Thousands of business owners have had tremendous success in replacing themselves in their business by outsourcing to the Philippines.
You can do it too!
Let’s uncover some of the secrets of how outsourcing can help your business thrive.
Secret #1: Don’t need to hire local employees
Outsourcing your work to the Philippines means you won’t have to spend money on the additional employee costs like insurance and taxes that you would have with an in-house, local employee. Because your virtual assistant will be working from their home country remotely, you won’t have to pay for an office space, utilities, or equipment.
These can add up to 30 percent or more to your payroll. That’s money you can keep for other essential business costs.
Secret #2: Don’t hire freelancers
When choosing between hiring a freelancer and outsourcing to the Philippines, choose the latter. Don’t hire a freelancer when you can have an online Filipino specialist.
To grow your business, you need a full-time worker whom you can trust. You need someone you can rely on to work for your business for years to come. You won’t get that with a freelancer.
Freelancers are great for short-term, one-off projects. But as a business owner, you can’t afford to invest the time and effort of training and teaching just to have a revolving door of freelancers.
There are other challenges to working with freelancers or contractors. Some of these are the following:
- Freelancers can disappear in the middle of a project if they become frustrated or disinterested.
- Freelancers are not interested in your business. They’re just there to do the job and get paid.
- Freelancers make more money when they do more work, hence, jobs are often rushed. There is a risk that a freelancer’s quality of work will be less than what you expect.
Secret #3: You don’t have to pay a Filipino virtual assistant much to be fair
When you decide to outsource to the Philippines, you will cut your costs considerably because you can pay so much less than you would a U.S. employee or a freelancer. In fact, many talented VAs are available starting at $400–$500 a month.
Now, you may think that paying a Filipino VA this monthly wage is ripping them off or exploiting their labor, but this isn’t true. In the Philippines, this is a middle-class wage, and Filipinos are incredibly grateful for it.
Secret #4: The Philippines vs. India? Go to the Philippines
If you call customer service about something, like a problem with your Amazon order, you’ll be connected to a call center in the Philippines. But years ago, when you called customer service or technical support, you would have ended up speaking with someone in India.
Why the change?
It’s because businesses understand that the Philippines is a superior choice for your outsourcing needs. You should do the same: Go to the Philippines instead of India.
Why? Outsourcing to India isn’t easy. The cultural differences between the U.S. and India make working with VAs there a challenging task. In Indian culture, subordinates are not allowed to tell superiors they disagree with a decision or point of view. In India, you can’t tell a superior “no.” They just keep saying ‘yes’ even though they don’t understand the problem, don’t know how to fix it, and have no intention of doing anything about it.
With Filipinos, once you establish open communication, they’re easier to talk to. Like Indians, they don’t like saying “no”. But unlike Indians, they’re more open about what they can and can’t do.
Another advantage that Filipinos have over their Indian counterparts is their exposure to American culture. Filipinos watch American TV and movies so much, they’re more familiar with American culture, customs, ideas and norms than people in India are. Because of these factors, your business will be in much better shape if you hire the Philippines.
Secret #5: Filipinos make excellent employees
I’ve been outsourcing to the Philippines since 2005. The first VA I hired still works for me. Most of the people in my team have been with me for more than 5 years. And they do everything in my business from customer support to programming.
And I’m not alone. If you look through our case studies, you’ll see that most of the business owners there have Filipino VAs who have been working with them for years. Filipino who are specialists in their field.
Filipinos make excellent employees because of the following traits.
Filipinos are proficient in English
Along with Filipino (the standardized form of Tagalog), English is the official language of the Philippines. It is widely spoken in major cities. It’s used in education, government, media and business. Educated Filipinos, speak, read and write English fluently. Even Filipinos who only have high school or grade school level education understand English.
Filipinos have many of the same values we admire and seek
Filipinos are honest and trustworthy. They won’t steal from you or cheat you. You can give them access to as much information with which you are comfortable and be confident they will not use it against you or to their advantage.
Filipinos have good work ethic
Working hard and sticking with a task until the job is done is engrained in the Filipino culture. It is just who they are.
Once, I gave my programmer a really hard task. When I realized how hard it was, I was ready to give up on that task. He didn’t stop working on it until he finished it. He even went out and learned a new programming language just to get it done.
That’s dedication you can’t find anywhere else.
Filipinos are educated and skilled
Go to OnlineJobs.ph and you will see resumes of Filipino candidates who have bachelors and graduate degrees. We’re not talking about a degree they got from an obscure website or bought through a mail-in program. These are real, legitimate degrees. They also possess the skills you’re looking for. They know web design, graphic design, programming, copywriting, social media, WordPress and SEO.
Secret #6: When you hire a Filipino VA, they’ll stick with you for the long haul
When you outsource to an online Filipino specialist, you will rarely, if ever, have to hire another person soon. Filipinos place tremendous value on finding full-time work. It’s hard finding a full-time job in the Philippines. Many Filipinos work part time or even sporadically. So if they get an offer from an American business to work 40 hours per week with an above-average pay, they’ll jump at the chance. They’ll do their best because they know it’s hard to find the same kind of security anywhere else.
Secret #7: Once trained, your Filipino VA will amaze you
Make training and communication a priority from day one. Start off teaching your VA to do one task until they prove they can handle it and have mastered it—which they will. Then, they’ll be ready for more responsibility. Eventually, your Filipino VA will be doing your work for you.
If you take the time to train in the beginning, your teaching efforts will pay off exponentially over the long haul.
Sounds too good to be true? Hardly. There are currently over 1 million Filipino profiles on OnlineJobs.ph, waiting to make your life easier. Hire a Filipino VA. Find more freedom and time, all while growing your 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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