Outsourcing to the Philippines changes businesses. It changes lives.
I’ve been teaching this principle for more than a decade. But outsourcing isn’t a magic bullet—it takes effort for it to work. As a business owner, it’s important to assess your business needs and determine what tasks you should outsource now and in the future.
What my needs were
I’ve shared my story before of how I started outsourcing to the Philippines and how I came to realize I could replace myself in my business.
When I first started, I had some pressing business needs. But these are also tasks that I did but simply didn’t have time or desire to do any more. The main three were
- programming,
- article marketing and
- SEO.
I got my degree in computer science and had spent a few years working as a programmer. But as I began outsourcing I realized there was simply too much programming work to do in my business to handle it all by myself. So I outsourced this task.
With more time available, I was able to do other things in my business that mattered more. I also learned about article marketing and began doing a lot of it. Eventually, I hired a Filipino to take over this job as well. The same happened when I decided to hire someone to do my SEO.
Why are you doing this?
Part of assessing your business needs includes asking yourself why you want to outsource. Here are five possible answers:
- Laziness
- You want to get more done
- You want to switch your focus
- You want someone else to do everything for you
- You’re not sure
To put it bluntly, if you are outsourcing to the Philippines because you’re lazy, you’ll fail. Working with an OFS requires constant communication and feedback. If you think you’re going to hire an OFS, drop out of the picture and then to send them on their own without any training, you’re in for a major disappointment.
Hiring an OFS to take over some of your everyday tasks is exactly why you should outsource. Just make sure you’re working on tasks that are more important. Use your time wisely by concentrating on the things that will make you money and move your business forward.
Hiring someone else to do everything for you is nice, in theory. It rarely works without any involvement from you. Hiring an OFS won’t solve ALL your problems. This just isn’t realistic. Yes, they’ll do the work, but you have to understand how to put all these pieces together.
If you’re not sure why you’re outsourcing, don’t. You’re not going to be successful until you figure it out and have a clear goal in mind. Map out a plan and start doing the things I teach. Only then will you see good results.
Look at your current tasks
The first way to determine how outsourcing will help your business is to assess what you are currently doing. Take note of the tasks you’re working on. Then, determine which of these you need someone else to start doing now. Which do you want to pass on to an Online Filipino Specialist and which do you want to continue doing yourself?
In addition to what tasks you can ask your OFS to do immediately, consider which ones you can eventually hand over to your VA in the coming weeks or months. There may be some things that make sense for you to keep doing for the time being. But in the future, once your VA is up to speed, you can let go of certain tasks.
Sometimes business owners may hesitate delegating tasks because they think the OFS might not be ready for the responsibility. Remember, the very reason you hired an OFS was so you could replace yourself. By training your Filipino worker, you should be able to hand them these jobs and free up your time. You are the expert in your business, so of course the worker isn’t going to do it as well as you at first. But over time, your OFS will become an expert as well.
Hire an OFS to do what you’re doing
Once you have
- evaluated your business and
- identified what you can outsource now and in the future,
it’s time to hire an OFS and put them to work.
The advantage to having your OFS take over the things you’ve been working on is that you already know what you’re doing. So teaching it to a new Filipino Specialist will be much easier.
Plus, this will help get your relationship with your OFS started off on the right foot. Your OFS will respect you as an authority. They’ll be less nervous coming to you with questions because they know you will have the answers (hence solving the No. 1 problem people have in working with Filipinos).
Also, when you hire a Filipino to do the tasks you’ve been doing yourself, you are automatically ridding yourself of duties that have been taking up your valuable time. You can move onto other things. Things you’ve been wanting to do for months or years but haven’t had the opportunity.
Typical needs I see
I’ve worked with various business owners and talked with them about their outsourcing experience. I’ve seen that most of these businesses have a lot of things in common. They all outsource pretty much the same things. You might not need to hire a Filipino Specialist for all of these tasks, but chances are you’ll eventually need getting these done:
- Online marketing
- Building a website
- Programming
- Design
- WordPress
- Customer service
- Content development
For high technical jobs like programming or SEO, flawless English isn’t going to be that important. For all non-technical tasks, you’d want someone who has perfect or near-perfect English. Assessing a candidate’s English abilities is one of the first things I do when finding and recruiting an OFS.
It used to be that you had to teach someone how to do all these things. Today, many Filipino workers are skilled in a lot of these tasks. Marketing is the one task I still think you ought to understand and help give direction to your Filipino workers.
Determining your long-term needs
When you hire an OFS, you should look at the relationship as something that will last for years and years. This is one of the biggest differences between hiring an OFS and hiring a contractor.
Knowing this, you need to have a big-picture view and consider what long-term tasks you can outsource. Though you might not need an OFS to fulfill a certain task now, think about when this will become a more immediate need. These long-term tasks may not be urgent, but they are important.
If you’re not sure where to spend your time, ask yourself these questions:
- What is the best thing I can do right now to make myself money?
- Am I doing that thing?
- Can someone else do that?
- Can someone else do what I’m currently doing so I can do that thing?
This will help you assess whether you need an OFS now or down the road.
Conclusion: Be smart and be sure
Don’t jump into outsourcing just for the sake of doing it. Take the time to analyze where your business is right now and where it’s going. Decide what tasks make the most sense to assign to your OFS. Understand what you’re getting into and then move forward with commitment and dedication.
About John Jonas
John helps business owners learn to outsourcing to the Philippines and replace themselves with virtual assistants.
He founded and owns OnlineJobs.ph.
He currently employs 40 amazing Filipino workers full-time and loves every one of them. He lives in Utah, has a wonderful wife, 4 amazing kids, and golfs 4-5 times/week.
Find John at JohnJonas.com and Facebook.
If you liked this you’ll probably also like reading
– How To Communicate With Filipino VA’s
– Four Pillars of Managing Filipino Virtual Assistants
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