[Note: To follow is an excerpt of a radio show interview conducted by Peter L. Mosca, host of Income Property Investment Talk dot com, with David Oswald, an outsourcing enthusiast and author of "101 Ways to Outsource Your Life and Business." David discusses the challenges involved, how to manage and address the demands, and understanding the technologies that support outsourcing solutions. To listen to the show archive or download an MP3, go to www.IncomePropertyInvestmentTalk.com/012010.]

Mosca: What is happening in your life?

Oswald: I'm doing great. I'm actually calling in today from Florida. I've spent most of my time in New Jersey during the course of the year, but I do come down here sometimes when it gets a little bit colder. Great day out here today. I'm overlooking the water and I'm ready to have some fun here on this call.

Mosca: Can you tell me about how you got into outsourcing and what it means to you?

Oswald: Outsourcing is a topic that's near and dear to my heart. At a young age I was involved in a company that I helped build. I was working 14-hour days, and making pretty good money. I was in the mortgage business around 2002 , and I was being rewarded with it financially, but at the same time I was starting to actually feel burned out at a young age. I looked around at some of the people who were around me, and I could tell that they had been burned out for years in this business. I looked and said, "That's going to be my future right there, if I don't make some changes." At the time, I still had that urge to continue to work harder and harder, but I, in the back of my mind, knew that I had to find a way out of the 'rat race.' That's when I really started to get into some of these strategies that I wanted to talk about today. Some of the things we'll talk about today are going to appear to be things that you might think "Oh I know that already," but the question is, "are you actually doing it and implementing it?" Some will be very simple, and some will be more intense, especially when we talk about creating a business online or creating an online presence that operates basically without you. Time is our most valuable commodity and that's my focus today. In some ways, when you get out there and you really want to make an impression, you have to be able to market yourself and brand yourself. It's not like somebody came up to me one day and said, "You're the Outsource King." I had a lot of people commenting that I was light years ahead of them when it comes to time creation. That's why I go by that moniker.

Mosca: As the "Outsource King," please tell us what outsourcing is and what it means to you, and what could mean to REALTORS and investors?

Oswald: To get technical outsourcing is subcontracting a series of tasks, or even an entire process to some third party in order to create more time for yourself to focus on the things that you're best at. There are a lot of different strategies involved in outsourcing, and if you look at some of the larger companies, a lot of times when I mention the term, they think, "Okay, so a large phone system is being outsourced to India or the Philippines," and that's their understanding of outsourcing, but it's a brand that I like to focus on the business side of outsourcing but also the personal side. That's what I spend a lot of time writing about: how there's a personal side of what we do that can be outsourced, and then there's also a business side, that's almost an entirely different skill set that you can also create time with. Outsourcing and creating time is something that for me has been the key to everything that I've wanted to do. Like you mentioned before, it really was the impetus, the thing that allowed me to get out there and start to speak all over the nation. My particular brand of outsourcing is for the entrepreneur, or want to-be entrepreneur, who is trying to get out of their particular situation.

Mosca: A lot of people might be a little scared to get into outsourcing that they might feel that they don't have what it takes to make it happen and make it happen successfully. What was your first experience with outsourcing and was it successful?

Oswald: I definitely understand where many people are coming from with that, and that is why so much of this outsourcing process is mental. So much of it is also about lifestyle. By the way Pete, I'm not one of these "early bird catches the worm." I'm more like, "the late bird runs the firm." My first experience with this whole world of outsourcing is when I was in the mortgage business. We had an idea of finding a way to get some of the initial part of the application process done more efficiently because we had these great salesmen on the phone, and we had these guys with a lot of experience, but many of them were still just taking basic applications, spending 30 minutes just to run through 25 questions. We said, "How could this be done better?" So we had somebody in our office that was affiliated with some teams overseas in India. I don't want to call them "virtual teams" because at the time, in 2003, I don't think "virtual assistant" was a term that many people knew of or were using that term, but I got on the phone with this team over in India. Suddenly I had 15 trainees that were making phone calls for me every single day and getting maybe 8 or 10 questions of a mortgage application completed. Nothing major; no social security numbers, no dates of birth, but just the basic stuff: what's your interest rate, what do you owe on the mortgage, do you want to refinance, all that kind of stuff got done and I was being faxed as many as 25 or 30 mini-applications everyday. Then I could go and hand them out to my team. So I said it was kind of eye-opening, because I had an opportunity where I didn't have to speak to all of the various trainees that we had over there in India; I was speaking to one point person. I would train a little bit in the mornings, maybe for about 20 minutes, they would listen to me and get a better understanding of what I wanted, and then they would go and do it, and they would call all day long. Because we had such a big team, which was a decent sized team at the time, 15 people - we were getting everybody at a very good rate as far as rate per hour. It was right around $1.00 per hour per person.

Mosca: Wow. That's incredible.

Oswald: So I would get these individuals and not really spend all that much to get these applications, hand them out. The guys in the office were happy, they were getting kind of like a warm lead at that point, and I saw this work. I said, "Hey, this thing is not so crazy after all," and in fact, it not only applies to a huge company, a billion dollar company; it also applies to the small business. We were a mid-sized mortgage company; about 72 people at our peak right over there in Edison, New Jersey, and at our peak we were at about 72 people and that's when I said it could apply to a mid-sized company like us, but how about if I took it even a step down and I wanted to apply it to a guy who was running a business in his basement and was looking for a few inexpensive employees to help him out? That's what started to occur. The idea is really the impetus for not only the book that I wrote, but also me applying it to every single business since that time that I've taken on myself.

Mosca: Let's say someone listening right now wants to supplement their income and actually do outsource work. Is there a way for that person to get involved in this particular business?

Oswald: Without a doubt. There's a new economy that's happening right now. I call it the "New World Disorder." There's so much changing right now, the world is getting smaller, and you have something to give to other people. Number 1, you've got to decide: "what is it that I truly would want to do with my time?" You don't want to just become a service provider just to make a few bucks on the side. You want to do something that you can really see yourself doing for a long period of time. There's a couple different Web sites and ways that you can get involved in actually providing these services. Don't be a jack-of-all-trades. Be very good at a specific niche. In other words, decide what it is you like, and then be very good at that specific niche. Define yourself and what it is that you're best at so that people know you're the number one person in that particular area. They know that you're the go-to person, because all you need is two or three good clients that are going to consistently feed your bottom line every single month, and now all of a sudden you've created a business instead of some random jobs that come in because people don't know what you're best at. Always get referrals, get testimonials and get a rating, and build from there into establishing a business.

Mosca: That's so critical David. Is getting those ratings important to online credibility?

Oswald: It definitely is. When looking to find service providers, I always look for the people with the ratings, but I also give the new guy or new girl a chance in exchange for them maybe doing a little bit extra for me up front. So let's say it's somebody that I need some articles written and I say, "I need 10 articles written on this topic. Can you do that for me?" and they have no history, no background, I might say, "Write me an article for free. I just want to see an example of your work." They do that for me, I read it, and if I like what they've done, then that's their proof; that's their way in the door, so it works both sides.

Mosca: What is your golden nugget?

Oswald: I'll show you a self-made millionaire, and then I'll also show you a liar. What I mean by that is no self-made millionaire, nobody out there that's actually created wealth and we talk about time equals money, has done it alone. They might say they have, or they might think they have, but everyone has had some sort of team in place, some sort of backbone, and some sort of way that we can get this done. There's no doubt time is our most important asset, money can be made and lost, time can be lost, but never gotten back. That's why I've made it a technology to study this concept from every angle, and I continue to learn with it, and if you want more on this stuff, go to 101waystooutsource.com.

Published: February 18, 2010

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Peter L. Mosca is president and founder of BAK Communications, Inc. He has over 22 years of communications and media consulting experience, serving a variety of nonprofit organizations, including the CCIM Institute and the REALTOR Association on all three levels – national, state and local. He is the Spokesperson Trainer for the CCIM's Jay Levine Academy and trains hundreds of residential REALTORS nationwide to be effective industry spokespeople. He is consistently ranked as "excellent" by about 90% of those who attend his presentations. While his principal consulting focuses are public speaking and media relations development and content delivery and management, Peter is also the host of the Voice America Network's weekly radio program, "Income Property Investment Talk," a one-hour program that brings the powerhouses of commercial and residential real estate to property investors every Wednesday at 11 a.m. EST. Peter is married 17 years to his wife Barbara. They have two children: Ashley, 15 and Kelli, 12. Hence, the name BAK Communications, Inc.