Many business owners are apprehensive about outsourcing.
I’ve had many tell me that they don’t want to do it because they can do the work better and faster than anyone else. They ask, “Why hire someone else to do something you’re more capable of doing?” More often than not, business owners believe they’re the only ones who can do things right in their business.
This kind of thinking limits the growth of your business. Why? Because growth means more work. And no matter how productive you are, there’s a limit to how much you can do.
Change your mindset
Believing you are the only person who can handle your business creates a bottleneck in your growth. If you really want to be in control and work on your business and not in your business, change your mindset.
Outsourcing to the Philippines will give you time to work on more important tasks. It will also help your business grow.
Filipinos are skilled. They have great work ethic. And they are very good workers. If you give them the right training and teach them effectively, they will prove to be tremendous assets to your business.
Let me share my own story.
Before I started outsourcing to the Philippines, I was running myself ragged doing everything in my business. I was overwhelmed. Then I had a conversation with another business owner. What he told me changed my life—it changed my mindset.
He told me I should outsource my business tasks to the Philippines.
Like most people, I was worried I wouldn’t have enough work for a full-time worker. I was worried I wouldn’t find anyone to hire. I was afraid that if I did find someone, the person I hired wouldn’t do a good job.
I was struggling to make a decision, but I finally decided to take a leap of faith. And it paid off in a big way.
I hired my first Online Filipino Specialist and have since hired several others. Outsourcing to the Philippines has been the most liberating experience of my life. My OFS took over some of the day-to-day tasks I used to do, and it effectively saved me hours a day.
In most cases, employers hire someone to do the things they (the employer) don’t know how to do. But I take the opposite approach: I hire outsourcers to do what I already know how to do. This way, I can teach them my process. Once they master it, I’m free to spend time doing more essential things, like making sales and growing my business.
This lets me truly be the CEO while my OFS works in the business. They take care of the things I don’t want to do.
One of the main reasons I decided to follow the advice I was given is because it gave me hope. I tried outsourcing to India before and I hoped that going to the Philippines would be different. I hoped I’d have more success.
Most people who hire Filipinos to work in their business aren’t new to the idea of outsourcing. Some end up getting frustrated because they’ve had a bad experience and they’re not successful. The reason for that is they go outsourcing to the Philippines thinking it’s just going to be the same old thing.
But the Philippines is different. It has a unique culture. It’s because of this culture that you can have a different outsourcing experience. It happened to me, and it can happen to you as well. All it takes is changing the way you think.
Why not hire freelancers or contractors?
Once you’ve changed the way you think about your business and realize you need help with it, wouldn’t it be easier to simply find a freelancer or contractor on Upwork?
The simple answer is no.
There is a place for freelance workers and contractors. But in order for you to become the CEO of your business, you need someone to work long term and full time.
The thing with hiring freelancers or contractors is that they provide short-term solutions to your business needs. They’ll take on a project or two, and then they’ll move on to the next opportunity.
They aren’t a long-term option. Most of them are just looking to make some extra cash and have a little extra work to do. Or they want to get as much work as they can to make more money. They’re not invested in your business.
With freelancers or contractors, you can never fully automate your systems. You can’t hand off your entire system to these types of workers because they’re not staying.
This means you’ll be training new workers every few weeks or months. This is a waste of your time and effort. It’s so much easier to take some time providing in-depth training to a full-time, permanent worker you know is going to help your business thrive.
When you outsource to the Philippines, your worker won’t finish one project with you, then move on to someplace else. They care about your business and its growth.
Implement everything but don’t do the work
Another one benefit of hiring an OFS is that you can implement all aspects of your business without doing the work yourself—that’s what your OFS is for.
And over time, you can get to the point where you can teach your OFS to do everything in your business (or eventually hire multiple workers), giving you more freedom to do whatever you want. Do you want to make more money? Spend more time with family? Pursue passion projects? You have time for that now.
I remember early in my business, I had this process that really frustrated me. I had been doing some page testing and tracking for one of my websites, but I just didn’t want to deal with the hassle of coding and making sure everything was working correctly. The thought of having to do this was stressing me out. Luckily, I had an easy solution: I emailed my OFS.
I asked him to learn how to use the Google website optimizer, do the testing, and tracking on the pages. I gave him explicit instructions on what to test and how often to do it. I let him know that doing these tests would improve the site.
Sending this email took me about 10 minutes. That email saved me hours and hours of headaches. It gave me more time to be the CEO of my business instead of worrying about mundane tasks.
Another time, I launched a new product. I asked my OFS to create a marketing plan and a traffic plan for the website. He replied with some ideas about creating a mini-net.
These weren’t just basic plans; they were detailed, comprehensive outlines, complete with diagrams. He knew exactly what he was doing because I had trained him. I barely even had to read through his email because I had complete trust his ideas were going to work just the way I needed.
Can you see how valuable your OFS can be in helping you be the CEO of your business? You don’t need to handle every facet of your business yourself. You can get things done simply by relying on your Filipino worker.
Most of my work now involves following up with my VAs, touching base on projects and sending out a few emails. Takes me, at most, 2 hours a day. Notice I didn’t list a bunch of tedious tasks. I have other people to do those things for me.
How to make the best use of your time
There are some things you, as the business owner, should be doing with your time. And there are things you should definitely assign to your OFS. Don’t waste time doing things your OFS can handle. Dedicate yourself to doing those things that will make you and your business money.
What should you have your OFS do? Here are a few examples:
- Building your website
- Marketing
- Getting traffic
- Writing content
- Social media
- Customer service
- Testing
You can also have your OFS create products. But if you’re the expert AND you want to do it, it’s fine to do it yourself.
Just remember that as the CEO of your business, the responsibility is growing your business and making it more profitable. If you’re spending more time on things you can delegate to your OFS instead of growing your business, you aren’t using your time wisely.
To make the best use of your time, consider focusing on these aspects of your business:
- Define your business plan
- Find the market of buyers
- Understand your business model
- Understand how to get in front of the market
- Understand, then create the sales process
- Focus on making sales
- Understand why you are doing certain processes in your business
- Give training, instructions and feedback
- Make decisions for your worker (making decisions is your most important job)
In summary
“If I want things done right in my business, I have to do it myself.”
That makes sense. After all, you are the expert in your own business. You know what you want and how to do it.
But as the CEO, you should be focusing on getting in front of the chosen market and making sales. The other parts of your business, though important, can be handled by your Online Filipino Specialist.
Change the way you look at your business. Hire and train Filipino workers. Teach them to work on the support functions of your growing business.
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.
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