the way

9:34

, and the first , of course , is everyone's

9:37

favorite stop the weekly dad

9:39

joke time for the weekly dad

9:41

joke hey

9:43

, travis , what do you have for us today ?

9:47

well , my bank , uh , keeps calling

9:49

me to give me compliments , which

9:51

is kind of weird , but hey , I'll take

9:53

them . You know I like compliments . They keep saying

9:55

I have an outstanding balance that's

10:00

very nice of them .

10:01

it's very not . They obviously haven't seen you

10:03

with your back injury . Without your back injury , though

10:05

, I'm sure your balance isn't outstanding . Ooh

10:07

, yeah , that

10:10

was nice . Yeah , that's good . Yeah , it's good

10:12

. It's a callback . As it is so

10:15

awesome , use that , folks , at

10:17

your next poker game party

10:19

. Let us know the groans that it induces , because

10:21

we're always wanting to know how people react

10:23

to our high quality

10:25

dad jokes . So , with that

10:27

being said , we're going to move into some etsy

10:30

news in this week's point

10:32

of interest well

10:35

, howdy partner , welcome

10:37

to the point of interest part of the pod

10:39

cast . So grab your

10:41

hat and hold on tight , because we

10:43

got some learning to do all

10:48

right

10:51

, some etsy news , which I'm sure has everyone's

10:54

interest peaked because it seems like everyone

10:56

wants to know about etsy , what's going on with etsy

10:58

. So travis this morning I think

11:00

right is when this was sent out from j

11:03

Silverman , who is the CEO of Etsy , and

11:06

there is some updates to

11:08

listing requirements , image

11:11

requirements on listings and along

11:13

with a plethora of other things that they are kind

11:15

of fine-tuning and adjusting . But this is the

11:17

thing that seems to have caught the attention

11:19

of print-on-demand sellers on that platform because

11:22

it very much directly

11:24

affects them . So tell us a little

11:26

bit about what that newsletter said and what the ramifications

11:29

actually are when it comes to

11:31

these listing image requirement

11:34

changes .

11:36

Well , some of you will remember , probably

11:39

three or four , maybe

11:41

five months ago , etsy updated

11:43

their listing

11:45

image requirements at

11:47

least the page that has the listing image requirements

11:50

on it and everyone was freaking

11:52

out because and

11:54

I even did a video on it you know like what does this

11:56

mean ? But , and you can

11:58

see that on our YouTube if you want to go look

12:00

for it but the general

12:03

idea , at least when they

12:05

first put it out , was that

12:07

anyone creating a mock-up

12:10

for a print-on-demand product would

12:12

have to use the actual

12:14

mock-ups from

12:16

the fulfillment partner

12:19

. So if you're using Printful , you'd have to

12:21

use Printful's mock-ups . If you're using Printify , you'd have to use Printify

12:23

mock-ups . Using Printful , you'd have to use Printful's mockups

12:25

. If you're using Printify , you'd have to use Printify mockups . Now some people reportedly

12:28

at least they self-reported . They

12:30

actually got shut down for not doing

12:33

that . And

12:35

then other people got inadvertently shut

12:37

down for

12:39

various other reasons , and anytime that happens and when

12:41

a platform makes changes , there's going to be mistakes by the platform of know

12:43

. When a platform makes changes , there's going to be

12:45

mistakes by the platform , of course , but

12:47

there's also going to be the

12:50

, the people that are like I don't know what I

12:52

did , even though I listed Taylor

12:54

Swift on all of my T sweatshirts

12:56

, you know , or whatever and so they get shut down . And

12:59

it's more of a coincidence because they were

13:01

. They should have been shut down a long time ago or they were

13:03

going to be shut down regardless . It just happened

13:05

to happen at the same time when

13:07

the platform was making updates . Um

13:10

. So , anyway , back to today's

13:12

action , today's announcement , and we're

13:14

going to link to this in the um , in

13:17

the show notes , so you can go . If you didn't get

13:19

the email or missed it or whatever

13:21

, you can just click it in the show notes and

13:23

it's . It's like you said , it's a message , it's

13:26

like a nine minute video or so , but

13:28

in that there's links to Etsy's creative

13:30

standards and then from the Etsy

13:32

creative standards page there's image

13:34

listing

13:37

, image requirements , which really

13:39

kind of spells

13:42

out what they were trying to do last

13:44

time and left everybody with questions

13:46

. And so , Josiah

13:48

, do you want to read like that section

13:50

? And then we can kind

13:52

of talk about what

13:55

it means , I guess .

13:57

So it says photos of items

13:59

made with production partners . When working

14:01

with production partners , the requirements for listing

14:03

photos vary depending on the item . If

14:06

you design a unique item , such as a piece of furniture

14:08

, clothing or a book , and a production

14:10

partner manufactures it for you

14:12

, use a real photo of the physical

14:14

end product . If you create

14:17

an original design , such as artwork or

14:19

a pattern , that a production partner

14:21

prints onto a base item like

14:23

a t-shirt or a mug , you may use a stock

14:25

photo mock-up to illustrate the end product

14:28

buyers will receive . Buyer personalized

14:30

items must follow the guidelines in the personalized

14:33

or customized section above . So

14:36

it's kind of . I mean that means that

14:38

if for print on demand for t-shirt and mugs

14:40

, you can still use a stock

14:42

photo mock-up to illustrate the end

14:45

products , you don't have to purchase the

14:47

shirt and purchase the mug um

14:49

to list it , unless you want to do a lifestyle

14:51

shoot , which of course , is a whole different conversation

14:54

, have different types of pictures with people actually

14:57

using or wearing the physical end product . But

14:59

as it is right now , you can still use

15:01

a virtual mob digital

15:04

mock-up um for that

15:06

, unless it's a book or a piece of furniture

15:08

or clothing um , I

15:11

guess that's other than a t-shirt yeah

15:13

, it's just cool that they actually spelled out .

15:16

You know they they basically used

15:18

a print-on-demand example , which they've

15:20

been kind of hesitant to do . I

15:22

think etsy's been been going back and forth on whether

15:25

or not they want to use allow print-on-demand

15:27

on their platform and they finally have just said yeah

15:31

, it's just too prolific .

15:32

We have to .

15:33

Yeah , but so

15:35

it's good . And then at

15:37

the end there it references the personalized and

15:39

customized section above which is

15:41

on that listing image requirements

15:43

page , and

15:47

basically what it's saying as relates to print on demand

15:49

is that if you do a personalized

15:51

like let's say you do a personalized t-shirt

15:53

or something and you put the name

15:55

on it or something , your first

15:57

image has to be

15:59

an example of

16:01

what that finished

16:04

good will look like . You cannot

16:06

. It says right here it is prohibited

16:09

to use a photo of the blank product

16:11

or a mock-up with placeholder

16:14

text , ie your text

16:16

here as the main image . You can

16:18

use that as a secondary image , but the first

16:20

one has to be you

16:23

know an actual or

16:26

whatever , an example of

16:28

what they're going to get . So because

16:30

a lot of times you'll see , people are just like give

16:33

us your photo and we'll put it on a map .

16:35

Yeah .

16:36

Well , you know , if

16:38

I'm scrolling through thumbnails and I see

16:40

somebody else's family sitting in front of a lake

16:42

, am I going to click it ? Probably

16:44

not , you know , unless I read . You

16:47

know , your photo , customized photo

16:49

, your you know , or whatever , or if I've searched

16:51

that I might click into that . But

16:54

them taking away the ability to use your

16:56

photo here , your text here , as

16:59

a first image , is probably going to slow

17:02

some of the sales of those

17:04

types of products , unfortunately . But

17:09

again , I'm just so glad that they're finally

17:11

spelling out exactly what they

17:14

need from us as print-on-demand sellers

17:16

. There's little , much

17:18

less ambiguity . They've also said that

17:20

they're going to open up the gates to AI

17:23

, which is really unique , but it has

17:25

to be generated

17:28

by the user . It has to be created by

17:30

the user with custom inputs

17:32

. So you can't just you

17:36

know , you're not going to be able

17:38

to just sell a whole bunch

17:40

of AI generated drawings

17:42

of cats . You know , I think

17:44

it's going to be more . I mean , maybe you can

17:47

I don't know , I didn't look into it . I guess I should

17:49

have before . I said that but you're

17:52

you , you are going to be able

17:54

to use AI . I think what they're hoping

17:56

you're going to use it for is more of the custom

17:58

idea . So you could use chat GPT for to upload a picture of a dog and

18:00

tell . Use chat GPT-4 to upload a picture of a dog and

18:02

tell and tell Dolly to

18:04

make this dog into a , you

18:08

know , a Prince portrait or

18:10

something , and

18:13

then they're going to put it as a Prince and it's going to be the same dog and then you're

18:15

going to sell that to the person Right Right . So more custom

18:17

, I think . I think that would

18:19

be their preference , Although you

18:21

might be able to get away with completely

18:25

AI created digital products

18:27

as well . But I would do yourself

18:29

a favor Check

18:31

the link like watch the video

18:33

in the show notes and then click a

18:35

couple of the links . Go to Etsy's

18:37

creative standards . Ok

18:39

, there's a lot of examples of what you can and can't

18:41

do , and then there's the

18:44

image listing requirements that we've been referencing

18:46

here . That'll spell out again

18:48

what they're looking for as far

18:50

as print on demand goes

18:52

.

18:54

Awesome , yep . So we'll have that linked in the show notes , like

18:56

Travis said , so you guys can find that easily

18:59

. And then again , this particular

19:01

listing image requirements . It's linked from

19:04

another page . Do a little bit of digging , click

19:06

around and you'll find that those

19:09

different areas as well that pertain

19:11

specifically to listings

19:14

, the creative standards and the listing image requirements

19:16

. So it'll be interesting to see how this

19:19

evolves . As always , whenever they introduce

19:21

new things , especially with this kind

19:23

of opening the gates to your point

19:26

of ai , see how that happens , how

19:28

they can gatekeeper or manage

19:30

people from not using ai in

19:33

ways that they don't want them to use ai . And it's

19:36

just more of that conversation of how do you , how can you

19:38

track that , how do you tag it , how do you kind

19:40

of police that ? So it's going to be interesting to see how all

19:42

of this evolves , um , moving

19:45

forward . So we'll update you if there's any other

19:47

news that comes out or anything like that in terms

19:49

of this specific announcement from

19:51

etsy , but until then , everything

19:53

you need is it at that link

19:56

.

19:56

So with that , we're going to move to

19:59

this week's main event

20:01

on

20:03

a cold , dreary night in September

20:05

of 2020 , travis

20:08

Ross and Josiah Cifuentes

20:10

created the Print on Demand cast

20:12

. This is

20:14

the main event .

20:19

All right , travis , we're going to talk about hiring

20:22

a VA and for you , the listener

20:24

, should you hire a virtual

20:26

assistant , or what it's like to hire your first

20:29

VA ? Rather Now , we've touched on

20:31

this topic a handful of times in

20:33

the past . In the archive , I think probably

20:36

the most thorough and

20:38

complete kind of discussion

20:40

about virtual assistants is episode 182

20:43

, titled should you hire a virtual

20:45

assistant . So you can go back and avail yourself

20:47

of that as well , because we get a little bit more into

20:50

the weeds . We're going to cover a lot of the bullet points

20:52

, maybe not go quite as in depth , and then we're

20:54

going to wrap things up with Travis kind of walking

20:56

us through a step-by-step . He's

20:58

going to share his screen and kind of show the

21:00

process and things you can do . For

21:02

this episode we're going to be talking about Upwork

21:05

. There's Fiverr , there's

21:07

onlinejobsph , there's a lot of other

21:09

resources you can use to

21:11

find virtual assistants . But for this episode we're

21:13

going to lean in a little bit into

21:16

Upwork and what that process

21:18

looks like .

21:35

So if you're not watching on YouTube , you're

21:37

going to want to watch on YouTube because

21:39

, aside from the firework video

21:42

, like this is some low

21:44

hanging fruit that can really

21:46

help you in a lot of ways

21:48

. And and and I think that some

21:50

of our deep dives into how

21:52

to hire a VA , or should you hire a VA

21:54

. I think it just it . It feels

21:56

overwhelming and I want to the

21:59

reason we're going to end this whole thing with like , let's

22:02

just go to Upwork , let's , you know

22:04

, just to heck with onlinejobsph

22:06

and five let's . Upwork is really simple

22:09

. You sign up for a thing and then you can create a job post

22:11

. It's very simple , and I'm going to show you some

22:13

of that and and

22:16

take some of the mystery out of it , and

22:18

yeah , so we're going to talk about some

22:21

of that . So , like Josiah said , we're going to

22:23

bullet point , kind

22:25

of getting ready to post

22:28

your job , and then like how

22:30

to do that will be kind of , at the

22:32

end

22:36

, a

22:38

VA for the first time , and

22:40

it doesn't necessarily matter what they

22:42

do , you just need to get get that

22:44

under your , you know , on your

22:46

resume , so to speak . So when you do

22:48

have something down the line that

22:50

you feel , oh , you know what A VA be perfect

22:53

for this . You've already gone through the hard work

22:55

of understanding how

22:57

to do it and it's not relieving that hard work , so

22:59

that's kind of the backstory on

23:01

this whole deal .

23:03

Yeah , for sure it's good to have an idea

23:05

of how the process works so that you don't feel like

23:07

you're up against a wall when you have to hire a VA

23:09

and then you're just settling for the first one that comes

23:11

in because you've never done this before . So , travis's

23:14

point , you'll have a little bit more time to

23:16

thoroughly vet the VAs if this

23:18

is a process you've done before and you're

23:20

not feeling like there's a deadline

23:22

looming . So

23:28

just kind of helps out your process as well and make sure that you're finding the best

23:30

candidate . So it's so let's say it's it's time it's going to hire first VA

23:32

. The first thing you have to do is decide what you want

23:34

that VA to do for

23:36

you . They can create original images . I

23:39

know , travis , you and I both have had VAs

23:41

who design designs

23:45

that we're going to sell on shirts or mugs or what

23:47

have you . So they're creating , they're graphic designers

23:49

, creating those original images for us to

23:51

use . The other thing they can do is

23:53

create listings . Have someone that

23:55

you give access to your Etsy

23:57

or merch on demand or Amazon Seller

24:00

Central or Walmart Seller Central , redbubble , et

24:02

cetera that you'll

24:05

have them be creating the listings for

24:07

you and documenting and following your process

24:09

that you want , so that you don't have to

24:11

spend that time creating those images

24:14

. You have someone else doing that for you , allowing you to

24:16

work on another facet of the

24:18

business , which , ultimately , the goal of a VA is

24:20

to be able to help . You do that to start kind

24:23

of taking your hands off the super repetitive stuff

24:25

and start working on other things that will

24:27

further the business as well

24:29

. So , again , original images

24:31

create listings , and they

24:33

can even do like bookkeeping

24:36

receipt management , like the stuff that I

24:38

hate to do , like like bookkeeping . They

24:41

can do that . You know what I mean . You can outsource

24:43

that to them so you don't

24:45

have to worry

24:48

as much about about what's going

24:50

on there . So , travis , what else would

24:52

you say in terms of what you can ask

24:54

VA to do for you ?

24:56

Yeah , I think for our purposes

24:59

on this particular show , I think a

25:01

smaller task would be better . Um

25:04

, just again , to get you

25:06

know , get hiring a VA on

25:09

your resume , so you know how to do it . And so

25:11

it doesn't matter how big the task is , you don't or

25:13

you don't have to hire somebody full-time , you don't even

25:15

have to hire them part-time , you can do per

25:17

job tasks

25:20

. And so I mean , I've had people , I

25:22

had a spreadsheet that

25:24

I just needed some . I

25:26

needed , needed it tweaked , and there was like I

25:29

think there was like 20,000 lines or something

25:31

like that , and it was very repetitive . They just

25:33

needed to move a few cells

25:35

and like add a few things to each cell

25:38

on each line . And

25:40

so it was like okay , how

25:42

long will this take me ? Blah , blah , blah . Let's put

25:44

a dollar amount on it and say when you finish

25:46

up all 20,000 lines , you get $200

25:49

or a hundred dollars or $500 . I don't

25:51

remember exactly what it was , but that was like one

25:53

task that I needed done and I

25:55

didn't want my , my

25:57

existing VAs who are , who are

25:59

full-time , who are paid hourly . I

26:03

didn't want them spending their time on that because that was just

26:06

one project that I could just have them do

26:08

or have somebody else do , so my

26:10

VAs could continue to build our business and do

26:12

the things that they're good at . So I actually

26:14

hired VAs for my VA . So

26:17

, like an example would be like some

26:19

type of repetitive tasks , like a spreadsheet have

26:21

them go through all of your listings and

26:23

populate your master listing

26:25

sheet and have all

26:27

of your SKUs on it and explain exactly

26:30

what you need . You know , have them , finish that

26:32

out , figure out how many , how many listings

26:34

you have , and then say and then figure

26:36

out how many SKUs you have , and go okay . Well , this sheet

26:39

is going to be a thousand lines and it's going

26:41

to have these columns and

26:43

I want them to do that and I'm going to , you

26:45

know , I'll give them 50 bucks , you know , or whatever

26:47

you feel comfortable with . That

26:51

would be a great something

26:53

that you could then continue to build on as

26:55

you move forward . And then later , when you

26:57

go , you know what I want to redo

27:00

all my SKUs , that's enough

27:02

. You know , I should have done it this way or whatever

27:04

. And you want them to go into Etsy and

27:06

change all your SKUs , or go into wherever

27:08

and change all your SKUs and change all this stuff Again

27:11

, manual tasks like that , repetitive

27:14

tasks like that , anything that you can think of

27:16

. I mean , for a lot of people

27:18

, maybe , it is just to

27:20

create those original images , and you're

27:23

really good at finding good ideas and funny

27:25

things , and so you can just

27:27

create a spreadsheet that has a link . You

27:29

know , hey , do something like this , except change it to

27:31

a trombone instead of a flute . Uh

27:34

, okay , do something like this and make it for

27:36

spring instead of winter . You know are those

27:38

types of things that

27:40

would be a pretty easy

27:42

task

27:44

to outsource to a

27:47

virtual assistant , and there's plenty of them out

27:49

there .

27:50

Yep , under Travis's point

27:52

, start small and look at what a realistic

27:54

budget is for you . You can pay them hourly

27:56

or you can pay them per project . It's at

27:59

your discretion , really , how you want

28:01

to position the payment part

28:03

of this job posting and

28:06

kind of figure out you know , with Ron who

28:08

is our designer , we

28:11

paid him hourly and then we ended

28:13

up shifting to kind of doing per design

28:16

and so we've done a little bit of both . It

28:18

kind of depends on what feels

28:20

right or what the flow is or how much work you're

28:22

going to have them do . And

28:25

if you're going to do hourly as well , I would also say

28:27

, figure out a way to track

28:30

those hours . Does Upwork have

28:32

something that will track that , or is that an outside

28:34

of Upwork ?

28:35

Yeah , they

28:38

do . If the project

28:40

is done completely on Upwork , the

28:47

person who's doing the job actually has to come to Upwork to start quote unquote working

28:49

on the job and by doing that

28:51

it activates like a timer

28:54

that'll take screen grabs inside

28:56

of your . It's like Hubstaff

28:59

that we used to use . Hubstaff's

29:01

basically an outsourced

29:04

or a . Yeah , it's the same thing

29:07

.

29:07

Yeah , it's a third party .

29:08

Yeah , exactly , so upwork has

29:10

all that so you can check how

29:13

long they worked on it . You can look at their screenshots

29:15

to verify that they're actually working

29:18

on it , etc . Etc .

29:19

Yeah yeah for sure . Yeah , it's just good to have

29:21

that in place as well , just so you

29:23

know that they're doing the work that you're asking

29:25

. They took that long , or those

29:27

hours are actually accurate , so that's

29:30

another thing in place as well . And

29:32

then , of course , you're going to want to write the job

29:34

post . So , travis , what are some tips when you're

29:36

thinking about , say , your

29:44

first time listing or a job , or posting a job for a VA ? What the heck is it supposed to

29:46

say ? What does a good job post look like ? How do you find out what that looks like

29:48

and what will actually attract people to

29:50

want to apply for the job ?

29:52

Yeah , I mean , I think the best thing

29:54

I did when I

29:56

was trying to figure out , I decided what I wanted

29:58

to do and then I went to what I wanted to

30:00

do . And then I went to Upwork

30:03

as a job

30:06

seeker and I started typing

30:08

in some what are some job

30:11

applications that have

30:13

me designing for Amazon

30:15

Merch on Demand , or

30:24

have me designing for Etsy t-shirts or you know , or whatever , um , and I would type in

30:26

those kind of keywords and then I would look at all the jobs and I'd click into

30:28

them and actually look at other job posts for

30:31

inspiration . You could even go as

30:33

far as , like having a little spreadsheet

30:35

with a link to that job post and then how

30:37

much they're paying , you know , per hour

30:39

or per completion , how many they expect

30:42

. You know all of those things , um

30:44

, or you could just open

30:46

up a bunch of tabs , which is probably what I did , and

30:48

then , as you're actually typing

30:51

out your description , maybe you're copying , pasting

30:53

and then kind of editing it as you

30:55

see fit , um , but that to

30:57

me , is is a . It gives

30:59

you the inspiration that

31:01

you need , um , to not

31:03

be staring at a blank page and

31:06

again not starting because

31:08

you don't have something to start with , I think just by

31:10

going to Upwork will give you the inspiration

31:13

that you need to like , figure

31:15

out what you're going to be . You might even

31:17

find a job posting on

31:20

Upwork that you're like oh my gosh

31:22

, I would love if somebody would do this for me

31:24

, and it might change your actual

31:26

project , you just

31:28

never know . So I think the inspiration

31:31

factor on a place

31:33

like Upwork . You can do this on onlinejobsph

31:36

and all the other things we talk about in episode 184

31:40

, five or two you can do the same thing , but

31:42

for our purposes , right now we're

31:44

going to be focusing on Upwork because it's so

31:46

freaking simple and they contain everything

31:49

right there . You don't have to track anything . Upwork does

31:51

all the job or all of that for you and

31:54

again , we're just trying to get that notch on your belt

31:56

so you can continue to build

31:59

in your skills as a print-on-dem demand business

32:01

owner Right .

32:04

So from there , you know you're going to look at the

32:07

before

32:10

you post it as well , and I think finding inspiration

32:12

and doing it as a job seeker was awesome

32:14

. The other thing you can do

32:16

as well is in the application

32:18

process . You need to decide what that looks

32:21

like as

32:23

well . So

32:25

one thing that I know you talked about Travis is like hiding

32:27

keywords in the application

32:29

process that they have to respond to you .

32:32

Yeah , that's the pro tip at the bottom there .

32:34

Yeah , the pro tip . Yeah

32:36

, I think that's hilarious . Not

32:38

hilarious , it's smart because it'll weed

32:40

out a lot of those bots

32:43

or potential people who aren't really paying

32:46

that close of attention . So you're going to want to post

32:48

the job post and then

32:50

filter through the applications and

32:52

decide you know you want to do one

32:54

round , two rounds . How many rounds did you do , travis

32:57

, when you would hire a VA ? Was it a three round process

32:59

? Two round process ? What did that

33:01

look ?

33:02

like for you it kind of depended

33:04

. I mean , most of the times , most

33:08

of the times it was two rounds for , like , a graphics

33:11

designer , sometimes it would be three , because I just

33:13

got so many that I liked that

33:15

I'd have like five at the end and

33:17

then I'd have them go through a second round

33:20

and do another

33:22

project for me , um

33:24

, that I would pay them for , you know . So they , they

33:26

get paid on the first one and maybe I'd invite

33:28

10 to 20 people on the first

33:31

one . I would pay them all for

33:33

. You know , I'd pay them all $10 or

33:35

something like that , um , or

33:37

$5 to do two unique

33:39

designs on this topic , um

33:41

, and then of that

33:43

, 15 would actually complete

33:45

it or 12 would actually complete it , you know , and

33:47

then it would scale down like that , and then the

33:50

next round . You know , maybe I only have

33:52

three that I really like . I can probably

33:54

make a decision if I just want to hire one based

33:57

on those three and I only have to have two rounds

33:59

. It really depends on what kind of talent I'm actually seeing and I mean I

34:01

have been known to hire two rounds . It really depends on what kind of talent I'm actually

34:03

seeing and , um , I mean , I have been known

34:05

to hire two people instead of

34:07

just one , when I my original goal was to hire

34:09

one , but I just liked both of them and so

34:11

there was more of a . It became

34:13

more of a on the job . Um

34:16

right , try out if you will

34:18

, because I didn't keep those people indefinitely

34:21

. You know , eventually , maybe a month later or some

34:23

, you know , I'd let one go because the other one rose

34:25

to the top . They were better , more detailed , just

34:27

a better uh , you know better

34:30

at what I hired them to do , et cetera , et cetera . Could have been a multitude

34:32

of reasons . Yeah , kind of like a

34:34

working interview , you know , and

34:37

I would tell them that I'm not

34:39

just going to rip the rug out from somebody and say , hey , I

34:41

really like both of you and

34:43

I want to hire you both for

34:45

a one-month trial period . One of

34:47

you will get the job at the end of the trial period

34:49

, one of you will be let go

34:51

. Are you okay with that ? And they'd be yep , and

34:54

we were off to the races .

34:56

Awesome . Well

34:59

, let's do the screen share , let's see some practical tips and walkthroughs

35:02

here as we kind of round out this episode Kind of a

35:04

first , I think , here on the Print On Demand cast . I don't know

35:06

that we've done something like this where we're actually

35:08

walking through something practically . So

35:11

, again , guys , if you're not watching this printondemandcastcom

35:14

slash , youtube is where you can go to find

35:16

the video version of this episode , because

35:19

you're going to want to be able to kind of watch

35:21

along , and if you're wanting to do this for yourself

35:23

, maybe pull this episode up on YouTube

35:26

and pull up a tab for Upwork and just

35:28

kind of follow congruently in terms of when it's time

35:30

to post that job . Obviously , travis has his

35:33

account created , so we're not going to go over that

35:35

portion of it in terms of opening up a new account

35:37

. This is post . You know the account

35:39

has been created . You're ready to list that first job

35:42

post . You know a cat has been created . You're ready to

35:44

list that first job ? That's where you kind of drop into this conversation

35:46

and this video , just kind of see what Travis is doing here .

35:48

Yeah , and so if you want to find this on YouTube , it's about 35

35:51

to 36 minutes in , depending

35:54

on what else is on there . But

35:56

yeah , so check that out . I'm

35:58

going to go ahead and enlarge

36:00

. Okay , thank you and

36:03

all right . So this is the

36:06

sorry I'm getting

36:08

situated here . This is kind of the home homepage

36:11

and you see up here you've got jobs , talent

36:13

reports and messages . Really

36:15

, we're going to live in these two first tabs , at least

36:17

today . But when I when

36:19

I mentioned earlier about

36:22

coming here to get inspired , you can come

36:24

to the search bar and there's a dropdown

36:26

here . So talent , you're looking for

36:29

workers , projects or

36:32

jobs , you're looking

36:34

for jobs . So I could

36:36

go to jobs and then I could go

36:38

. I could search merch by

36:41

Amazon , not

36:45

mercy by Amazon

36:47

.

36:47

There is no mercy at Amazon . No .

36:50

And so when I click that

36:52

, let's see what comes up Graphics designer

36:54

needed for daily merch by Amazon designs

36:57

. So this would be a great one to look at

36:59

. So I can click in here and I can see we

37:01

are seeking a talented graphic designer for our Merch

37:03

by Amazon business . Create one to three

37:06

unique , high quality designs daily , with

37:08

the potential for increased output over time

37:10

. And then you can scroll down here and you can see

37:12

what this client's

37:14

history with these jobs are

37:17

actually like . This

37:19

client has done all of these things , yeah

37:22

, and , and so you can see different

37:24

, uh , other jobs

37:26

that they've done . You can also see

37:28

over here . Um , it

37:30

doesn't say exactly yeah

37:32

, it's contract to hire opportunity . Let's this

37:35

lets the talent know that this could be , this job

37:37

could be come full time . It's

37:47

not saying exactly what they're

37:49

paying . Can't

37:51

find exactly , but they've had 20 to 50 proposals . So

37:53

, again , open a Merch

37:55

by Amazon account . Amazon Researcher these are different things

37:57

. Upload listings to Merch by Amazon account . Amazon Researcher these are different

37:59

things . Upload listings to Merch by

38:01

Amazon . Looks like they've paid $70

38:04

for this , so they probably had multiple people doing

38:06

it . But again , this will just give you

38:08

an idea of what

38:10

you could . T-shirt

38:13

designer for long-term cooperation . I mean , this is a good one . Hey

38:16

, are you a creative mastermind ? Is

38:24

drawing , prototyping and digitalization your work of passion

38:26

? Have you have experience with Merch by Amazon ? Blah , blah , blah , blah blah

38:28

. What we can offer , what do we expect ? Conditions In the beginning , I'm going to pay $7

38:31

USD per design . Payment will be done in a

38:33

batch of 10 . So when you get 10 done , you

38:41

get 70 bucks . And then they did the pro tip . Down here at the bottom it says test to ensure that

38:43

you have read the description right in your first message . When you apply

38:45

, restart 2022

38:47

in the header . So this is an older , older

38:50

listing , obviously , but you get

38:52

the idea . Yeah , it's posted two years ago to

38:55

worldwide . I don't know how many people

38:58

have actually done this , but it

39:01

looks like , yeah , somebody's

39:03

been going for multiple

39:06

years here , you know . So

39:09

some people maybe are just doing it a little

39:11

bit at a little bit , but the idea is to get again

39:13

. Just to get an idea by switching this

39:15

little tab up here to jobs and putting

39:17

in your keyword . You could do Etsy

39:20

or spreadsheet

39:22

or whatever personal assistant

39:25

, et cetera , et cetera . So once

39:28

you've decided on what

39:30

you want to do , you can literally post a job

39:32

right here . Here's

39:34

a bunch of job posts that I have

39:36

created over the years . Virtual assistant

39:39

needed for short-term listing . Create

39:41

editable graphics based on exam . This is

39:43

kind of where what we did , you know

39:45

, we hired one , we hired one , we hired one . Most

39:48

of our hires came from came

39:51

. I mean , this is eight years ago , so I've and I have

39:54

three pages of this , so I mean I

39:56

have not used this one as much as

39:59

I did . Onlinejobsph

40:06

that's where I hired most of our . This was

40:08

more of a oh , I have a quick idea . I

40:10

want to try it really fast . I want

40:12

to pay somebody $10 to do this one

40:14

thing , and so it's really . You know , it's

40:16

more of a quick hitter , and then , if I want

40:19

to continue to do it long-term

40:21

, maybe I do switch to onlinejobsph

40:24

, and one of the reasons is because

40:26

then I can , I can pay them . So

40:29

if online jobs or

40:31

Upwork takes 20%

40:34

or 25% I can't remember

40:36

so I think , yeah , I think if you pay somebody $5

40:38

an hour'll get four . So

40:40

on onlinejobsph

40:42

, I can just pay them four and

40:45

I only pay for , or I can just pay them five and they'll

40:47

get the whole five . So you get the idea that's

40:50

one of the reasons I like like to do it there

40:52

. I also can pay via paypal . Um

40:54

, with upwork , you have to pay through their platform

40:56

, etc . Etc . I mean it's all very easy , you know , with onlinejobsph

40:58

. If you want to pay through their platform , et cetera , et cetera . I mean it's all

41:00

very easy With onlinejobsph . If you want to track time , you're going to

41:02

have to pay for Hubstaff or

41:05

a similar service that's a time tracking

41:07

software . Upwork includes

41:09

that , so

41:12

it might be worth it to just do this Same

41:14

thing . So , once you've created some

41:16

of these jobs , you can go to

41:18

talent and you could discover

41:20

talent that you want to invite to

41:22

your job . So , let's say I wanted

41:25

to do this . Let's

41:28

see , yeah , we hired somebody for this

41:30

one in 2022 . Virtual

41:33

assistant needed for short-term listing updates

41:35

and this is so you can view the job post

41:37

here updates

41:41

, and this is so you can view the job post here . Yeah , we are an up-and-coming merchandise

41:43

sales company that needs a reliable virtual assistant for a short-term

41:45

project updating old online listing pictures

41:47

with updated versions of our products . We will

41:49

provide specific instructions upon hire . This

41:51

is my at the time project

41:54

or operations manager . Amy did

41:57

this and then all individuals considered

41:59

must have the following qualifications blah , blah

42:01

, blah Few . Fluent in English . Communication

42:04

skills . And it was one hundred dollar

42:06

fixed price for this particular project

42:08

, and I don't know how many . I don't know exactly

42:10

what we did , but we ended up hiring this

42:13

lady and she

42:15

did everything we asked her to . We paid

42:17

it to her and she was

42:19

done , and then she went on to get hired

42:21

by somebody else . But

42:24

my , so you can go to

42:27

discover and let's say , I wanted

42:29

a virtual

42:31

assistant , I

42:34

could do that . And

42:36

I've got oh , where

42:38

did that go ? Virtual

42:41

, yeah , virtual assistant , come on , could do that . And I've got oh , where did that go ? Virtual , yeah

42:43

, virtual assistant . Come on there

42:46

. And like , here's a bunch of people and I

42:48

could go through here and look , this guy's saying

42:50

six dollars an hour . He's got a video I could watch

42:52

. I can look at all of the 26

42:55

jobs related to my search that

42:57

he's worked . Same here $10

42:59

an hour . I do want to say these

43:02

numbers , the $6 an hour , the $10

43:04

an hour , all of that stuff does not

43:07

really come into play . They're

43:09

going to , you're going to be setting

43:11

the price . So I've got people that

43:13

you know have $20 an hour work

43:15

for me for $5 an hour , you know . So you don't necessarily need

43:17

like here's $25 an hour , work for me for $5 an hour , you know . So , um , you don't

43:19

necessarily need like here's $25 an hour from

43:21

India , um , unless

43:24

they're going to be doing some really great things , you can

43:26

. You know , I don't need to pay them $25

43:28

an hour . I can get that , probably in the U ? S . You

43:30

can also scale . You can like um

43:33

, say you want a top rated

43:35

one , or you can say I only want to pay

43:37

up to $10 . And so

43:39

it'll filter it all . I'm just

43:41

having them doing data entry , so I'm

43:43

going to make sure they have that skill and

43:45

it's going to be in Microsoft Excel

43:48

. You get the idea . You

43:50

can filter it pretty good . You

43:52

can also say I want my talent location

43:55

to come from Asia , or

43:57

know Asia , you know , or the

44:00

Philippines , or you know all of those different places

44:02

, or US only . So

44:05

there's a lot of filters that you can use

44:07

on this whole thing . And then the last

44:09

thing I wanted to show . So

44:13

that was like talent discovering . So , after

44:15

you've posted your job , which

44:17

is pretty easy if you click

44:19

post a job , you can do a

44:21

short-term project less than 30

44:23

hours a week , or shorter than three months if you just want to

44:25

do a quick one . So

44:27

then you're going to continue and

44:30

you're going to write a job title , and then you're going to continue

44:32

, and then it's

44:35

going to be a graphic design or you can look at all the categories

44:37

. It's going to walk you through it . One

44:39

of six pages to create this post

44:42

. I would recommend

44:44

using bullet points , you know . I think

44:46

that helps kind of break up and make it easier

44:48

to read . And then I'd also obviously recommend

44:50

putting in that , you know , start

44:52

your , start your actual

44:56

application with the word banana

44:58

or whatever you know , just

45:00

to weed out some of those people . One

45:04

of the things that I thought was really cool too . You

45:06

can also search by

45:08

talent and

45:11

, like I just did , etsy listing . So somebody who wanted

45:13

to do an Etsy listing and I just wanted to show this

45:15

to you because I thought this particular person

45:18

that I found here wasn't

45:26

it Was it Annabelle . It was right , it was Annabelle

45:28

. $7 an hour is what she's asking for . If

45:33

you click on this text right here , it'll open up this little slide thing here and

45:37

you can click on more . If you're looking for someone who can help you with everything about Etsy

45:39

with a free trial , I'm here . If you want to improve your Etsy and

45:41

store SEO , I'm here . If

45:44

you want someone who cares and knows

45:46

your money and knows your money

45:48

and time's worth , it's me . Blah

45:50

, blah , blah SEO tools she uses E-Rank

45:52

, everbee , other tools and sites

45:54

. She knows Printify , printful , shineon , canva

45:56

, photoshop , etsy ads . As

45:59

your virtual assistant . I'm committed to streamline

46:01

, so she could do pretty much

46:03

anything you wanted her to do . She

46:09

could rank all your things . She could do some research for you . She could set you up with

46:11

different products from different manufacturers Maybe you don't sell any jewelry

46:14

and she could hook you up with Shine On . There's

46:16

a lot of different things . You could say Again she could hook you

46:18

up with Shine On . There's a lot of different things . You could say Again , we want to

46:20

keep it simple , so we want to just do one thing . But you

46:23

could say hey , you could contact

46:25

this girl , message

46:27

her and say here's my project

46:30

. I would just like to do a little test

46:32

run .

46:33

Yeah .

46:34

And here's how much I'm offering you , because I think it'll

46:36

take about this long and whatever

46:38

. That would be

46:40

a really easy way to get your first VA . You

46:42

can also go down here and look at work

46:44

history and you can see the

46:47

actual job posts for

46:49

when she did Etsy store

46:51

manager from May 21st to June

46:54

23rd and you can click in here and

46:56

you can see all of this information

46:58

. You can view the entire job post if you

47:00

want . So let's open that up that

47:02

knee . And this was this

47:04

was pretty basic . I need an Etsy

47:06

store manager to start listing products and managing

47:09

all aspects of the store . That

47:11

was their job post and they got

47:13

this girl to work for them for months , so

47:17

you can see again for

47:24

months . So you can see again . You know , this goes back to kind of

47:26

getting or getting inspired , or getting inspiration for things

47:29

that you might want to have done , you know , or might want

47:31

to have done for you by a VA . This

47:33

is , this is another one . It's just so simple

47:35

, you know , and you

47:38

can look at all of this stuff and it can really

47:40

. I guess you just don't

47:43

have to like it

47:45

doesn't have to be really difficult . I

47:48

mean , you just saw two , one line

47:50

job description yeah . This

47:52

one's paying $3 an hour .

47:54

Yeah , that's what I was going to say . Her profile

47:56

says $7 an hour , which you can see she's worked

47:59

for three or five on

48:01

the job post . So , to Travis's point , that

48:05

number on their profile isn't

48:08

set in stone , right ? So she worked for five

48:10

and their profile says seven . So again , you

48:12

have a lot of leverage in

48:14

what that pay scale looks like .

48:17

Yeah , I mean , she's even got this

48:19

is part of her . If

48:21

you scroll down you can see , like the

48:24

, what's it called ? The gallery or the

48:26

. You know , this is what

48:28

is it called Portfolio , and you

48:31

can see her portfolio . She's , you know

48:33

, showing different things that she's done

48:35

. Got two orders

48:37

, wow , you know , hey , that's better than some of our listeners

48:39

. You know it's better than some

48:41

of my . You know some of some of the people

48:43

I've helped . But you get the idea Product

48:47

lister and optimizer , you can see all these different things

48:49

just based on her profile , and all

48:51

I did was I searched talent

48:53

and I did Etsy listings and then

48:56

there's not kidding hundreds

48:59

. You can go page to page . There's , there's

49:01

four pages after pages yeah

49:04

, yeah , I

49:06

mean , I don't know how many pages there are

49:08

, but there's probably a hundred that

49:10

are related . Um , okay

49:12

, so I

49:16

think what

49:19

the best way to wrap this up is is

49:22

just give

49:25

you some tough love . I guess there

49:27

are some of you that you

49:29

have a project that has been burning in

49:31

the back of your head and this episode

49:33

, all it did was just like reignite

49:36

that fire in the back of your head

49:38

and you're like , yeah , I know this is

49:41

, I need to do this , I've needed

49:43

to do this . And so here's your wake up call

49:45

. It's so simple Go create

49:47

an account and just

49:49

post a job

49:51

and start taking applications . It's

49:54

that simple . It's not difficult

49:56

. You will find somebody that is

49:58

going to be beyond your expectations , because

50:00

there are things that these people can do that

50:02

you have . You may not even know how to do

50:04

, and if you have , if you can

50:06

create a good rapport with them , they can be

50:09

so vital to your

50:11

business . Um , but let's

50:13

, let's forget about the future

50:15

. Let's talk about , talk about

50:17

the now . It doesn't have to be a big project

50:20

. It it could be 10 designs . You

50:22

just want 10 designs that you're going to put on

50:24

other things . It could just be your designs

50:26

, put on various colors of

50:28

mock-ups , you know , for a t-shirt

50:30

or whatever . Um , I want you to take

50:33

this picture and this picture , use a smart

50:35

object and put it together and make it look awesome

50:37

. And I want you to do that on all of these . You

50:39

Use a smart object and put it together and make it look awesome . And

50:41

I want you to do that on all of these . And I want you to come up with I don't know five

50:43

more pictures for it or something you

50:45

could do . Anything you want to do , but

50:48

the point is go

50:50

, do it , get on Upwork

50:52

. We don't have an affiliate link or anything like that

50:54

. Just go and get

50:57

an account and hire somebody

50:59

and and it'll blow you away , and then

51:01

, like I say , that'll kind

51:03

of notch , that you'll have that skill

51:05

. You'll be able to come back to it when you have another

51:08

good idea and there won't be so much like

51:10

mental barrier

51:12

that'll set you back

51:14

or or or make you procrastinate

51:16

because you think it's going to be so hard

51:18

or whatever . You'll have done it and you'll have an . You think it's going to be so hard , or whatever . You'll have done it and

51:21

you'll have an account and it'll be easy and

51:23

you'll know how to do it .

51:25

Yeah , absolutely .

51:26

So there you go , that is good , tough love

51:28

.

51:29

We tell people all the time that the worst

51:31

action is inaction . So take

51:35

the things we're telling you in this episode and

51:37

put them to use , try it . Let

51:39

us know . If you have questions , you can reach out to us . If

51:41

you need to ask a question

51:43

that maybe we didn't answer in this particular episode

51:46

, reach out to us , let us know . We'd

51:48

love to be able to help you . Take this , take the

51:50

tools that you have and start building

51:52

. Start doing something with it , because that's the only

51:54

way that you will find yourself further along

51:56

, six , nine , 12

51:59

months from now is if you start putting

52:01

these things into action . So thank

52:03

you , guys , so much for listening again to

52:05

another episode of the Print On

52:08

Demand cast . As always , if

52:10

you have not already , be sure to sign

52:12

up for our weekly email , printondemandcastcom

52:15

slash VIPs , where you can go to do that . Get

52:17

more tips , tricks , tidbits , insights

52:20

to the print-on-demand industry , things

52:23

that were mentioned in the show , things that

52:25

we maybe dive a little bit deeper on that we did

52:27

mention in the show . So if

52:29

you want to know all things print-on-demandcast , that's

52:31

where you can go , and you get an extra dad

52:34

joke as well , which is a huge

52:36

perk . So you have more ammunition

52:38

for your water cooler talk during the week

52:40

or your parties , and then you'll also

52:42

get a design calendar that will help

52:44

you know what is coming up and what you

52:46

should be designing for . Spoiler alert we

52:48

already passed halfmas . Okay

52:51

, we're halfway to Christmas by now

52:53

, more than halfway to Christmas by now . So our

52:55

Q4 is even closer than

52:57

that . So start getting those ducks

52:59

in a row . I'm sure we'll do our annual Q4

53:02

check-in to see where all of you are

53:04

, but that design calendar definitely helps

53:06

kind of get things loud to

53:08

what is upcoming and to prepare you better

53:11

for that season . Travis , anything else you want

53:13

to say about the VIP list ?

53:16

I don't think so . They get

53:18

two advertisements every week . We need to

53:20

really change those up at some point .

53:25

Yes , absolutely Well , awesome

53:27

. We'll be back next week with a brand new episode

53:29

, but until then , for Travis , I'm Josiah . We'll see

53:31

you right here on the Print On Demand cast

53:34

. We'll see you .

53:38

Hey babe , thanks for listening to this week's

53:40

episode of the Print On Demandcast . We

53:42

hope you enjoyed the Totally Tubular Show

53:44

. If you've got a question or a suggestion for

53:46

the show , send Travis and Josiah an email

53:49

at info at printondemandcastcom

53:51

. Want to be wicked nice ? Take

53:54

a minute to rate and review the show on iTunes

53:56

or wherever you get your podcasts , and

53:58

don't forget to subscribe now so you don't

54:00

miss next week's episode . See you next

54:02

time , for sure .