Writing is a key function you should consider outsourcing to the Philippines. In fact, increasingly small- and medium-sized businesses are contracting major portions of their writing tasks to Filipino workers. And the trend of hiring Filipino writers isn’t something we see that’s bound to die down soon.
4 Reasons Why Outsourcing Writing to the Philippines is Surging
1. Internet Marketing
A lot of businesses do Internet Marketing. Yours is probably among them. In internet Marketing, content is king. And you need to produce unique, quality content on a regular basis. Without it, you’ll lose visibility on search engines.
2. Scaling up your business.
Your small business should be growing. As it grows, your organization will need materials such as employee manuals, reports for funding sources, and scripts for your customer-relations units. Someone has to write them. Your own staff might be too busy to take on those assignments. The easiest solution is to outsource this to someone else.
3. Affordable price
For a full time Filipino writer, the salary range is usually between $400 and $800 a month. If you put a generic help-wanted for a commercial writer on UpWork or Craigslist, the odds are against landing that kind of bargain.
4. Philippine culture
The commercial infrastructure in the Philippines is built on American English. Not British English, as in India. In the Philippines, the language of business is in English. They have made it their business to master the nuances of spoken and written English for all professional transactions. They have it down cold how writing a white paper on manufacturing processes differs from creating a series of email blasts for the new senior-citizen housing development where units begin at $165,000.
American English is Part of the Philippines Cultural DNA
For Filipinos eager to get ahead and to prepare their children for a competitive labor market, American English is not a “second language.” It has been embedded in the cultural DNA. From the get-go, the children absorb American television programming. A lot of them grew up on Sesame Street. They watch American movies and TV shows. They read American books. The main language at home is English.
Because of this, many Filipino workers pick up English as though it’s their native language. Intuitively, they know that a PowerPoint Presentation to the Board of Directors should be formal. The tone must be confident. On the other hand, they have enough real-life experience to recognize that the script for a 15-second television commercial for baby wipes should be warm and fuzzy.
Considering outsourcing your writing assignments to the Philippines is one thing. Actually, doing it is another. Here are five tips on how to get from what is in your head or on a planning chart to experiencing the huge benefits of outsourcing to the Philippines.
5 Tips for Outsourcing Writing to the Philippines
1. Understand the big picture and the nuts and bolts of outsourcing.
Before you start outsourcing, it’s best to educate yourself. You need to understand how you can scale your business through outsourcing. You also need to know the technical details, like recruiting, managing and training your online team.
Here at Onlinejobs.ph, we have an education page to help you with that. And if you prefer something more structured, you could go to OutsourcingLever.com and get a free book. If you want someone to guide you through the process, step-by-step, check out OneVAAway.com and take the 7 day hiring challenge.
2. Be specific in your job post.
Generic ads will throw open the gates and you’ll be overwhelmed with a deluge of applications. If you’re explicitly clear about who you want in terms of experience, knowledge, and skills, every eager-beaver writer will send you a cover letter. Soon, you will become frustrated. Worse is that job post might not even attract the right professionals.
3. Review Writer Resumes
You can take this step instead of placing a job post or in addition to. When you find the writer that you like, you can send them the job post inviting them to apply.
When they respond, that’s when you can ask them questions (over a series of emails) to check if they really have the skills to do the job.
4. Create a trial task.
To test their skills, offer your potential writers a paid test task. Give the test task to your short listed applicants and make the test close to what they would actually write about on the job.
You can approach this in a couple of ways. You can give a test with detailed instructions to see if they know how to follow instructions. Or you can design the test instructions to be intentionally vague to encourage your writers to do their research or ask questions.
5. Invest time in multiple interviews.
What you want is a long-term relationship with the writer. Therefore, it’s worth the time investment to do multiple interviews with your short listed applicants. You can do Skype interviews but the best way, in our experience, has been to send interview questions over a series of emails.
How they reply shows you a lot of things: their language proficiency, professionalism, and how they work under pressure. Sure, this means the interview process would take several days but by the end of it, you’d be reasonably certain about who you want to hire.
Writers aren’t the only workers you can hire from the Philippines. You can also hire programmers, graphic designers, social media managers, etc. If you want to learn how other entrepreneurs hire for their business, check out Daniel’s hiring process for his real estate business and Aaron’s process for ecommerce.
About John Jonas
John Jonas is a long-time outsourcing expert and the creator of OnlineJobs.ph.
Since 2005, John has taught hundreds of thousands of entrepreneurs how to profitably delegate to VAs in the Philippines (and get their lives back in the process).
With help from his own VAs based in the Philippines, John has created an outsourcing empire that allows him to work 17 hours/week and to spend most of his time with his wife and 5 kids.
Find John at JohnJonas.com and Facebook.
If you liked this you’ll probably also like reading
Need help in writing essays or doing assignments for Masters in HR