mustard76

With the popularity of John Jonas' ReplaceMyself.com, I'd like to know if anyone is having success outsourcing internet marketing tasks to the Philippines.

Are you having success? What tasks is your VA doing?

birddog200

I am glad you posted this, as I have been looking

for the same info. I hope this thread gets strong because

I have a lot of ideas for outsourcing, and need to know the

best place to outsource to.

Thanks, Birddog

AndrewHansen

It's like saying:

Who's outsourcing to India?

Who's outsourcing to the US?

You can't possibly summarize the performance of a whole country at outsourcing. You can find good and bad outsourcers from any country.

That said, I've worked a lot with Filipinos and I can tell you...

As a general rule, it's not hard to find people with good english from PI, since the country has the highest percentage of english speakers of any asian country. So if you need writers, it's not a bad place to start.

The outsourcing industry is huge there and employs a large percentage of the workforce so it's not hard to find people with experience in working on remote arrangements.

And because their currency is hugely undervalued relative to the dollar, you can get them for great prices.

It's up to the processes of your own business to locate the ones with highest skill levels, best work ethic and so on, but like many third world countries, this also isn't hard because there is great desperation for income, so people will work hard to get jobs and harder to keep them.

I hope this helps.

Andrew

Beachedfish

Hey Guys,
I am planning a trip there in the next month or so to see about setting up an outsourcing company for my clients and I. I would be glad to keep you updated or trade any information. Just PM me.

Bryant

cscarpero

I've had a few things done by Filipinos:

blog building
graphic design
accounting
video production

I'm in the process now of hiring backlink building through Filipinos as well.

I use Odesk almost exclusively to find them. There have been issues here and there, but overall I'm pleased. I pay between $2-4/hr.

They do speak English very well. I could post the transcript here of my conversations and tell you that and American wrote it and you would believe it. It's that good!

By the way, I just found this and it would probably help. It's only $19.95 for the online course.

Outsource Secrets Revealed Workshop, May 30 and 31, 2009 - Atlanta, GA

kckaz

I've hired a couple. The work ethic has been quite low, but I'm paying $2.00/hr, so I can't complain too much. From my experience, you have to be on top of things or 2-3 days go by and nothing is done. I started paying based on time sheets presented to me rather than a set monthly fee. That way, you can see how much time is being spent for different projects. I notice that it takes 3-4x longer than it'd take me for a lot of things, but even if I can do in an hour what they can do in four, it's still worth it. And, some people strike gold with $2-4/hr workers more knowledgeable and efficient then they are.

Justin Mandel

Tons of people are having success outsourcing to the Phillipines...

My VA performs all kinds of tasks for me like website design, blog creation, FTPing ZIP files, programming etc. While I was at the Continuity Summit last weekend while I was networking he was even immediately sending emails to people who I met "BAM" right on the spot

At this point simply put I would never work without a VA ever again.

If anyone is looking for a VA or writer I have helped connect 4 other warriors up until this point with part-time or full-time help so feel free to PM me for more info.

Obama

I have been to the Philippines about ten times and I know people from there abroad but I never outsourced from there (but I will).
So my 2 cents is generally speaking they are honest, cheap, have good (not great) English; they are particularly good at design. And odesk seems to have crews of link builders from there. For admin tasks you will get great value.
But as they say, hire fast, fire faster.

arcdigital

Do you have any more info on what happened, so we don't make the same mistake?

Has anyone had trust issues, especially with a VA?

MAV923

I have worked in the computer field for 13 years and am just starting in IM, I havent done any outsourcing yet. But...

My first computer job the owner of the company raved about the philippinos he had working for him, he said they worked cheaply, never asked for a raise and were excellent workers.

There was one guy who worked the night shift, his english wasnt very good, the first time I called him he answered and said "nobody here call back in morning" I found out later that was about the only englisg phrase he knew.

From my experience they did work hard, and never complained, that I saw...as far as money I wasnt involved in that aspect.

So when the time comes I will give them a go..

secretssovaluable

Wow...compared to the bad experiences I have had with Indians and Pakistanis Philippinos are fantastic. I have used Philippino outsourcers a couple of times now and have had excellent luck. Of course there are good and bad from every country.

My experience is that philippinos have very good work ethic and are hard working decent and moral people. That is more than I can say for the multiple bad experiences I have had with indians and pakistanis.

The company I work for also recently outsourced inbound customer service calls to the phillipines too.

It goes without mentioning (but i'll mention it anyway) ask for verifyable references. Don't be impatient. Make sure their experience is with projects similar to your own. Make no exceptions.

Technologize

Excellent thread. I'm looking to hire a part time 25 hour a week Phillipino Article Writer / Online Content Producer....

Any ideas on the best place to find them?

Thanks!

Anthony.

Dana Forsythe

I use an SEO company over there and they're awesome. They assigned a little gal to me who promotes everything I want. Building blogs, twitter, submitting articles, bookmarking.. ect. The work ethic is fantastic as well! She asks me all the time if i'm happy with the services. For the price you can't beat it especially since I doubled my sales.

mustard76

Please PM me the name of the company you used.

Andy Immotna

May I know the company you used? or website? Thanks!

jeanmarie

Jordan Hall told about the video and then I found out I had to pay $97 to get the jest of it. I paid Jordan $1500.00 and he won't give it back to me. He is a real scammer! I', probably not allowed to say that, but if someone else said it I woulldn't have lost $1500.

Why isn't there a place on the internet that warns people about people like Jordan?

tyler99

I have several folks help from PH and have had great results. As long as you create decent instructions and manage the process, my overall experience with outsourcing has been excellent.

Technologize

Could someone comment or PM the best place(s) to find Phillipinos for full-time work?

I'm on oDesk but everyone's project orientated and they're declining my work because they're too busy with other projects.

I'm looking for a dedicated worker.

Any suggestions appreciated!

Cheers,

Anthony.

alfredjsmith

Hi Mrsforex

Please can you PM me the name of the company you use (i would PM you, but I'm new, so have to post more to be able to do so.)

Thanks

Alf

charlesmutrie

I also believe the people from the Philippines are hard working. I have had the same impression as Sophia. I am sure there are some in all countries that do not fall in the hard working category but you must do your homework.

To Our Success,

Charles

matt2000

MrsForex,

I too am new and can't send PM. But would greatly appreciate the name of the SEO company you use in the Philippines.

Also if anyone else has a good suggestion I would apprewcaite that too. The more referrals the better.

Thank you in advance.

BIG Mike

I kinda skimmed through this thread and thought I'd throw a little perspective on it. In a nutshell...be very careful of stereotyping by country or culture in this business. It's not smart and will backfire on you

I've hired and worked with a good number of people from just about every developed country on the planet. I've had my share of successful relationships and my share of those that went sour.

I would never say to anyone, "Go to the Philippines or stay away from India or whatever". That's ludicrous - not everyone in India drops the ball, nor has every freelancer in the Philippines come through perfectly.

In my experience, it's no different in any one country or culture - you can find great people to work with anywhere on the planet, if you're patient, develop a good working relationship with them and pay them well.

Technologize

Well Put Mike, Keeping it real.

Cackle

It's interesting...I posted a few times on CL in the Phillipines and got a lot of quotes back that were higher than Americans quoted me! I guess CL isn't the best place to look for outsourcing...but I found that interesting.

A lot of them didn't read my ad at all and just sent info about their companies or selves. That was a bit discouraging...though people in the US do that too.

Netafile

I do most of my outsourcing in the Philippines these days, and depending on the project, use from India and Eastern Europe.

I find the Filipinos generally easy to work with and for the most part fairly talented. However, I find that, like people everywhere in the world, you have to kiss a few toads to find the superstars.

I found that agents of value does not really qualify their outsourcers too well, and you wind up paying double for people that you can find in places like hirefilipino.com or bestjobs.ph.

I have also found it takes them several times longer to accomplish some tasks then their North American counterparts. I weed out the non-performers by giving four or five of them a small test project, and hiring the one or two that do the best job.

Also, if you have enough steady work for them to do, it's best to hire two because one will flake out from time to time, get sick, or lose their connection - and you don't want your business to come to a screeching halt!

One of the biggest challenges in hiring a full-time outsourcer is keeping them busy. It helps to have systems in place where they can do tasks without you having to micromanage them. At least have a default project that they can work on in-between specific assignments.

It's also easier to select better service providers on sites like elance or RentACoder, because you can at least make an initial selection based on their feedback. With job board sites like bestjobs.ph, you need to have a vetting process in place, and your project management skills together.

Note: bestjobs.ph no longer allows you to post work at home Internet marketing job
posts. You can pay their fee to search their resume database and email them.

Hope this helps!

Howard

twinsense

What a great topic! Thank you for all the information. ;0)

Market1

I've used Get Friday in the past and I found it a bit slow and expensive, I hardly use it now and I'm paying $10 just to keep the account active.

Just recently I started dealing directly with freelancers and it's been great! I'm not at a point where I need or want to hire full time and if I do I have enough experience with my "temps" that the choice should be very straightforward if and when the need arises.

Just make sure you have 2 providers per specialty as a backup measure

fypnlp

This is my first post this conversation is a god send because I've just spent the last couple of days trying to find a good, efficient, reliable outsourcing company in the philippines. Ms forex (i tried to message you privately but couldn't) and anyone else who can help; I would love get some recommendations and tips I need to know when outsourcing.

thanks

fypnlp

jimmy tron can you pm me.

I would love to know the company you used.

RareGoodStuff

Outsourcing to the Philippines is the best thing that could happen to anyone hoping to make money online. The people are very honest, friendly, humble, resourceful, enterprising and informed about internet marketing.

I work well with Ross Dalangin. You can find him at Make Money Online With Ross Dalangin| Money Making Online Opportunities hopefully if his hands are not full, you'll be lucky to nab him.

Though I hesitate to share him with the public but I will do anything for fellow warriors, to help you enjoy self employment and make more money.

Yes, Filipinos are worth every pound in Gold!

fypnlp

thanks so much . Once I get my 15 forum entries I will thank you personally

maveric

OK, I know this is kind of specific, but how about using full time Filipino outsourcers specifically in the "offline gold" niche? I would love to get some help on getting this started.

Reader

Just a quick note about outsourcing to the Philippines: Beware. Don't be so quick to sign up.

I used a company (I term that word lightly) that ranks high in Google. Trust me, that doesn't mean ANYTHING to me anymore. It does not mean that they are reputable.

I was promised the moon (supposedly they knew how to build Wordpress sites, research keyword niches, and so on) with nothing to show as a result. Terrible communication problems with the website builder and the guy in charge (a non filipino) just didn't care---unless he gets the money first, of course. Phone calls to him were largely ignored.

As a result, I have to delete the websites which are embarrassingly bad, and now I'll just do it myself. I wasted a month and good money on this. Don't believe what you hear from people, and beware. Ask for a sample, be skeptical, and again---buyer beware. Don't waste your money if you are not sure about the outsourcing service.

I use an excellent service from the Philippines for social bookmarking, blog & forum posting which is reliable and trustworthy.

But I will take the time to learn all I can and just do the website building on my own for the time being.

BIG Mike

I've no doubt that you had a bad experience with a bad company, but do you really want to stereotype a whole country based on that experience?

Years ago I had a great writer from the Philippines who did fantastic work until he decided to retire. Today, as luck would have it, I've got another writer from Philippines who is also doing great work for us (she's gotten quite a few bonuses from me for her efforts).

That doesn't mean that everyone in the Philippines is a great writer - and it doesn't mean that there aren't some really bad ones passing themselves off as good ones.

All it means is that I've had the good fortune to encounter two good writers who handled their work professionally. Their country of origin has utterly nothing to do with it.

Reader

Whoa! Don't be so quick to jump to conclusions. I am not stereotyping the country! I said in my posting that presently I subscribe to a wonderful service in the Philippines that manually posts to blogs, forums, directories, etc. I am starting to get more traffic and they are reliable. I will continue with them for sure.

No, I am not stereotyping an entire country. The problem is no matter what country you outsource from, if they do not train their people properly you will encounter problems. If you read my entire post you would see that. The problem was that the non-Filippino running the service did not bother to train the personnel properly and didn't respond to my complaints.

They could not do research, build websites, add affiliate links, and so on. He didn't bother to train them. I paid a lot for the service.

The person working on my website was a very nice person, eager to please, but was not trained. He tried very hard on his own with little help from his supervisor. So I unsubscribed. That's it.

I will start building websites myself, but I just might try to find someone on my own from the Philippines that is an experienced independent freelancer.

Reader

You are so right! Thanks for the advice. And the person training the people led me to believe that they were already trained.

Thanks again.

mustard76

Reader,

You should consider joining getreplacemyself.com and using the approach recommended by John Jonas. He recommends hiring VAs full-time and training them yourself.

Justin1

nice affiliate redirect domain lol

mustard76

Sorry. I'm not the affiliate so I don't care if you go directly to the website replacemyself.com.

Amanda_Davis

Get Replace Myself dot com is the affiliate re-direct for Jason Van Orden

DoctorQuest

I want to thank all of you for sharing your amazing knowledge and ideas.
With your help, my outsourcing results will improve. The learning curve
never ends.

My only real problem is that whenever I visit the WF, I can't find the exit.

So much to see... !!!!!!!!!!!

oryan58

MrsForex.
I would appreciate a PM with your infor who you go through.
Thanks so much
Jack

kaye

Hi everyone,

Chanced upon this thread and may be able to help. I am currently here in Manila sitting out the "economic crisis" in London

Just send me a PM of what you need, your budget, etc and will see what I can do.

I know quite a few freelancers here so can ask around for you.

Cheers,

Kaye

kaye

Hi everyone,

Chanced upon this thread and may be able to help. I am currently here in Manila sitting out the "economic crisis" in London

Just send me a PM of what you need, your budget, etc and will see what I can do.

I know quite a few freelancers here so can ask around for you.

Cheers,

Kaye

Magic Johnson

I have worked with people in panama and phillippens. I take provide the info to the right contact if anyone is intrested of the later.. Just pm then.

mailcold

I am also looking at outsourcing some of my SEO work. It would be nice if you can PM me the contact information for the SEO company you dealt with.
Thanks

efrontiers

Hi Fypnlp, I manage a group of writers. PM me for more details.

Lothar Evers

Would this include German?
More and more I get the impression that we are so much behind the English speaking world in Internetmarketiing is a result that it is much more difficult to outsource. (not only to the Philippines).

Ian del Carmen

I'm from the Philippines. If you come here to find teams to outsource, let's meet personally. Maybe I can help...

Ian del Carmen

PS: Just PM me anytime...

NitroKevin

I've followed John Jonas's training in Replace Myself .com and found it excellent.

We used BestJobs.ph, emailed people who met our qualifications, gave them a task to complete. This weeds out most people and the ones who complete it can see what their work looks like.

One thing not discussed is your expectations.

For the most part, they will do some things great and some things they do will leave you scratching your head thinking "why would they ever do that???"

Realize there is a 3 to 6 month learning process for this person... which is true for most people being hired. A full-time outsourced person is no different then hiring a US employee.

You will want to provide very clear and detailed step-by-step instructions of what you want, a camtashia video showing how to do it, and examples of what the finished work should look like so they can visually see what you want.

Then provide feedback on what they did via camtashia (or jingproject is faster) "what they did right, what wasn't correct, and what should have done" And again example of what it should have looked like when done correctly.

Once you have a well trained person they will be invaluable. Spending the time upfront to get that point is a great investment you can make.
However don't freak out when they do something that is not what you wanted. If they have the right work ethic qualities and have good english, then they can be taught the "how to" portion.

-Kevin