After more than 10 years of trading online, running my web design businesses, I have learnt some key lessons in outsourcing. The answer is Outsourcing Philippines through OnlineJobs.
I had some serious issues early in my time outsourcing to India and lost over $120,000 before making the decision to never ever do it in India again. That’s my personal decision.
I then came across a website in the online marketing community set up offering the service of Outsourcing Philippines workers. Offering Virtual Assistants Philippines Based.
I signed up for my ongoing subscription and have kept it ever since. In fact I didn’t use my subscription for years but then used it and it was worth keeping it all that time! Outsourcing Philippines was one of the best things I ever did!
Whilst I would not use offshore workers to arrange my SEO Strategies, I would 100% use them for the mundane admin tasks that get in the way of me doing the jobs I do best that ensure my business is running rich on finances.
So here is what I have learnt about outsourcing Philippines.
Outsourcing Philippines – ACCOUNTABILITY
One of the biggest problems I came across in my Outsourcing Philippines, which cost me a heap of money, was workers who were in it for multiple companies full time. At one stage I had a guy on a good wage who was great to work with at first but then his work got slower and slower and I couldn’t figure out why! In the end I found two other people had him employed full time for their companies. He cost me a lot of time and also caused failure on certain jobs as a result. His poor work ethic caused my reputation issues, as a result I needed to go over and above to make up for his antic and the jobs he worked on – all 12 of them – cost me more money than I made. The loss was between $500 – $100 each site.
I now use Monitoring Software to keep tabs on all of my Outsourcing Philippines workers. It does the following:
- Records the intensity of their activity
- Takes random screenshots of their computer to check they are working on MY jobs not others
- Logs the amount of time they work for my company
- It even allows you to pay by the hour for the hours they log
Outsourcing Philippines – NEVER UPFRONT
The times I paid upfront were a big mistake. I realised I had a worker who said they were up to the task but were not. Then I was told not to worry because they would learn the job and do well. But when you are doing things in Web Design that need to be done by an expert – thats an issue. And once you have given money it’s gone – you wont get it back.
Outsourcing Philippines – VET your Worker
In my Web Agency, Sites By Design, I went through about 8 ‘Web Designers’ to find one who could do the type of work to my standards and in the frameworks I Wanted. The majority of the Web Design people in the Philippines couldn’t program their way out of a paper bag and commonly use a Website Builder program like DIVI (which I personal cant stand). The end result of their work was substandard so I ended up wasting a LOT of money on them. I now have a Web girl on staff who does my Website Work in the way I require and she has a great work Ethic! Test them first!
Outsourcing Philippines – NO LOANS
It’s a slippery slope. I have made many loans to my offshore workers and it becomes a strain on the relationship. I therefore make it clear that I can pay them weekly if they need me to but I don’t have it in my company budget to pay out any loans. Once they get the point there is no more asking. I know I sound like a grinch here but I had one guy hit me for a total of $800 by the end of one month and I never saw the money come back and he was soon gone to work for someone else. So I lost my employee who I trained up for the job AND my money.
Outsourcing Philippines – GIVE BONUSES
If you want to give your worker a bonus payment feel free – it will generate great amounts of good will toward your company and ensure your worker is very happy in their job. That happiness also ensures higher quality of work and work ethic.
Outsourcing Philippines – The 13TH MONTH
It is law over there to pay 1 month of wages on top of their december wage. This ensures they have a good Christmas – which is important to them. Some people ignore this law as they are not based in the philippines and don’t care – you your workers will care even if they say they don’t!
Outsourcing Philippines – LOCATION LOCATION LOCATION
Employ from the right place. I try my hardest to employ from inside Manilla where the power is reliable and the internet is fast. IF you go to more remote areas you will get staff at half the price but be forever plagued by natural disasters, power outages and technology problems.
Outsourcing Philippines – WHERE TO GET THEM
I have long guarded this secret, I only EVER go through one place for outsourcing to philippines workers. Its a website build by a marketer in the USA called OnlineJobs.
When you post a job it asks you for so much detail that you will get the skilled workers you are after, it also gives you space to post a message about the type of person you are looking for.
OnlineJobs also allows you to give your workers a place to upskill themselves if you need them to get more skills to upgrade their value to your business.
Outsourcing Philippines – WHAT DO YOU PAY YOUR WORKER?
This is the mother of all questions!
It depends on their knowledge and experience.
Firstly I usually pay them through Paypal, I ask them to invoice me either weekly or monthly depending on their personal requirement. I also make it clear that they should make sure they remember to invoice me – I wont be their personal assistant – they are mine!
From my experience I would pay a standard Admin Worker $1000 AUD per month which is around 35,000 Pesos (35k php) per month. Remember if you are paying per week you divide that by 4.33 to get a correct amount.
For more experienced people with expertise in their area like Web Developer (Programmer) you may go from 50,000 Pesos (50k php) but I would be testing them to the MAX beforehand.
You may also want to give them a 1 – 2 month trial period to see how they perform. Remind them that how they work in that trial period is how you will expect them to work once they are a part of your team permanently. In Fact part of testing them should be giving them a few tasks to do and seeing how well they perform.
The End Result
At the end of the day you can have a team of virtual assistant Philippines based who work hard to ensure your business grows and moves forward. All you need to do is learn to outsource to the Philippines the right way and you will be ahead of most startups or entrepreneurs
The Outsourcing questions to ask yourself
- What is your time worth?
- What If you could free up just 20 – 40 hours per week?
- What if that only cost you $100 – $250 per week?
- How would that change your business life?
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