Outsourcing, it is a necessary business move to increase your productivity. I have been outsourcing a lot of work from programming, site maintenance, content, copy, articles, graphics, etc - you name it I probably outsourced it. These tasks were worked on a per project basis, meaning I paid per the completion of the task.
Recently, I have hired 2 VAs from the Philippines to help with SEO work, which is very tedious on one person. When I hired 2 full time Filipinos, I was trying to find a new way to manage them and communicate with them. I wanted to make sure my VA's were working diligently. While I was searching for content, I stumbled on Tyrone Shum's blog.
His blog talked about outsourcing and how he is making money with outsourcing - giving his full business responsibilities to workers in the Philippines. I went through his blog and even his Mass Outsource course, there was a lot of information from utilizing a free video recording system to task management tools.
I decided to contact him and see if he would like to have a conversation with me about outsourcing. This would be a great way to get an experts perspective from a person starting to utilize full time outsourcers (me). Since I only outsourced work on a per project basis in the past, I didn't really have to give rpeated tasks everyday or up keep with the VAs on a daily basis. Having a team that is full time, there is a lot ofmanaging and communication that needs to be done.
One aspect is the time difference from New Jersey to the Philippines. Tyrone and I talked about how to manage this time difference and how to work with both parties with ease. It was one of the troubling things I had because I didn't know if my VAs had questions or if they were doing work.
Another discussion we dive right into is the big difference between Filipino workers and VAs from India. Personally, I have outsourced work in the past to India and I always never get good results. Everything had to be step by step and very descriptive, they can not think on their own. The most annoying part is they do not like asking questions if they are stuck and rush their work to get onto the next client.
So far with my Filipino workers, they ask questions when stuck and provide daily and weekly reports. They do not rush and take the time to learn and understand, the best part is they can think on their own and even suggests alternative strategies!
After the main conversation, I asked Tyrone to talk about his Mass Outsource, which I think is a great piece of material for beginners when starting to outsource their business. I watched every video and took some great tips along with it.
Listen to this podcast, it is an amazing piece of content. If you are thinking about outsourcing work, listen to the conversation me and Tyrone have. It gives a lot of perspective from how I started to where I am at now. This way you know where to start and how to start finding the best VAs to work for you and grow your business.
